Are ‘big’ personal decisions back on the agenda after two long years?

A number of significant life decisions have been made by both myself and those around me during the last month or so, writes Sean Russell

‘It appears that all this introspection – and the restraint we were forced into during the pandemic – has had an effect on decision-making’ (iStock/Getty Images)

The following things have happened recently: a friend's partner broke up with him, another bought a house with his girlfriend, a third is engaged and expecting a baby, and another broke up with his partner. I also moved in with my girlfriend.

So far, so normal. Except all of this happened in the space of about a month or so, specifically it happened in March 2022, two years after the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

It seems, as the gears of normal life begin to spin again, that all the forced introspection and collective hurt has made us re-evaluate our lives and begin to make big decisions. Not that I thought about it that way when my girlfriend and I decided to move in together. In fact it seemed natural, a mix of timing (my flat's contract was up) and money (shared rent). Oh, and of course we wanted to be together. But it occurred to me that something else was at play – after all we’ve had two years of serious thinking and the result had to be big decisions, didn't it?