As a life coach, I am supposed to be positive and optimistic. And I am. However, sometimes naming the elephant in the room is the most positive thing you can do. Acknowledging a challenge squarely is a crucial first step towards working through it. Covid-19 is an unprecedented health, economic and humanitarian crisis. The scale of dislocation being created by this single event is staggering. It is affecting each of us in some way or another and we are quite far from being done with it.

While we are still jostling with this crisis, we should also take the time to reflect on what it’s trying to teach us. Moments of crisis usually bring into sharp focus what’s truly important in life. They also make us question the futility of many of our daily pursuits and things we usually stress about.

I believe this crisis is a reflection of our society’s deteriorating relationship with nature. How our unchecked thirst for growth forces animals away from their natural habitat and closer to humans. (Destruction of nature and Coronavirus) Besides, it’s a reminder of our inability to appreciate our interconnectedness and the need to nurture the whole not just our individual selves. While disproportionate rewards of individual success make us self-centered, this crisis is teaching us that eventually we all sink or swim together.

This crisis also serves as a warning sign from the universe of what lies ahead if we don’t change our ways. There are some sparks of positive change emerging from this tragic crisis, but more about that in my next post. First here are some thoughts on what can go wrong if we simply pursue the old normal.

There are four disruptive themes that are active and growing in our society – climate change, income inequality, parochial nationalism and rapid technological advancement. While any one of these has the potential to create a social tsunami, the prospect of some or all of these coming together at some point is horrifying.

Climate Change

A few scientists had warned governments of their lack of preparedness to deal with a pandemic and it’s evident how that’s turning out. As against that, almost the entire scientific community has been warning us about the potentially devastating effects of climate crisis. Unless we act quickly, the risks are unimaginable. Imagine flooded metropolises, frequent and severe droughts, loss of work and lives from inhabitable hot weather, food and water shortages, novel mutations of viruses, serious economic costs and large-scale unemployment, the largest ever human migration and so forth. (Goldman Sachs: Effects of climate change) (World Bank: Human migration)

Income Inequality

The high levels of income inequality in many parts of the world simply make it worse. As we are seeing with Covid-19, the poorer sections of the society get hit first and the hardest. Unfortunately, the current crisis is likely to worsen this inequality as unemployment soars and migrant and daily wage workers struggle. (Oxfam: Coronavirus could plunge half a billion into poverty) Poorer nations also have fewer resources to support their economically weaker population. Besides, as the economy stutters, the social sector supporting various crucial social causes risks being starved of funds. Such conditions can explode into a wholesale social unrest in populous nations.

Nationalism

Add to this concoction, the growing parochial nationalism, that will only accelerate with the current crisis. At a time when we most need to come together, we are pulling apart. Focused on their own survival, societies would become inward looking. Countries would rush to protect their own and safeguard their supply chains. This means a declining sense of world order and reduced support for global institutions, like the UN, World Bank, IMF etc. Progress on global initiatives, like the Paris accord, may slow substantially. Also, the refugee crisis, already huge, could get worse.

AI and Technological Advancement

An additional disruption awaits in the form of growing role of artificial intelligence and its effect on the employment markets. Besides the risk of massive job losses (PwC: Impact of automation on jobs), this trend could sharply increase income inequality as more workers struggle to upgrade their skills. Not to talk of the time of singularity when AI machines become smarter than humans.

I know it sounds gloomy. And it is. But there are rays of hope – and steps we can take – more about that in my next post.