The Intercruises Team Newsletter

    - Blog #6

Things are changing right in front of our eyes:  Can you see them…

Who could have thought that our current situation would sweep away barriers to moving our lives online?  Not everything can become virtual of course, but in many areas of our lives, an uptake of useful online tools is improving the way we live.  The following is a small sample of what is appearing now: 

Medicare allowing billing for telemedicine was a long overdue change, as was revisiting HIPAA to permit more medical providers to use the same tools the rest of us use every day to communicate, such as Skype, Facetime and email.

Partial homeschooling, and online learning for K-12 will now be near impossible to put solely back in the classroom this coming fall. Many families now prefer full or partial homeschooling or online homework. College students, returning to expensive dorm rooms on depopulated campuses could find it less economically appealing, forcing changes in a sector ripe for innovation for a long time.  If you have children in school how is your family coping with the changes?

For years we have spent more on food prepared outside our homes than making it ourselves. When restaurants closed people began to cook again. Many of us fell back in love with cooking, and delivery for everything else.  Many sit down only restaurants may eventually close but those who do stay open are implementing changes to their business structure to accommodate take-out and delivery options.  Have you become a home chef?

As officials grapple with safe poling and voting options, more advanced technology, including secure effective voting from our mobile devices is more likely to be considered.  In the near term, a hybrid model, mobile-phone voting and mail in ballots are emerging in the 2020 election cycle in certain jurisdictions.  We should expect this option to become more widespread. 

Securing friendships by getting creative about how you spend time when you are physically together and video chatting when you are not.  Create new routines such as a daily check-in to confirm shared schedules and making plans.  Visit museums online together, an make a tour list.  Share and listen to music venues and online concerts together to discuss later. Create a larger online reading group around favorite shared books and have online discussion about them during and after.

Even Introverts can get lonely.   Many people have worked remotely for many years.  It’s often said that extroverts get their energy from people, while introverts are energized by solitude.   The data shows that’s a myth.  “Everybody draws energy from other people,” Susan Cain, the author of “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking,” said on her TED podcast, Worklife. “Introverts aren’t antisocial just differently social!!”.

Society may well come out of this craziness valuing large venues and big spaces more than ever.  Not only as a backdrop to major events and active uses, but as opportunities to be together physically and visually.  As social creatures, it is in our nature to unite as a family or in friendship groups.  In suburban communities, malls long served this function as places to go to socialize and be together with distancing or not.  After this is all over, it would be wonderful to see more public investment in open, accessible, all weather places to gather.  As noted by Theda Skocpol a professor of government and sociology at Harvard.

One of our very own is a baker – John (usually works Directional)

Looks delicious.  Will he Bake enough Bread for each of us?

 

“Sufficient sleep, exercise, healthy food, friendship, and peace of mind are necessities, not luxuries.”            - Mark Halperin