Habits change too much

Human beings are unique because they make mistakes, learn and evolve.

The year just ended came to close a multi-year cycle of restrictions, confinements and elections under conditions different from the usual ones. It also started a new complementary way of relating to work and school at a distance. Technologies have accelerated communication processes between the home and the workplace. Behaviors in society were transformed and communities became closer to citizens' lives. Online commerce came to compete with larger stores and, to a lesser extent, with local commerce due to the products offered.

With the growth of communication through social networks and online press, paradoxically the idea of ​​a free, democratic and plural press is increasingly difficult. The number of imprisoned journalists in the world has increased, thus partially preventing access to information. It is thus proven that nothing is guaranteed in any part of the world, with access to news being conditioned.

In a weakened democracy, attention is often diverted from the central issues that should preoccupy a nation, to issues of goatskin. Matters such as the pandemic, the economic recession, the country's high debt and the inevitable rise in interest rates that should be the focus of attention are important. In the absence of capacity or for being more expeditious, speeches and television cameras turn to other matters, with a special focus on information channels, which include the new elections scheduled for January 30th. This time not even the confined will be left out. The Mayor will go to the indicated address so that the confined person can vote.

A year ago and after the peak of the Christmas and New Year holidays, the pandemic was expected to go away after the implementation of the vaccination plan. Unfortunately, this did not happen, but pollution in the world has significantly decreased due to the shutdown of large factories. This led to a drop in the offer of several products.

This time, despite the population's fatigue, care in social attitudes increased. In December 2021, there are more people circulating on the street wearing the mask, and it is expected that this will continue at least until the end of the first half of January 2022.

The contradictory is the idea that sooner or later we will all become infected, even with the vaccination plan, until we reach natural immunity. This thought came from 2020, but was overthrown by the emergence of new variants of the virus, which changed the plans. It is advisable to live a normal life, but with reinforcement of care. This is an idea that is somewhat at odds with each other, but for lack of better, this is what can be asked about the population.

Reading and writing skills are processes that came to help us get through this pandemic.

Reading because it transports anyone to the limits of their imagination, despite passing right by the side of the pandemic. Reading is safe and antiviral. This is a way of diverting attention from the fundamental concerns mentioned above, but voluntarily and consciously. It allows you to return to reality whenever the reader wants to and allows you to direct your attention to the truly important issues, as you wish. Of course, social media, television, online games and other interests compete with reading. It's just a matter of will, of being aware that there are times to be alone, with oneself.

After the reading came the desire to write.

Develop reasoning as the words, pass to the paper. A kind of dialog with the buttons themselves. Who better than the author to know himself? It even serves as therapy to find solutions to problems that drag on in your day-to-day life.

It is not usual to take stock of the year 2021 that has just ended, nor to take resolutions for the new year. Firstly, because that more or less popular promise to start the year exercising was already happening. Between walks and runs, the author will have covered about 700 kilometers in the space of a year, without much effort or awareness.

But there have been many changes in the last two years, occupied by the pandemic, which dictated new rules for how the world works. People who left early because of the pandemic, which turned the world upside down and the attention turned to a virus that is still little known. The virus's constant mutations make it more difficult to find a stable and definitive solution to eradicate the problem. All efforts are focused on finding an effective and unavoidable vaccine, leaving aside other concerns related to so many diseases. Attention began to be paid to the fight against the coronavirus, almost forgetting the main reason for this saga, the human being.

Vaccines are being developed for covid to prevent the disease and protect the community as a whole.

Vaccines are being developed to prevent the disease and protect the community as a whole, it is disappointing to think that the vaccine will protect the individual in the infected world. It is not an individual treatment that separates those who are safe because they are vaccinated from the rest.

It is worth believing in love and that 2022 will be a year of change, where the virus will lose its strength, until it disappears or at least reverts to patterns identical to other viruses, in terms of the rate of mutations.

It will also be a year of new challenges in labor relations, with the growth of telework, but with new job offers. The temporary cycles of austerity relief induce some comfort, but then comes a period where all that was previously gained is lost.

Global supply chains in the pandemic present shortages in the supply of raw materials and finished products. The increase in prices and the loss of purchase registered in 2021, the collective redundancies, resulting from the resizing of companies, promise new challenges for 2022.

May the Year 2022 comes to an end with the pandemic, bring health, peace and love.

1th Jan 2022

João Pires author

João Pires author