Things seem to have gone crazy recently, and I’m wondering whether there have been changes in your normal habits. Do you do anything differently due to the apparent increase in shootings, or price inflation? Or have you stopped things you used to do? I’m curious if things are affecting other people too.
We’ve made two noticeable changes:
Drivers in Texas have gone from their normal wildness, to batshit insane. Traffic screaming past at triple digit speeds is now the norm, even in the city. Tailgating, screaming road rage, and an increasing disregard of lights and rights-of-way have made it a white-knuckle experience now. After being hurt in a serious accident due to another driver “Facetiming” at high speed, we’ve parked our little car. At my wife’s insistence I’m no longer using my little econo-box, and make all trips in our giant truck. For the time being, we’ve chosen to surround ourselves with several tons of steel when leaving the neighborhood. Participating in this “arms race” is regrettable, but we didn’t start it.
Also, we decided to skip an outing to a public gathering (shops, artists, an outdoor walkable mall) due to the recent mass shootings. After the events in Allen TX, we were both uncomfortable and decided to skip it. Maybe later, but we were leery of being outdoors in a similar place, with the possibility of copycats wanting their violent moment of fame.
So I’m curious, has anyone else has changed their normal habits due to events of the last few years?
I avoid being in infect-able situations when I can. Even despite 4 vaccine shots, I was still hit very hard by Covid in January and had some lingering effects until recently.
I used to be an avid poster on Facebook and social media, but I have posted nothing on Facebook the past 2.5 years.
I’m not really concerned about shootings due to them still being very low, but I have mentally rehearsed many times about what to do - i.e, how to tackle a shooter or what else to do.
I now do much more of my shopping online than before the pandemic. The idea of buying laundry detergent, clothes, soap, etc on Amazon never was a habit until Covid.
Well, inflation has definitely affected my behaviour. Used to be, I didn’t much worry about buying things, particularly groceries, because I could, without a doubt, afford them. Now, I can still afford them, but it’s not quite as care-free. I’ve started looking at prices, and thinking, “Is a bag of corn chips actually worth that much?”
And this feeling is amplified by the clear-cut evidence that a lot of the recent price increases are due to corporate greed using excuses like supply chain issues to pad their profits, comfortable in the knowledge that most people will blame Biden or Justin Trudeau for inflation, not the corporations. Sure, I could pay nearly $6 for a bag of Doritos, but I won’t.
Life in NJ seems to be pretty much back to normal post-COVID. I guess I go into the office fewer days per week? But, I haven’t noticed changes in driving behavior or increases in shootings.
I thought this was going to be a pandemic thing, but you mentioned traffic.
When I was growing up the ‘bad part of town’ was the area that people (from other areas) didn’t really have any issues venturing into, but you wouldn’t stop there unnecessarily. So, driving through it or running to a store, no big deal. But if you had to go to walgreens or get gas, maybe you wait until you’re closer to home to do that.
Over the years it’s gotten worse, but now it’s at the point where a lot of people, myself included, avoid if it all possible.
The reason being how scary the driving has gotten. Seeing people fly through red lights at 80+ mph is scary. A year or two ago, I was driving, probably 30-40mph, as I approached an intersection someone going probably 70+ passed me using a curb cut (area where median is broken up so you can make a left turn). How he did that, I don’t know. I really thought he was going to, at best, end up on the grass, but I expected the car to roll. But it didn’t and he continued on his way.
Seems like every day when I look at the news, there’s at least one or two horrific accidents involving high speed vehicles. And often times they’re not every speeding for any particular reason, it’s just a thing to do.
My work sometimes requires me to drive through these areas. I’ve started going a bit out of my way in order to spend less time on those major roads when I can. For example, if I need to take exit 1 and then go three miles down this road, instead I might take exit 5 and then back track a mile. It’s more driving, but I’m only on that street for one mile instead of three.
This is a good example of a, nearly daily, news story here in Milwaukee. Nearly all coming from “The North Side” and often involving stolen Kias.
My days start out much calmer now ever since Biden took office. My days don’t start out with some wild assed shit storm of a story of what the POTUS tweeted during the night to embarass our country or pit us agaisnt each other.
I think the idea of increased public violence is almost entirely a matter of sensationalist reporting. And a certain amount of political slant. Fox News viewers live in a far more anarchic country than do, e.g. CNN or ABC News viewers. Texas leans so far right that even the leftiest of their local media seem pretty extreme when viewed from more mid-range political climates.
Wacky aggressive driving is clearly up versus, say, pre-COVID. NHTSA has solid national-scale statistics to back it up. How much that trend was already gathering pre-COVID, and how much COVID itself has to do with it versus other societal factors occurring over the same multi-year timeframe I cannot say.
And there are certainly local variations. Here in greater Miami driving seems little changed from when I moved here a decade ago. OTOH, if, say, Milwaukee began to drive like Miami always has, the Wisconsinites would be (rightly) horrified.
Inflation is real, but so far has not impacted my day to day activities & choices.
Practically speaking COVID has been over for 2 years now. It has zero impact on my daily activities nor does it affect the activities of anyone I know.
So I guess my personal overall answer to the OP is “No, my life is the same. I don’t see anything out there that would cause my life to be changed now. COVID accommodations were certainly real. But are over now. What are these changes and events you think you’re seeing?”
I don’t know about all that. People certainly seem to have become more selfish on the road, and less aware of the effects of what they do on the people around them than before, but I wouldn’t say “white knuckle experience” either. For the most part, I don’t find it very different in general, with the exception of the occasional loon who does something crazy.
Sounds to me like you might consider counseling; that sounds awfully paranoid all around, or at the least, hypervigilant and assessing risk poorly. And I live in DFW as well, so it’s not like I don’t know what you’re talking about.
We don’t do anything different like that for safety reasons; the vast majority of our changes are economically based, because things that were cheap are now expensive. For example, we’ve cut back on beef, because it’s expensive. We don’t eat out as much as we used to, etc…
Pedestrians seem to be less careful and less aware of car traffic: crossing against a red light, cutting across the middle of the street instead of crosswalks, stepping off the curb into traffic without looking, not making eye contact with drivers, etc. At the same time, drivers seem more inclined to run amber and red lights, pull u-turns in busy streets, etc., as others have noted. This has caused me to be more vigilant as a driver and as a pedestrian.
well i started my cancer shuffle in 2016, so I was already masking and even gloving outside the barn - and coming home dumping my clothing into the washer on the way to my shower and a change of clothing was also going on, and it continues today because I still am working on rebuilding my immune system. Yes, I did get vaxxed and boosters as needed.
We are currently geographic bacheloring it, I am holding down the fort in CT, where my oncology practice is [don’t want to jump in and have to break in a whole new office when almost through the remission period] so I only see mrAru alternate weekends. We do hope to be out of CT at the end of October. We are seriously looking forward to it - the cat especially misses him when he is not here, she is sort of a daddies girl =)
Financially - since we have one income supporting 2 physical households, we are very careful with spending - we barely buy stuff for me, I have a huge freezer full of food, and a decent durable pantry as well, so if I didn’t mind really boring menus I could probably go at least 2 months without really needing anything. I mean, 25 pounds of rice and 25 pounds of assorted different beans [dried] and a 15 pound sack of onions and the spices/seasonings I currently have, boring but easily 2 months. Looking around, I also have 10 pounds rye, 25 pounds all purpose, looks to be a whole tub of rolled oats, 2 bags [maybe a pound each?] barley and a pound of yeast which I could let go to sourdough starter and I am reasonably set for bread for one person for a month easily. Glad a midwest farmgirl raised me to know how to cook Depression food =) Oh, also a #10 can of powdered whole egg, 2 #10 cans NIDO whole milk, and a large thing of powdered whole cream. I will know better after mrAru and I sort the pantry goods this weekend =)
Socially, I am sad to admit that my absolute bestie, the dude my hubs and I jokingly referred to as our junior husband passed away, and I freaking swear I am tired of my friends dying off, not just covid, but a d=few other health issues, and unfortunately several in combat in Ukraine, one in teh first week of the war. If given the chance I would gladly unalive Putin, and I really don’t care if it gets me put into time out. Someone needs to do it.
Honestly no. I try to avoid news channels and too much social media so my view of day to day life tends to reflect what I actually see with my own eyes when I go outside. Meanwhile, my wife is acting like homeless people are appearing in Manhattan for the first time ever.
My changes occured to just my own issues.
I was a germaphobe anyway so COVID masking and sanitizing were very easy for me.
I’m not driving. And in this rural area the biggest thing we worry about are deer or other hazards in the road.
I confess to being paranoid about deer.
They are truly trying to kill us all.
My family haven’t decided eating well is too expensive, yet. My bank account can verify this. We do grow a biggish garden and veggies come cheap. My specialized diet adds some to the costs. But we’re ok for now.
Shootings and price inflation (also random shortages) are more noticeable, but really haven’t appreciably affected my behavior. But I do have a couple of minor knock-on effects from the pandemic.
I stopped going to movie theaters - HD TV does the job well enough in most respects and the transition from the big screen to the small is pretty quick these days. Lightning fast at times. I suppose necessary things like supermarkets aside, I avoid crowded indoor areas generally more assiduously than I once did. But I’ve never liked huge crowds, so that is more just a mild reinforcement of an existing tendency.
I also eat out a bit less and cook a bit more. I’m also somewhat better at cooking in general than I was, with a more extensive set of upgraded cooking utensils.
But other than those shifts, which I consider pretty minor, not a lot else that I can think of right now.
It’s a little hard for me to tease out which changes are due to personal circumstances and which stem from wider events. I stay home a lot more than I used to, but that’s partly Covid avoidance and partly because I can, now that I’ve retired. Mr. Legend works pretty exclusively from home now; he used to work in California one or two weeks of the month, but when they realized travel was off for a while, his partners shipped him the items he needed to set up an electronics lab here. Then, almost as soon as air travel became more feasible, he had some serious health problems, so he’s continued to work here. We’re fortunate enough to have a comfortable income, so although I do notice inflation, it hasn’t pinched us all that hard.
The only real changes I can think of now are that marijuana was legalized in our state, so we no longer take day trips to southern Colorado, and that once we realized what a wide variety of foodscan be delivered, we don’t go out to eat nearly as often.