The biggest effect of the global pandemic is that it disrupts how everyone frames their daily life. It breaks us out of our old habits and creates entirely new ones.
Modern humans are creatures of habit. At a very young age, we are introduced to routines that eventually become habitual. The most efficient of us learn the habits of success at a very early age. The rest of us just muddle our lives away.
The habits that we develop from childhood to the present are who we are. They are our own personal creations. This is why habits (which are all mental in nature) are something we have difficulty abandoning. They are what defines us.
Habits are formed as a consequence of previous habits. The primordial habits of anyone are what we call personalities. There are many models of personalities, but they all share one idea in common.
To illustrate, let's look at two models of personalities. The Big Five (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism) and Meyers Brigs. They can have different categorization schemes but ultimately they are about one idea.
They are about different habits of how our selves interact with other stuff in this world. For Big Five (OCEAN) it is our selves negotiate with experiences, shared spaces, communication with others, ideas, and our inner self.
For MBTI, it is framed (albeit unscientifically) according to recurring habits of thought. Source of energy, sensing, decision-making and emphasis in structure.
There is a multitude of problems that people solve. We solve these problems by leaning on our habits of thought. Learning is also problem-solving. Learning to learn leans heavily on our thought habits.
Habits are thoughts that we do automatically. Thoughts that require minimal effort. We feel more energy when we perform tasks that our habits are tuned for. We feel exhausted when we do task that we can't bank on our habits.
Becoming adults also requires the breaking of habits that we develop as children. We become adults by widening our scope of self and hence breaking our habits of how we think of ourselves. 
The difficulty of making progress is that we have to break our own habits of thought. But these habits are tied to our personalities, and certain personalities are tuned better at breaking habits.
Humans are a collaborative species and we excel best when we mix different personalities to solve complex problems. We need rule breakers to innovate and we need anal people to execute complex processes.
Unfortunately, modern civilization has a bad habit of Monism. That there is one true habit and pluralistic approaches are denied as something pagan. But complex problems are only solved through a diversity of thought processes. Solved through a diversity of personalities.
Unfortunately, habits lead to thought bubbles and silos. It is not uncommon for industry leaders (ex. Nokia) to be quickly vanquished as the technological landscape changes. Habits can be our greatest strength and our Achilles heel.
But what happens in a global pandemic when our work habits, the habits that made us efficient, are disrupted. It becomes exhausting to work because we forgot our habits. Furthermore, we see the world differently when our habits change. We value our time and lives differently.
'Laying flat' and 'The Great Resignation' are manifestations of a change in habits and thus a change in perspective. There was a time in the past where not working on weekends was a luxury, but now it's a habit. The pandemic has lead to new habits that changes everything.
Just as adult cognitive development required changing habits, society changes itself because people change their habits. Society remains stagnant because people refuse to change their habits.
It's thus extreme irony that the fastest way to get back to the old normal is to temporarily change our habits by accepting inconveniences (masks and vaccination). Unfortunately, that didn't happen. The old normal isn't coming back.
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