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Has Covid changed you?

No, but my life didn't much change other than a 6 month work hiatus in the first half of last year. The rest has been business as usual, factory, hotel, Friday night on the road. It's cemented my view of doing as much as I can with life, having missed out on 2 years holidays and being cooped up at home.
 
Me personally, no. We have never been great socialites, so the temporary end of restaurants, cinemas, etc. never really affected us. It did affect Mrs. Tones, who, having had a serious operation some years ago, was positively paranoid about avoiding Covid, and therefore has not been on a train since it all started (a big loss since jumping on a train and heading for favourite Alpine spots was one of her joys).

My work patterns have changed, and for the better. I have my office just down the valley from where we live, but pre-Covid, I used to go to my major client twice a week. This involved a 2-hour train journey, meaning that I had to get up very early in order to get there at a reasonable time. This all came to a stop, and suddenly I realised that I didn't actually need to do this long haul, that I could do everything for the client from the office down the valley, reachable by a 20-minute bike ride. And I can do this by getting up when I feel like it.

The only thing I really miss is the pleasure of personally meeting my friends and colleagues. We have regular Zoom sessions, but it's just not the same. I had to go to the research centre for the first time in ages last week and was greeted like a long-lost friend - all sorts of folk would appear out of the woodwork to say hello. However, the patent department was (wo)manned by one of the administrators - all of the attorneys were working from home! I think they might have made the same discovery as I have...

I did manage my first trip to Ireland for 2 years. That, unfortunately, was for my mother's funeral, but at least I was able to go. I always go by car and ferry (Cherbourg - Dublin), so that's reasonably Covid-free.
 
I’m fairly anti-social so lockdown wasn’t too much of a pain. But I did miss being able to hop on to a train to London whenever I felt like it. Would have welcomed the chance to work from home, had I still been working.

Has COVID changed me? Not really as far as I can tell.
 
I've become more "Fail we may, sail we must!"...

As Yard Act put it:

"Death is coming for us all, but not today
Today you're living it, hey, you're really feeling it
Give it everything you've got knowing that you can't take it with you
And all you ever needed to exist has always been within you
Gimme some of that good stuff that human spirit
Cut it with a hundred percent endurance"
 
It has changed me - I’m definitely way happier than I was pre-Covid, but I’m not sure why. I know it has intensified my feelings in some areas - towards around 80% of humanity, the media, noise and crowds (negative) and towards the other 20%, peace and solitude (positive). I’ve almost completely lost the desire to go to pubs, restaurants and cities, much preferring small gatherings of friends. Physically, I have lost two stone in weight through discovering the local countryside on foot, and feel immensely better for that.
 
Feel more conscious of people being near me and usually move to gain more space, not caught CoVid yet, no one in our family has but I guess it will happen at some point.
 
I was never a very social person and had already been running a business more and more wfh the last 10 years (I do have an office and workshop 20 mins away with employees). As a company we have done the whole wfh when needed for years, lockdown changed very little day to day barring having the Mrs for company all day as she went to full wfh and still does weekdays when possible and me not visiting the office a few days a month.

Covid was on the horizon so in Feb 2020 I shielded (am on very vulnerable list), still am shielding more or less, don’t visit shops/cafe/public transport/hols/hifi dealers/record shops, all I go out for is a daily walk and am wary of passing close to others - cross road if others are oncoming, change route if I see a group, I now avoid and worry about meeting people I who’ll want a chat - so yeah it’s changed my behaviour. Luckily neither of us has caught it, the Mrs is very careful at work cos it’s partly a hospitality role - ffp2/sanitising stuff/doors open/distance etc All her coworkers have had it.

After the NHS saved my bacon a few years ago I have nothing but gratitude/respect for all those folk, what they did during the Pandemic didn’t surprise me, everyone I met in Aberdeen and Edinburgh hospitals went over and above day after day, I’ve never been able to put down how I feel about them cos a thank-you is nowhere close. Once you hear the big C word and go through a few serious health scares I think most people are changed, I certainly am a different bloke in some ways nowadays. Sorry bit of a ramble.
 
Before COVID, I was working from home anyway (cancer) so little changed at first.

Then I was made redundant, a looooong process that affected my mental health. When I was finally let go we decided to downsize and move to our chosen retirement destination (Bridport in West Dorset).

We've been here a year now. I have joined a couple of cancer support groups which provide varied activities, both physical and mental and much needed friendship. Mrs seagull has picked up a part time job that keeps her brain ticking over (she is a few years younger than me).

Loving life here.
 
Yes, it has changed me. Ultimately I now value things I took for granted. I definitely keep my distance more in shops etc but conversely feel as though I need to get out more, make the most of weekends.

Ultimately there is nothin ‘we’ can really do about much happening at the moment.
 
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed being around lots of people, once lockdown ended. I feel maybe more positive about the ability of people in general to look out for one another. I feel very regretful about what happened to children and young people - feel like that’s a debt that older people owe, but haven’t yet recognised. Other than that I just feel about 20 years older.
 
The invasion of Ukraine just amplified this and has made me more pessimistic about humanity. I find it very difficult to detach from what’s going on there- it both saddens me and makes me angry.

Yes, the same here, just when there was a chink of light at the end of the Covid tunnel the Afghanistan cock-up and subsequent disastrous situation there, plus the gun happy proliferation in the U.S. This government's ill-conceived strategies and a return to the seventies etcetera.

I was never a socialite despite being gregarious; the latter satisfied by my various racquet sports venues, one of which I ran. When I look back to the winter of '19/'20 I was probably on the cusp of getting old, but didn't realise it. The Covid period made every phone call or normally routine job increasingly fraught and time-consuming; going shopping being potentially dangerous for that first year. Visits by and to family ceased.

Yes, I have to say that Covid has affected me and my way of life; still does, though age and slight infirmity, plus the ongoing hassles of dealing with any form of government department, media company etc. may well partly be my decreasing inability to deal with these inefficiencies. Not least is the unfolding economic and globally insecure situation which has ended the 30+ years of relative certainty.
 
I was an introvert anyhow, so no big change there - big difference is I have become a fat bastard, which is getting a bit depressing now that I’m 55 and I realise exercising is not as easy as it was!
 
It boosted my personal income significantly. My business saw big growth, 30% per year in 2020 and 2021. Growth this year looks more like 10-15%, so I could argue that growth doubled becuase of it. It's forced a lot of people to online shopping that might not have used it without covid. And they are still shopping online it seems. It also helped split my family up.So I have very mixed feelings about it.

I have some very vivid memories of a few people behaving like the facemask police, if someone walked into their space without one or with their nose poking over the top, they were quick to go for them. It definitely brought out some strange vibes and made me wonder if there are a lot of coiled springs out there, generally unhappy people. I made a spectacular mistake on the ferry, I forgot mine as I jumped in the lift, the guy inside went nuts as the door was closing and i couldn't do anything as i had left it in the car. But his reaction was something i wish i'd filmed. Obvs he pushed the button to get out at the next level to get away from me. I could only say sorry to him, but he shouted and swore at me. I get the carrier thing, but...everyone on the boat was double vaccinated and /or had done a test within 24 hours of travel. I was vaccinated 5 times in total and had done the test before boarding at the port. The risk was tiny. Yet he went berserk.

I also talked to a guy about a job and he refused to meet me even outside for an interview, yet he was looking for a job. And meeting outside was legal. Who'd employ him, knowing that? In fact, covid cemeted my plan to not try to scale up any more, to get growth from efficency in process and profitability. I may be a bit old at 53 to start dealing with staff. I lost my appetite for the idea of employing people and will now get through life probably never having employed anyone.

I have been really relaxed about covid and Strasbourg feels like it has returned to normal, but I realise that some people are probably changed forever by it in a bad way, living in fear or unhappiness etc. Sadly, I think I see people a bit less positively than I did before covid.
 
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I have not suffered medically nor financially for which I'm very grateful, but I have definitely become more of a home body, and if something requires much more than an hour of travel I'm not really interested any more - I'm fortunate to live in a pleasant suburb with countryside a 5 minute bike ride in one direction and downtown Boston a 30 minute train ride in the other direction. However my appetite for planes, hotels, drives of over 2 hours and train rides has gone. I'd much rather go ride my bike. And as for hotels -they've become so expensive here ($350 a night for a very average motel room in Maine last August !!!) that I'd rather stay home and use the money to go to a restaurant + theater / concert.
 
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It hasn’t changed me, no. It should really, because I’m fragile with low lymphocyte count, but I try – choose – to forget about it and live normally.
I’ve had about every possible vaccination due to my condition.
I had Delta, but Pfizer made it a smooth experience, if I may say so.
I still go to gigs and dances regularly.
 
Have been WFH since the start of Covid. I've noticed that my feeling of a team spirit has diminished, and I am a bit more assertive in zoom meetings than I would have been in the real world.

I had a handful of CDs on Amazon Marketplace. For two or three years before Covid I don't think I sold one, but since Covid, the CDs have started to sell again.
 
Covid was just one more in a succession of 'psychological' impacts on me along with my partner's serious illnesses, mum's cancer and its return, dad's death and my own health scare. As stated on the "UK WTF" thread, all that and the constant bad news in the press since 2008 or so, with my depressive personality has been bad. Specifically, Covid has made me less likely to go out and (along with aging and all that has happened) more worried about my own mortality. Now most of you will go "carpe diem" and all that but, not me, nope, all it has done is made me very introspective, angrier, sadder and more terrified that every new ache, lump, pain or cough is the one that's going to kill me.

Sorry for your losses and health troubles. That sounds like a rough ride recently. I think the levels of "background fear" these last few years are very insidious for some of us.
I certainly feel it. I suddenly feel "old" in a way that I did not, just 2 years ago. I got my bowel screening test results back recently (universal Scottish NHS programme for over 50's) and I became extremely anxious about opening the letter; like accelerated heart rate and breathing, sweating, trembling fingers. Got myself in a right state. It was negative, but the anxiety was palpable.
I suppose it's important to remember that these feelings are just thoughts, they have no real substance in the real world. One of my best friends died at the age of 23, many years ago. I try to remember him, and count my blessings for still being around long after he's gone, but I'm not very good at it.
 


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