Serious question, considering the uncertainty and panic running around right now. What do you see your life as being like a year from now? How are you living your life now because of your conclusion?
Please no answers that use the phrase “I don’t know”; I’d like a serious attempt at a prediction given what you truly think and feel.
Maintaining my social distance. Taking the vaccine when it becomes available. Continuing to apply for jobs, most of them involving remote work. In lieu of having dinner parties, having friends come to an outside venue and bringing the food we’ve cooked as a picnic. Watching the world very very slowly recover. Watching the US adjust to its status as a badly damaged nation in its post-peak years. Writing. Maybe writing some music too.
A year from now. 20 July 2021. I’d like to be at the same job, doing pretty much the same things I’m doing today, and one year closer to retirement — which should be about 7 years away from today, so then of course it’ll be 6 years away. I’ve been at this job and this company for just under three years…
But I’m thinking of leaving. There’ve been significant changes at work lately. I’m doing my damnedest to adjust and adapt, but at the same time I’m dusting off my resumé. I’ve started applying around.
But in the middle of COVID, changing jobs right now might not be the smartest thing to do. That’s because my current job and company seem pretty stable.
I think we’ll still be dealing with COVID. I don’t think there will be a cure. And I don’t think there will be a vaccine either. But I hope I’m wrong about that!
If a vaccine is not in use, widely, I’m really afraid I might very well be close to death.
There’s no way I’ll keep my family locked down another few months much less a year.
I’ve dodged a bullet so far. But that’s only because we’ve been very careful. And quarantined.
I am stronger now that I’ve had my sick kidney removed. I feel healthy. My diabetes has been under control. No big problems.
There’s a small chance I’ll live through COVID, if I’m infected.
No way of knowing for sure.
If I don’t get infected and can tolerate a vaccine I hope to do some traveling.
I have some big Art I wanna do.
And maybe be planning the lil’wrekker’s wedding.
I have hope.
A year ago I was living in southern Aus, and since then have traveled over 41k air miles and have lived under 15 rooves.
Now in FNQ with travel restrictions, I anticipate being here, working from home at my job, and praying for the day that restrictions are lifted.
Or I might be dead from this stupid allergic reaction that my face took on a few days ago. 
Hopefully right here working from home.
But one thing sort of worries me. I have a cube at work but it’s a VERY nice big corner ‘office’ cube. Fantastic views, windows that open. I even have a small refrigerator. I will lose that. That’s fine if I’m allowed to continue to work from home. But if in the future I’m called back I won’t have near as nice of a workspace. I could have a lot more to worry about though, I know.
I’ll be 18 months into retirement, still somewhat hunkered down, but perhaps with a better sense of when I can get out of the house with my wife and do things. I’m more worried about the kids than me anyway, one will just be out of college, one will be finishing, and one will perhaps be entering. Who knows what things will be like for them in a year…
In my perfect world, there will be a COVID vaccine that beats this plague into submission and spousal unit and I will be able to dine out again and travel and generally do stuff. I’ll be taking my granddaughter to the library again, and the zoo, and the marine museum, and the aquarium…
Absent the vaccine, I’ll probably still be doing what I’m doing now - getting along.
A year from now will be exactly 40 years that I’ve been doing the type of work that I’ve been doing so I suspect I’ll be plotting retirement with more seriousness.
Unless there is a vaccine, my wife and I will doubtless be doing just what we are doing now. Hunkering down, taking walks, having a zoom session with our kids once a week and missing not seeing them in person. My pension is adequate and I am not spending it all since we have not gone out to dinner, gone to a concert (we do about 25 a year), etc.
Best answer to this question from comedian Mitch Hedberg, asked during a job interview: “Celebrating the first anniversary of you asking that question”.
Well, the correct answer is ‘I don’t know’, because there are a ton of variables, but as you don’t want that, I’ll do my best to WAG and blue sky a bit, and speculate my butt off.
Myself, I think we will get hammered with a new wave in the fall this year. That, coupled with things going on in China as well as Europe will tank the world economy for the winter. US economy is going to get hammered. With Biden taking over in January, I think it’s going to be a rough winter and spring, but by then we’ll have a vaccine in circulation. I expect by this time next year, things will be bad but starting to look like they could get back on track. Me, personally, I’ll probably be little effected, unless my family comes down with this thing. My job is fairly secure, and barring a complete collapse of society I should be fine in this time frame, if the stress doesn’t kill me. I think the local economy here where I live is going to get really hammered, so I’m a bit afraid of what might go under in my area, as well as the nation at large.
Of course, depending on a few variables, things could be really, really bad. I could see China completely folding in this time frame. I’m sure there are plenty of rolling eyes, but I think that’s because people just aren’t paying attention. I could see the EU having major issues as well, though I don’t see them collapsing in the same way as the CCP might. The US is on a knife edge as well right now, and depending on how bad this thing might be it could be very bad indeed. Basically, if any of those 3 entities go down, then the fallout puts us squarely in the ‘I don’t know’ category. If they all muddle through, then it will just be really bad.
Right now, I think people should be worried more about the 3 Gorges Dam staying intact than anything else they are fretting about. Myself, it gives me chills that our world hangs on a bad design, built poorly by a regime who is both corrupt and evil, but it is what it is.
Like now, it will be summer break. Chances are I’ll be in this same chair. If it’s a little less hot, I may be out in the hammock.
Well, assuming I’m still above ground I expect very little to change. In fact I’d project my life to be virtually identical next year to what it is right now.
The first wild card of the election is unlikely to ruffle my feathers in any way other than psychically. I despise Trump, but a.) I think the odds are against him securing a second term and b.) even if he does it should have little immediate impact on me in a real world sense. He would be a pox on many, many houses which is what bothers me. But in my little rarefied corner of the universe I’m reasonably secure. Barring, y’know, the collapse of civil society (which I don’t anticipate because I’m not a catastrophist).
Similarly with the second wild card of COVID-19. A year from now we will either be out of the pandemic (hopefully, hopefully) or not. If we are the country will be painfully struggling to recover. If we’re not the country will be more painfully struggling. But again, I’m pretty secure in my little bubble as long as I don’t die myself. I’m very senior and considered essential. My job might morph into some less happy form (I’m slightly worried about that) with more commuting and existential hassle, but it will not go away.
So status quo. No moves or major upheavals in life. Now two years from now is a different story. I just might be retired and all that entails. But a year from now the world might be in a rather different place, but I probably won’t be.
Agreed. I’ve no dog in that hunt and live so that the effects of random political shifts are minimized. As I’ve said, I don’t care too much and will find out who won the next morning – just like last time.
As for the rest, Covid is frankly closing in around me. Kid’s SO just got over it, wife’s coworker has entire family infected (tested positive – 1 in hospital). Shit for brains thinks it’s all overblown and came into work mask-free for over a week without telling anyone of infections at home. The level of brain-dead dipshittery in this state rivals Florida. There are several other vectors that I’m potentially exposed to despite my caution but I’ll spare the details.
Suffice it to say I expect to get it sooner rather than later, so I guess I’ll find out whether I’ll survive it or not. That means a year from now I’ll either be gone or will be past it and me and my antibodies will be happily traveling to some bucket list destinations.
tldr; dead or seeing some distant national parks.
My Giant Moon Laser will be completed.
Then, from my Base at Mare Anguis I will make All Who Mocked Me PAY for their insolence.
I SHALL SHOW THEM ALL!
My personal daily life will be unchanged, as it has been for the past decade. Live alone, go to work, buy stuff, entertain myself. The only notable differences will be that I’ll probably be working from the office again rather than from home, I’ll probably be visiting my friends in person again, and there’s even odds that careless idiots will have spread coronavirus enough to murder my parents so I won’t be going over and visiting them anymore. But other than those things, everything will be exactly the same as usual. (Presuming I’m not dead myself of course.)
A year from now, same job, same things, one year closer to homelessness. Retirement is a lovely thing, and I wish everyone could enjoy it in prosperity and peace. Some of us are just fucked.
This time last year my work was about 75% travel. In October that shifted to 100% telework and I was expecting to transition back to 75% travel again starting the beginning of this July. The tentative plan now is that travel may begin again in October. So this time next year will most likely be one or the other as my current contract is relatively CV-19 proof. Some goals have been shifted to the right, but they’re not going away.
Same as now. Sittin’ on the couch, drinking beer, watching TV and surfing the net.