Our routines are changing as our lives are upheaved by the changes brought by COVID-19. We are entering a 'new normal'. We all know that places across the world are beginning to deploy almost every way to quell any uncertainty ushered in by the coronavirus. With no cure in sight, everyone even Politicians and youngsters were affected and have no escape to this life perpetuated in the rhetorical phrase 'new normal'. 

As we weigh our personal and political responses to this pandemic, the language we employ matters. It helps to shape and reinforce our understanding of the world and the ways in which we choose to approach it. The analytic frame embodied by the persistent discussion of the 'new normal' helps bring order to our current turbulence, but it should not be the lens through which we examine today’s crisis. Far from describing the status quo, evoking the 'new normal' does not allow us to deal with the totality of our present reality. It first impedes personal psychological well-being, then ignores the fact that 'normal' is not working for a majority of society.

This framing is inviting: it contends that things will never be the same as they were before — so welcome to new world order. By using this language, we reimagine where we were previously relative to where we are now, appropriating our present as the standard.

Allowing ourselves to cope means not normalizing our situation and quickly moving forward, but giving ourselves the time to truly process it. Psychologists advise that it’s important to identify the losses we are feeling and to honor the grief surrounding us through methods like meditation, communicating our struggle, and expressing ourselves through art or by keeping a journal. In uncertain times, the 'new normal' frame reinforces an understanding that the world and our emotions should by now have settled. Surrounded by uncertainty, it’s okay to admit that things are not normal. It’s okay to allow ourselves to grieve or to be scared. It’s okay not to be comfortable with what is going on. In fact, all of us should feel uncomfortable with our present condition because the 'new normal' describes a reality to which many do not have access.

Not only does the 'new normal' framing inhibit our ability to heal ourselves, it constrains our ability to think expansively about fundamentally transforming society because it imagines a world that only functions for the elite. Popular strategies focused on social distancing and personal protective equipment remains the remit of those with the means to fortify and seclude themselves. Stay-at-home orders cannot be observed by more than 100 million people homeless worldwide.

So If your existence is founded on a day-to-day income, you do not have the luxury to 'stay home and stay safe'.

As the pandemic rages on it give us a chance to reimagine the world by tracing history, not forgetting it.

We should revel in the discomfort of the current moment to generate a 'new paradigm', not a 'new normal'. Feeling unsettled, destabilized, and alone can help us empathize with individuals who have faced systematic exclusions long-ignored by society even before the rise of COVID-19 — thus stimulating urgent action to improve their condition. For these communities, things have never been 'normal'.