What to do When Things Fall Apart
I think a really good question to ask right now is how do you avoid falling down the rabbit hole with pessimism and worry. What do you do when it feels like everything’s falling apart. It’s an applicable question for all kinds of situations and circumstances while outside of what’s going on right now.
It seems like the world’s going through a collective moment of uncertainty right now with the outbreak of the novel coronavirus or COVID-19. The markets have been taking every kind of public event that has been canceled and people are scared. This is the first time something like this is happening in my adult life but I spent a lot of time thinking about this over the last few days and I came to the conclusion that tt’s not like any of this is new really. I mean, I know it feels like it is and I’m not trying to minimize anybody’s fears anywhere around the world. It’s just that every new reason to worry feels novel and urgent. But at the same time, the world has never been a certain place ever. It just hasn’t we’ve tried very hard to make it that way. But any history book has more than enough proof to tell a different story. Nobody can escape uncertainty including the rich and powerful. Are those things go wrong all the time? In fact, anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Uncertainty is a scary thing millions of people are unable to work as they normally would right now. Every student that I know has had their internships or classes canceled if you had travel plans. And it feels a little bit like my life is has been put on hold. It’s just that everything outside has been shut down. Try to keep up with what’s going on and figure out like what to do about it and I think a really good question to ask right now is how do you avoid falling down the rabbit hole with pessimism and worry. What do you do when it feels like everything’s falling apart. It’s an applicable question for all kinds of situations and circumstances. The common-sense advice that we all hear is to be as prepared as possible. Positive affirmations put money into saving stock up on toilet paper save a little extra rice and by all means, go for it I mean, I don't think any of that is bad advice but there's only so much that you can prepare for really I mean what if a meteorite hit our planning, you know? That’s an example that has actually happened before what I mean is how was anyone supposed to predict that this was going to happen? How do you prepare for the unforeseeable? Life is a funny thing. We spend all of our time and energy trying to control everything as much as we can. The crazy thing is it’s all an illusion. It doesn’t matter how much money you have how Connected you are how prepared you think you might be life. Does whatever life wants. You can do your best and I believe you should but then after that, it’s kind of out of your hands. You cannot control what you do not know and there’s actually a lot that we don’t know about the world and the universe that we live in. The reality that things do not go according to plan is something that most of us would prefer not to talk or even think about it’s not a comforting idea. I get that like many of you. I have gone through my own personal self-improvement journey over the last couple of years and I’ve learned a lot about myself. Throughout this whole process but one thing that has slowly dawned on me. Is that no matter how hard I try? that hole that I feel within myself can never be filled through productivity or organization or performance? Those are all temporary answers to a bigger question. So if that’s not the solution what is like, what do you do? There’s more to life than solving problems and achieving goals. What I’d like to propose is a slightly different way of looking at when things go wrong. Always about our search to understand the world that we live in and what we’re all doing here. What if instead of running from the uncomfortable messy stuff we accepted that those are that’s part of the rules of the game. I consider Buddhism an incredibly applicable philosophy in times like these. A core theme of Buddhism is the impermanence of all things in life in the universe basically everything comes to an end. This is an idea they call “samsara”. This is that suffering is born out of our belief that things in our lives will endure that ultimately. We can find a way to always be happy and avoid pain essentially believing that that which you are striving to fulfill the lack that you feel within yourself. If Buddhism isn’t really your thing fine. The Bible says
“For dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return”
The same root idea is there we’re not going to be here forever. At first, that sounds like a depressing thought really like what’s the point right? But then you realize that that's still buying into the same game and that accepting. This is a way out of the rat race of consumerism and materialism. It's liberating. There are so many other ways to spend your time and energy than what society pressures us to do. There are two ways that we could look at what’s going on right now or any point in human history for that matter. It’s true that in scary times people sometimes act with poor judgment out of fear, but there’s also been all this incredible stuff showing up on the Internet. I find the videos of people singing together to pass the time during quarantine periods to be particularly impactful. So anyway figuring out how to handle things falling apart is something I think about a lot. Being the little warrior that I am, I hold myself to a very high standard and I’m very hard on myself when things inevitably don’t go according to plan. Pema Chodron is an American nun and a huge recent inspiration of mine and she offers three methods for handling chaos.
The first is practicing acceptance
It feels very counterintuitive, but it’s not about fighting. It’s about embracing where we’re at in life the things that we feel, you know, confronting them, and exploring them. People just say to get out of your comfort zone, but it’s a lot more than that. It’s getting to the essence of the things that scare you. Becoming intimate with that honestly.
The second is practicing tong len
It’s basically when you breathe in, you breathe in others' pain and when you breathe out you send them relief. You can do this with any kind of suffering and it’s a wonderful meditation exercise. You can actually begin by doing this for yourself and then expanding it out to all beings that can suffer in the ways that you can.
The third is to look at anything that happens to you as awakened energy
Fear is a universal experience. Even the smallest insect feels it… It’s not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is part of being alive something we all share. We react against the possibility of loneliness of death of not having anything to hold on to. Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth. If we commit ourselves to staying right where we are, then our experience becomes very vivid: Things become very clear when there is nowhere to escape.
The way I interpret this is that we may be human beings wandering in this funky confusing world, but it is always your responsibility to continue learning whether or not things go your way this funky confusing world, but it is always your responsibility to continue learning whether or not things go your way.
