# When Will the World Feel Normal Again?
Published: October 2026 (2026-10-04)
Canonical: https://blog.narbeh.me/when-will-the-world-feel-normal-again
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![Ceramic mosaic of people walking along winding paths around a fractured globe, with cities, ships and storm clouds in the background.](https://narbeh.me/images/when-will-the-world-feel-normal-again.jpg)

For my generation, normal means what we learned to expect between roughly 1990 and 2019. The world kept getting more connected and borrowing kept getting cheaper. You could pick a career, sign a long-term mortgage and assume your children would have more opportunities than you did.

Of course, that was never everyone's experience. Those years had their own wars and financial crises. Even the economic story changed partway through in 2008. Most of us remember a more dependable world partly because of where we stood in it.

I recently finished Morgan Housel's [The Psychology of Money](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/41881472-the-psychology-of-money). Its postscript tells the fascinating story of America's boom after 1945. Sixteen million Americans had served in the war, and many returning veterans gained access to cheap mortgages and easy credit. They bought the homes, cars and appliances that depression and war had kept out of reach. Wages rose, and they rose fastest for the people at the bottom, so for about a generation most Americans lived much like their neighbours.

Ever since, I haven't been able to stop thinking about where that prosperity came from. The Depression and the war before it had built up the demand the boom ran on. So I keep asking myself: given the state of the world today, are we heading for a catastrophe again? And more importantly, could it be a prerequisite for prosperity?

## How did we get here

The pandemic of 2020 hit a world that was already less stable than we remembered. In 2020 and 2021, it's estimated that about 15 million more people died than would have without the pandemic. Governments borrowed heavily to keep households and companies afloat while production and shipping were disrupted.

When economies reopened, spending came back faster than supply. Then Russia invaded Ukraine, and energy and food prices jumped. Inflation surged, and central banks raised interest rates fast. That ended the years of unusually cheap borrowing across much of the rich world. Inflation eventually slowed, but the old consumer prices did not come back. Households faced higher everyday bills alongside more expensive mortgages and loans.

The economy did recover, but the recovery split. By 2025, the world was producing roughly 10% more per person than in 2019, after inflation. Nearly 90% of advanced economies were above their pre-pandemic level, while more than a quarter of developing economies were still struggling. Households with savings could absorb higher costs more easily and those with investments could benefit when markets recovered. Others had little left after everyday bills and less ability to save or invest, leaving them more exposed to the next shock.

Meanwhile the world became more violent. Researchers counted 65 armed conflicts involving states in 2025, the most since their records began in 1946, and global military spending rose for the eleventh year in a row.

Supply-chain problems, global conflicts, populist politics, growing protectionism and shifting trade barriers changed how companies and governments planned resources. In such dynamic circumstances, some companies postponed investments and some consumers held off on big purchases. Other companies invested in new suppliers or locations to reduce their dependence on any one country. Uncertainty changed where investment went as well as whether it happened at all.

Technological advancements such as AI offered a productivity euphoria while raising existential questions about the future of humanity, work and skills and displacement of workforce. Climate change continued putting pressure on homes, infrastructure and food production globally, with heatwaves and other climate-related extremes adding to the disruption. In many countries, ageing populations meant growing demands on pensions and care, with ever declining birth rates and fewer working-age people relative to older generations.

## Will it get worse from here?

I believe we will need a major reset before we see a period of normalcy and broad prosperity again. That potentially means a new world order, particularly in who carries the costs, who shares in growth and how countries cooperate. I highly doubt such fundamental changes can happen through small adjustments to the way things work today.

Today's global chaos comes from forces that make each other harder to manage. Geopolitical rivalries make trade and energy supplies less reliable. Rising debt payments, massive defence budgets, strained social services and climate adaptation compete for public money, all while much of the world is grappling with renewed inflation and tectonic shifts. Governments face difficult choices about what they can keep promising and how to pay for it.

Looking back, history offers a strong parallel. The expectations about living standards created by America's postwar prosperity survived long after the gains became more uneven. People still expected hard work to lead to a secure middle-class life. When the world stopped matching that expectation, frustration pushed societies to voice their dissatisfaction through more radical political views. Those downward spirals alongside deglobalization narratives, similar to what happened in the 1930s, fed the radical politics that helped lead the world to turmoil before.

Equally important, the reset after the Depression and war went beyond rebuilding damaged cities. Those failures made arrangements that governments had previously resisted possible, and countries agreed on a new framework for international finance. Alongside changes in housing, education and access to credit, a different economic order took shape. The crisis helped create the political opening, and the decisions made through it shaped the recovery.

That is why I find the idea of a "reset" convincing. Much of the world already knows what needs to change. The hard part is always getting agreement when those changes threaten existing advantages or require some people to accept losses. Unfortunately, I suspect events will increasingly force changes we cannot agree to make ourselves otherwise.

The financial crisis of 2008 and the global pandemic already showed us that enormous disruption can happen without resolving the underlying tensions. Some of this reset may already be underway. It can manifest as political upheaval, another financial crisis, open conflicts or a long standoff like the Cold War.

That is what I believe is coming and I have never wanted more to be wrong.