The pandemic sucked in virtually every way. In an instant, livelihoods were destroyed, and our rights disappeared. Masking was all sorts of awful, yet for some reason, some people still cling to their masks like a security blanket wrapped around their faces.
That said, there were some good things that came out of it.
The importance of keeping stocked
Many of us learned the hard way to keep a supply of necessities around because of the pandemic. For some reason, toilet paper was hard to come by when the pandemic first hit, as were paper towels. Food was another problem. Needed meat? Good luck because it had probably been picked over if you were lucky to find any at all. When you were finally able to get a hold of these treasured necessities, you typically didn’t just get want you needed, so you also planned ahead. Planning ahead is smart.
If you maintained the mindset that you should have a long-term supply of necessities on hand, you’re probably grateful now with the supply chain crisis. If not, you might be panicking again.
The lack of crowds
Seriously, as much as social distancing was stupid, wasn’t it nice to be able to go shopping when it wasn’t crowded? You don’t have to be an introvert to appreciate not having to squeeze through carts in the aisles of the grocery store or waiting forever in line. Shopping was actually kind of nice and moderately stress-free when people were afraid to leave their houses. Now it’s returned to being a surefire way to increase my blood pressure.
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More time at home
I already work from home, so this isn’t applicable to me, but I know a lot of people found more time at home with their families to be a huge silver lining during the pandemic. Who can blame them? Not having to be at the office for work certainly made it easier for people to keep up the house and focus on the family, and that is clearly something that has been difficult for some to let go of.
Hygiene improvements
Seriously, it was hard not to appreciate knowing that people were suddenly reminded about the importance of washing their hands and even using hand sanitizer on a regular basis. I’m not a germophobe, but boy did it feel good knowing that other people were suddenly thinking about their hygiene.
Nowadays, I’m not sure they’re thinking about it as much. For a while, it was hard to find hand sanitizer on the shelves of stores because of the high demand, but now you see tons of it sitting around unpurchased.
Cleaner public places
In addition to hygiene, extra special care was given to making sure that public places were cleaner than ever. One Starbucks I frequented had laminated placards on tables to indicate whether the table was cleaned or whether it had been just used and required cleaning. Was it overkill? Maybe. But you know what? Tables were cleaned regularly because of it.
But alas, as time went by, the placards went, and cleaning tables became an afterthought once again.