Predicting the future is a pointless job. You can be wrong, to a great extent, or even more than that. However, it is worth talking about it so that we can try to understand some trends that will determine the way we will live after the pandemic.

Although we do not know for sure how the pandemic will change global trends and our lives, we can be sure that its impact will be significant and long-lasting.

An event of this magnitude cannot but leave a mark when it comes to the life we will live. On the other hand, we should also not underestimate the aspiration of people to renew life as it was before the corona, as well as the aspiration to take advantage of the opportunities offerred by the pandemic for the achievement of some interests. It is questionable how all these forces will be put together and what the end result will be.

Globalization is a process that has already changed our lives in many different ways. It is an endless topic for discussion and disagreement. Globalization has promoted the feeling that we are all interconnected and, in a certain way, we are all global citizens, which is beneficial for all of us. Accordingly, individual countries and their policies will have less and less impact on the lives of their citizens. However, the pandemic has pointed out the weaknesses of globalization. Firstly, globalization has increased the chances for the outbreak of an epidemic of new viruses, as well as the spread rate of the local epidemic worldwide. Secondly, due to increased competitiveness, many countries have had to save, which has reduced investments in expanding and strengthening the health care system. The pandemic has thus shown that it is still important in which and what kind of country we live, regardless of the fact that we are, in a way, global citizens. Finally, during this crisis, we saw that solidarity between countries has its limits and that each country will first solve the problems of its citizens, and then help others. In that sense, I think that the pandemic will lead to a critical re-examination of globalization and to the creation of different global-local balance. It is difficult to say what the new balance will be and whether it will be better than the existing one.

Similar to globalization, digitalization has already changed our lives to a great extent. The existing pandemic has intensified the existing trends of digitalization of our lives. Business meetings are an obvious example thereof. Although online meetings were possible before the pandemic, still they were very rare. Most people preferred to pack their suitcases and travel to other place to meet their colleagues in person. Business meetings have always been an opportunity for informal socialisation, as an important part of professional life. Since most business meetings were held online during the pandemic, it seems to me that it is unlikely that we will get back to old practices. Education is other example in which intensive digitalization occurred during the pandemic and it has the potential to stay also after the normalization of the health situation. In the pre-pandemic period, education functioned in the traditional way in many countries. During the pandemic, education went digital, with numerous ups and downs. It has resulted in numerous frustrations to students, teachers and parents, and probably to grandparents who have lost the ritual of going to school to pick up their grandchildren. Although it is uncertain how the forced digitalization of education will transform it after the pandemic, I have a feeling that it is more likely to happen than that we shall get back to old practices. I hope the feeling is not misleading me.

The pandemic has also led to changes in the way we are doing our jobs. During the pandemic, a large number of companies and employees shifted to a remote model of work. Travelling to the office, working in large common space with central air conditioning, and socializing during breaks have disappeared or decreased to a minimum during the pandemic, which has resulted in a number of problems for both employees and employers. Employees have found themselves in a situation in which their business and private lives are continuously interlinked. It should be acknowledged that women have been particularly under pressure exerted by this change, and I believe that most of them would like to renew the clear delineation between work time and space and private time and space, as soon as possible. However, many companies ’identified’ the benefits of the new way of working during the pandemic, and I believe that it will permanently change the way of doing business in some professions. The trend will be directed more in accordance with the interests of employers rather than of employees, due to which we can expect that some of the hardships of work at the time of the corona will not disappear with the pandemic. Remote work along with the digitalization of work will open up new opportunities for some professions. For example, owing to the new models of work developed during the pandemic, a large number of companies will find it easier to engage someone who will stay in their home in the country as compared to the period before when it was necessary for a person to settle in a new place. It remains to be seen how the pandemic will permanently change our business life, and let us hope that at least some of these changes will be positive.

Finally, the pandemic has further potentiated social inequalities that have already reached historic highs, but it has also shown that we are all interconnected and that anyone can become infected. You may be financially well-standing, but if a large number of people in your environment are living in conditions that increase the risk of infection, the chances of you becoming infected also increase. Will the experience during the pandemic have an impact on better understanding of the problem of social inequalities, as a common problem? I hope that the future will give a positive answer to this question, but…