You’re not imagining…. you’re getting used to this
As week 6 of Hawaii’s work-from-home/stay-at-home rules came and went, a interesting feeling came over me.
And I am sure that I am not the only one that felt this way.
The feeling was an eerie sense of “normalcy” in all that is happening. Like whatever is happening now, we are all getting used to the new world this pandemic has created. That whatever rules are about to be imposed on “life” we are agreeing and are “okay” with it.
This feeling was affirmed from an article I read last Sunday on the CNBC web page. Entitled “Putting the economy back together again: What the future holds for Americans”, the piece highlights a sociological rule that, until I read it, didn’t even realize.
According to the article:
[H]ow long specifically it takes people to develop new habits — 66 days, it seems, a number useful when considering the current lock down.
For the record, Hawaii has been in its current lock down for 44 days. If things are kept the way they are until the end of the current lock down period, it will be exactly 66 days.
With the fact that it takes about this long to change society to view the “new” normal as regular, it sparked a concern in me that the shock of upsetting of a lot of people’s lives will be somehow blunted, and making all of what we see less severe.
PC: “Can it really be that easy?” by elkit is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Let’s be clear, even though we may want to see a new normal settle in, it should go without saying that by any stretch of the imagination, what we are in is not normal. Now whether society decides to get rid of what we felt was normal in the past to live this society, that remains to be seen.
But I will say this much – if society chooses to make this the new normal, then forget about successfully protesting for a return to anything else. They will stand on the fringe while the rest of society chooses to take what they are given and attempt to normalize it for themselves, their family and their society.
Because after 66 days, and many more to come, people are tired of change.