
Ask HN: What has the pandemic taught you? - bobblywobbles
In the 2 months that have had many of us stuck on lockdown, how has the pandemic changed you?<p>Are you more thankful, are you more forgiving, are you cutting unhealthy habits?<p>Please share!
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ystad
Here are some of my experiences

\- Working from home (as a Software Engineer) as a remote seems open to me. I
seem to be a lot more productive. I might consider moving to a rural place. \-
I have had more interactions with friends and family by having video
conferencing beers and dinners. \- I spend at least an hour a day doing a
workout or yoga on day on YouTube. I spent that time in commuting to/back from
work. \- I am excited that I can attend conferences remotely. \- I enjoy the
fresher air️

Things that I miss \- I miss sitting in a coffee shop. \- I enjoy traveling
and staying at AirBNBs. That is not going to happen for sometime. \- Hiking
trails are either closed or overcrowded.

~~~
Gustomaximus
I did the rural move ~3years ago. I'm on the outskirts of Brisbane, about an
hour from the CBD. We chose here so we have the option of commuting to a
decent size city if needed and it was as close we could afford a reasonable
size hobby farm of 40 acres.

It's one on the best decisions our family made. The lifestyle is amazing.
Being around nature and animals feels more right than city living. Family time
and kids upbringing seems so much better. That said be prepared for it to take
over your life. It's time consuming and a bunch of weekend work. If you dont
like endless chores or dirty physical labor it could be a bad experience.

For me the balance between a home desk job then an afternoon on the
tools/tractor is a perfect blend.

------
8bitsrule
I'm now more viscerally aware of the fragility, the vulnerability, of our
complex structures, our leaders, our lives. Of the rigidity and inertia that
keeps us from responding appropriately, in advance, to threats until they
become too real.

This chance has and will cost us a lot. Rather than running from what we've
felt and seen, I hope we'll take this chance to reflect and then to make some
big, obvious, essential changes. That would be easier than the alternative.

------
sethammons
It was reinforced for me that most people can’t have a discussion due to
emotions and that more people than I expected expect the government to solve
their problems. Any time someone simply tries to consider people’s livelihoods
vs lockdown and the trade offs, that someone is practically a mass murderer.
And what feels like the vast majority of people expecting the government to
fix everything.

~~~
WesternStar
There we're governments that succeeded though several of them. Its a bit rich
to say you shouldn't be able to rely on the government when people did just
that and got it right. It was societies where people don't believe in
government that government failed.

------
bobblywobbles
The pandemic has taught me that I spent time doing busy work because I didn't
want to face my emotions.

------
tomjen3
(Dane here)

I loved working from home, running a VM with a setup for work works
surprisingly well.

I hate not seeing other people in the flesh. Not that I need it every day or
even every week, but a month is far too long. And online, even with video
doesn't work as a replacement (part of this, is suspect, is the crappy quality
of every online service videos stream. I pay for Zoom, and even they can't
ensure smooth HD video). That was not exactly the lesson I suspected I would
learn, as a nerd.

Every volunteer organization is shut down around here, as are all museums and
libraries; bars, coffee shops and restaurants; and any other entertainment
venue. That means that the only thing to do is go look at nature, which gets
boring after the fifth identical tree. When this is over I kinda hope they are
all paved over.

Finally, I learned how pointless our politicians are, since every single party
voted in favor of the bills that strips us of essential freedoms. We are due
to have an election within 3 years, but there is essentially no way for me to
register my disapproval in a democratic way. Not that it would matter: our PMs
approval ratings have exploded, because they always do that when there is a
crisis. People forgot that it was her inability to handle it correctly back in
February that send us into this disaster.

------
emiunet
It may sound strange to some people, but staying at home actually made me more
productive. I got more things (work and my own side projects) done in the past
month. Except for me missing eating out at cafes, going to the theaters and
people watching, I found a lot less distracted working from home.

------
wolco
It opened up opportunties that didn't exist before. It taught me to keep my
eyes open.

------
buboard
that governments oversell themselves

