Should every new normal be a new normal?

Photo by Wynand van Poortvliet on Unsplash

When the pandemic hits the earth, education, working, shopping and almost every chores of our daily life change into the online platforms. Everyone said that this is the new normal and get used to work at home via online platforms. And we also accepted it as our new normal and adjusted to that.

When the power cuts started to invade our life, we had to fight to manage our time by keeping our devices alive. And everyone said that keep all your devices charge whenever you can, so you can work even without the power because this is the new normal. And we had to adjust to that as well. Our priority was to keep our devices charged and recharging our phones with mobile data.

When the economic crisis hits the our country and people started to protest and resist, what we still heard is this is the new normal of the country, so you should need to adapt to work under pressure and get your things done. And sadly, I think we are adapting to that as well. We still need to get our work done even when we are frustrated and depressed as nothing.

My question is should all the new normal be new normal? Is it the new normal that should be prioritized or us?

I’ll take myself as an example and show you what will happen if we prioritize the new normal all the time.
I had to stare into the screen for lectures and presentations. And ofc, I have to keep staring at my lap even after the lectures to do research and get my workdone. But my screentime did not end there, since I need to read lot of texts due to my major. So I was always reading. Even with the 13hour daily powercuts, I had to stick into the deadlines for my mini research and assignments. So I was always trying to meet the dead ends by reading and typing. Because of this, I was having a neck pain but I always neglect it considering that this is the new normal. I did this not only for days and weeks but for months and my pain started to get severe. And this only ended with my doctor advising me to wear a neck collar for two months, so now, I’m depending on a neck collar. This made me realize that what I have done to my health by trying to adapt to these different sort of new normals.

So I often wonder, should every new normal be a “new normal”?