North Central College professor sets sights beyond COVID-19 in Associate Press article

Stuart Patterson details how we can fix our hopes for 2020

The coronavirus pandemic has caused a tumultuous change for almost every part of life—how we live, where we live, where we work, what we do for work, what it means to be a kid, what family means, and what is important. The global pandemic caused life to be put on hold for months on end, leaving many to question their purpose and passions.

Experts who study human behavior say the human desire to pin failures, hopes and dreams on a period of time like a calendar year has primitive roots connected to our attachment to routine. Experts like Stuart Patterson, visiting associate professor in the Shimer Great Books School at North Central College, discussed this very concept with the Associated Press.

“Because we missed our spring, summer isn’t really summer because it only comes after a complete spring,” said Patterson. “The only opportunity to reset is next spring. Everything else we’re doing this year is going to be drained of significance because they don’t have the proper sequence.”

Read the full article on the Associated Press website.