Bounce Beyond: let’s not go back to normal

The desire to ‘get back to normal’ has been stirring around the world for over a year. When the pandemic first started and people chose to shelter-in-place or were required to be in lockdown (depending on your perspective and location), many of us thought it would be a few weeks or months at most and then we would go back to the way things were before this all started. One dictionary definition of ‘normal’ is ‘conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected’. These past 15 months have been unusual, atypical and unexpected, and illuminated the fact that some standards we were conforming to needed to be reconsidered. In December 2019 a Hong Kong graffiti artist emblazoned a wall with the words: 

“We can’t return to normal, because the normal that we had was precisely the problem”

Though referring to their political situation, it could have been a prescient warning about post-pandemic living. It has become evident that much of what was considered normal before was unhealthy, unjust, or unworkable for many.

This time out was an opportunity to reassess on an individual and collective level how we live, work, govern, socialize, manage our health and finances, and respond to uncertainty. Our economic, educational, health care and political systems and the way we interact with one another are all in need of significant transformations.

We can take a clue from Nature as it is always evolving. We are meant to as well. What doesn’t evolve, goes extinct. The post-pandemic rallying cries of ‘the new normal’, ‘ bounce back’ or ‘build back better’ are still focused on recreating aspects of the past. While resilience is a critical skill to have during challenging times, the ability to regenerate (produce anew) is what is needed now. The phrase that resonates most with me is ‘Bounce Beyond’! It is the name of a collaborative initiative working to transform economic systems around the world to create a flourishing future for all. We can apply the ‘bounce beyond’ concept in our own lives and any community efforts we are involved in. Let’s regenerate the future rather than just recreating the past!