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 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
It'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
I'm currently in France right now, which is a country that beheaded its last king
So don't even ask me why I voluntarily chose to come live here
I guess they also have French kissing so it evens out what I'm saying
Is that things go wrong all the time? In fact anything that can go wrong will go wrong
I'm sure you've heard that one before it's Murphy's Law
He's been a great guy at parties. 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 cancelled if you had travel plans
I bet you they've changed. Mine certainly have, I only arrived here like three weeks ago
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
So this Black Swan has touched us all the news cycle has entered turbo mode as we all
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
While outside of what's going on right now
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 I feel like my existentialism is showing again, my bad
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
There's a Latin phrase "Errare humanum est"
I have no idea if I'm saying that right probably not but it doesn't matter translated
It means to err is human. But that root word, err, which is a synonym in English for making a mistake
You have a different meaning in that it was something more along the lines of to wander or to stray
Something about that is very intriguing to me. What are we doing? If not wandering through this existence?
Isn't that the story of humanity, isn't it?
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 idea
They call "samsara"
Which 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 for will
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's 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 counter intuitive, 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, which is very very simple
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 in her words 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
There's actually a second part to the Latin phrase that I shared earlier
And it varies slightly depending on the source
Another you gonna bother trying to say because I have no idea how to it more or less
Translates to but to persist in error is diabolical. 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 video is sponsored by audible and there's a really lovely audio book that I'd like to recommend to all of you
It's an audio book that played a major role actually in the inspiration for this piece
It's called when things fall apart by Pema Chödrön and I currently consider it one of the top five
Audiobooks that I've listened to over the last year audible has a massive selection of audio books including other works by Pema Chödrön
So you can start listening now with a 30-day audible trial just one audio book and two audible originals. Absolutely free
It is audible.com/nathanieldrew or Text "nathanieldrew" to 500 500 the link is also in the description
That's probably the easiest way Thank You audible for your support
Just a final thought
That I wanted to share with you guys since so many things are up in the air right now
I have a couple of videos that I shot last year that will be coming out in the next couple of weeks
I felt like I had to post this first because a lot of my content is travel related and to just continue posting travel related
content right now without
Addressing what's going on felt mildly inappropriate. So with that being said, I'll see you guys soon