Whether or not the pandemic is over is up to your imagination but after almost two years of lockdowns and mandates, I’ve learned some lessons I would love to share with all of you. Maybe you feel the same way, maybe you do not, I’d love to hear from you either ways. For now, here are five lessons the pandemic has taught me so far.
Social life is kind of overrated, especially going out every weekend.
While I enjoyed living in NYC before the pandemic and getting wasted every weekend with friends, looking back at it, I realized how overrated it was. Getting thrashed only to get up well into the afternoon that weekend feeling like shit the whole day, not for me as much anymore. The drama, the gossip, the conformity required, and the amount of fitting in you had to do is something I won’t miss.
It doesn’t help that media glamorizes it and that society itself sees you as weird for not having one but I found it to be more burden than fun. You can’t really have your own opinions, especially when it comes to politics, because everyone will be pissed off. I get it, we evolved to need it as being alone could be tough, but give me 3 to 5 good friends to have drinks and conversations with over a large group I need to go to the club and get drunk with.
Most of all, you realized how dumb it was. The selfies, the Instagram stories, and always trying to seek validation while under the influence of alcohol. Even for those of you sober who take part in large group meetings, you realized how draining they could be most of the time. I have learned that if you have 3 to 5 good friends, that beats having a massive social circle to party with.
Most people are weak, useless and scared because of how soft society has been.
I will not downplay the damage that COVID-19 has done to the economy and our world, it is to be taken seriously which is why I eventually ended up getting vaccinated (despite having had it already but my job was on the line now). Whether it is people getting their feelings hurt by a politician being brash or trying to cancel everything that disagrees with their worldview, society is just full of a lot of weak, scared, and spineless people that want something to worry about or be ungrateful of.
Even with COVID-19 itself, the death rate is below 5% and it usually doesn’t affect the healthy and the young. Meanwhile, the people cheering for mandates and trying to feel like superheroes for getting the vaccine (while actual superheroes were putting their lives on the line when this thing was at its peak) are usually the young millennials who went to college on their parents’ dime.
It is as if society was made to cater to the spineless cowards and useful idiots which is why laws passed seem to favor them. People do not want to accept that the old normal is dead and that we are moving to a new time of innovation, instead of seeing opportunity they cry about what never will be. I have never had as much pity and disdain for the average person until after the nonsense with mandates.
Working from home is sweet.
I love not having to go into the office and feel like I can interact a lot with people over Zoom. My life has had less drama and a lot less annoyance ever since I went remote. If anything, I have found that most people who prefer office culture to remote are just there because they have miserable lives and use the office space for their drama. The annoying Karens at work, the passive-aggressive coworker, and the gossips who spend their life at a water cooler? Yeah, those people hate working from home since now, results matter more than gossip.
While some people may need to go in because their work requires it, I find that the productive and successful are thriving in remote work. Somehow, it feels like nepotism is slowly starting to decline in remote work because bosses have to look more at results than at who can make it to Happy Hour the fastest.
The crisis revealed how corrupt and weak the governments in parts of the world actually were, not how corrupt they actually became. I am not going to be visiting certain places for a while.
Tough times reveal who we really are and same can be said for governments. As a New Yorker, I always knew that NYC’s politics were a complete and total mess but before COVID-19 you could ignore them. Happy Hours and nightlife in Manhattan made it possible to ignore how poorly the state and city were being run. The unhappy Karens of Manhattan faded into the crowd along with the drugged out homeless that the phony progressives in the city care little about as they wear expensive dresses at Galas talking about how we need to “tax the rich”.
Weak leaders and corrupt governments shoved lockdowns and mandates on to their population while strong leaders, even though they took precautionary measures, made sure that people were able to keep their livelihoods and freedoms. The pandemic made it tough to overlook weak leadership as you now faced losing your job or your right to eat indoors if you did not comply with what they wanted.
While I had some curiosity for Australia, I have vowed to never visit or go there. I have also decided that outside of Poland, majority of Europe is off my list because of how they are forcing totalitarian measures on their people. It’s odd to see how the same country where Hitler was born (Austria) and the same country where he came to power (Germany) are the main ones leading the charge on totalitarian measures, guess some things never change.
How little you need to be happy in life.
I used to think that partying at nightclubs, having tons of friends, traveling the world, owning fancy shit, and going to festivals would give me happiness in life. Looking back at it, I feel like I needed that because society and media said I needed that. During the pandemic, I have learned to appreciate how simple pleasures of working from home, having a nice cup of coffee in the morning, a couple of friends to get lunch with, and free time to pursue your passions is far greater of a blessing.
As much as I hated the idea of country life or living in a cabin, I much rather take that to living in a big city in a totalitarian society. I realize how valuable the simple pleasures of life are as you hear nothing but peace and quiet. Meanwhile, I look back and realize how much time and money was wasted on going out to bars where drinks are 3x as much and the loud music blurs out any hopes for a decent conversation.
Give me a job, money to afford food and a place, a good internet connection, and two to five good friends and I am a happy man. You don’t need some loud overrated festival or access to some night club trying to keep up an exclusive vibe to be happy in life.
If you have free time, step outside for lunch and take a walk. If you live in a halfway busy city, you might even run into a couple of fine women along the way who are way more approachable than they would be at a nightclub. You don’t need that much to be happy in life.
