Who Will We Be When This Is All Over?

Existential crises can bloom out of the loss of a job or family member, or a shaking of your religious faith, or even a bad drug trip. Basically, you start to wonder: Who am I? What is my purpose? What’s the meaning of life? It’s a bewildering journey limited to the individual—or at least it was, until the Covid-19 pandemic shook the existence of all humanity.

We’ve lost loved ones, jobs, and any sense of normalcy for nearly a year now, thanks to our surreal existence in lockdown. The virus has claimed the lives of 280,000 Americans. Some Covid-19 survivors are still dealing with brutal symptoms, months after they contracted the disease. We’ve been trapped at home, many of us struggling with loneliness. Marriages and families have been pushed to the breaking point and beyond. And now, with several vaccines on the horizon and the end of the pandemic in sight, we face an existential conundrum: Who will we be when this is all over?

“It has been frenetic, unsustainable, and exhausting for a long time,” says clinical research psychologist Adrienne Heinz of the Stanford University School of Medicine. “And when we are forced to slow down and rest, it's really just this interesting time to get in touch with our priorities. What do we really care about? Why do we want to get up in the morning?”