Now that I’ve got your attention, belly up to the bar with me, and let’s take a journey to “The New Normal” … that catchy phrase we’re using to describe life after the pandemic.
I’m uncomfortable with getting too comfortable in the new normal because anything we consider normal can be wiped out in the blink of an eye … as the pandemic clearly showed us.
I don’t care how new they promise to be. I don’t want things to go back to being normal.
Why would I want them to?
To do that would be to forget the lessons the pandemic was sent to teach us.
To do that would be to close the door on the glimpse into eternity the pandemic allowed us to view. The glimpse into others. The glimpse into our souls. The glimpse into the fears, problems, and responsibilities that distance us from a truth greater than ourselves. Distractions we create so we don’t have to face the fact that one day, life will go on without us.
Facing that fact is hard, but doing the work involved to eradicate that fear once and for all is harder.
To go back to normal would be to erase the realization that we were born to do more than choose a career, raise a family, pay bills, retire, and die.
To do that would be to crawl back into the amnesia that created the pandemic in the first place. To do that would be to seek solace in a bottle of quick relief once the morning after hangover has worn off.
To do that would be to allow history to repeat itself. And history will repeat itself until we learn the lessons we are meant to learn. (Cue Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell.)
Let’s not go back to normal. Let’s live each moment as it comes. Let’s replace planning with dreaming. Because plans can and will be broken, but dreams are reborn every time our plans go awry.
Let’s recognize that every new variant is an opportunity to share another round of clarity, another opportunity to get drunk on the sanctity of this moment, an invitation to continue the greatest journey of them all … the journey into the self.
This round’s on me. Will you pay it forward?
Trading Barbs With Barb 