Megan Cablk

As second semester begnis, a lot of people have been wanting my opinion on certain things. My teachers want to know what’s working, my parents want to know if I enjoy being in school, and my friends want to know how I’m doing. I know they’re doing this because they care and I  truly want to answer them, but frequently I find that I simply can’t. I haven’t thought about what’s worked, I don’t know if I like being in school, and I haven’t considered my feelings about anything. To use the pandemic-favorite cliché, the days seem to blur together. 

The feeling that has come to define the last few months is apathy.

And I know I’m not alone in this sentiment. I’ve heard from a number of my friends and peers that they’re having difficulty producing the thoughts and emotions that people want out of them. Nothing is necessarily ‘bad,’ but nothing is necessarily ‘good’ either. It’s a whole slew of neutral or indifferent feelings. 

The concept of change fatigue has been repeatedly mentioned to me recently. Change fatigue is characterized as feelings of apathy or resignation people feel when facing what they perceive is too much change. Symptoms include decreased quality of work, increased feelings of anxiety, and higher rates of disengagement and burnout. This idea has origins in the world of business management — changing too many things about the operation of a company under new or revamped management can hinder performance and tank morale.  But recently, this idea has been adapted to include all types of people during the pandemic. From large-scale governmental restrictions to personal lifestyle choices, the last ten months have brought about previously inconceivable changes to nearly everyone in the world. However, from my biased perspective, it appears that students are being affected by change fatigue at an incredibly high rate. 

The biggest culprit appears to be the instability of our situation. In regards to school alone, plans have changed eight times, and those are the ones I can remember. For years, school has been the constant in every student’s life; much to our chagrin, we will have to wake up on every school day and report to an overly structured day. For the last ten months, that structure has been torn away. Paired with the constant shifting of plans — the elated highs when things seem to be going well and the depressing lows when we’re reserved to more weeks of being locked in our rooms — it only makes sense that students would feel off. Furthermore, staple sports and other extracurriculars have been shifting as well. Personally, the changing restrictions on soccer seasons have made it difficult to maintain a schedule. Knowing when my practices were in years past allowed me to have a structure to build my days around. Now, I find it incredibly difficult to properly budget my time or find the motivation to get the work done since I have little to no structured time throughout my day to keep me accountable. 

This feeling is not limited to students or teenagers. The teachers at North are having to learn new techniques and technology every few weeks to keep up with the demands on the students. My mom, a software engineer, has faced constantly shifting plans of remote or in-office work time and meetings. There is not a profession, age, or way of life that was prepared for the changes brought about by the pandemic. 

Admittedly, there truly is no solution. With the vaccine on the horizon, there certainly is hope, but short-term fixes are difficult. We’ve been told for months to try to find a routine, stick to it, and then things will start to feel normal. But, what are we supposed to do when that routine changes every few weeks? We are learning how to cope with an entirely new form of existence, and, personally, I would like to return to a sense of normalcy.