Many people are finding themselves filing for unemployment for the first time.
High school seniors will be graduating online.
Some are sick.
Others have to go to work and put their health on the line.
Your back may be against the wall but keep going.
Be patient with the process.
It will be over. Eventually. And you will have a story to tell.
Sports, videogames, Facebook, drugs, alcohol, pornography…
These things we love, do they love us back?
Writers before COVID-19 were writing.
During social distancing, they are writing.
During quarantine, they are writing.
And after this passes, they’ll still be writing.
Writers are writing no matter what the circumstances are. Of course, we are not just talking about writing. What we are really talking about here is passion.
Too often, we think we need to find our passion before we can begin doing great work. No. Instead, do great work and be passionate.
It isn’t hidden, there is no passion left around for someone to pick up. Regardless of what the work is, you’re passionate.
Passionate people find a way to amplify and share their talents. That’s why some are using this time to get really good at something while others are wasting time on TikTok.
It’s not about the writing (or painting or composing), its about sharing your passion.
If you took the writing away, you still have a passionate person. Passionate people find a way to do great things. The medium doesn’t matter. It never did.
Let’s be clear, what this actually means because too often we mix up this idea that we have to take care of ourselves before you can help others.
Taking care of yourself means getting enough sleep, exercising, eating well, praying, meditating, creating something, socializing.
What taking care of yourself doesn’t mean is that you have to obtain a certain lifestyle, acquire certain artifacts or status before making the world a better place.
It’s quite a paradox really:
The more you help, the more you think you have. The less you help, the less you think you have.
Here’s the thing, donating isn’t necessarily going to make you richer in your checking account but it will certainly make you feel like it.
In the end, it is how we feel once we volunteer our time, talents and resources. The question isn’t whether you can help others out amidst a pandemic but rather Will you have the courage to stand up?
You have more than enough to get started. Lift where you stand.
What is your instincts anyway?
Sea turtles will automatically move towards the ocean when they are born. Babies cry when they are hungry.
A lot of these instincts come from the amygdala. The two small almond shape nuclei on the back of your skull that attaches to the spinal cord.
It’s quick, it’s fast and it’s angry.
Instincts are great to have when you are running from sabertooth tigers or for ducking when someone yells fore or for swerving out of the way to avoid a crash.
Make no mistake, having and using your instincts is a good thing. It is what has kept us alive for centuries.
Except…
We can’t actually trust our instincts. Our instincts are wrong most of the time. If we need a quick knee jerk reaction—for sure. For everything else, when it comes to critical thinking, we are far better off making decisions when our instincts are not in the driver seat.
So, when deciding to correct someone on Facebook for spreading fake news or how to respond when the boss calls to ask how are things at home or when your teen is struggling with homework assignments…
Wait for your instincts to pass before making a decision.
We can’t ignore them but we can certainly trust our decisions over what the impulses want us to do.
Samuel Pierpont Langley was commissioned by the government to develop the first airplane. He had all the financial backing and press anyone could ever want to create a new invention.
And despite all those resources, it still didn’t work.
Here’s the thing:
Without restraints, we don’t know how to define a story
Restraints help us find the guardrails. And without guardrails, we just have a difficult time picking a place to begin.
That’s because the world is full of choices. An infinite amount of combinations.
Yet, despite what critics might say, two brothers from Dayton still found a way to do the impossible without all the resources at their disposal.
Even during a global pandemic and global recession looming, now is as good as time as any to launch your next project. Let the critics keep underestimating whatever it is you can do and don’t let a few closed doors keep you down.
There are a lot of factors when trying to predict an avalanche. You have wind, aspect, elevation, snowpack, storm snow, slope angle, temperature…
So, instead of trying to predict, it is far better to have a set of rules to help you make decisions. Based on those external factors, you can then decide how much risk you are willing to take.
It turns out, we can build a similar system in our day-to-day lives. You can choose to spend your time, emotional energy, resources on:
Things you can control
or
Things you cannot control.
We can’t control people or how they will act, we can’t control the weather, we can’t control whether someone will follow social distancing.
Yet, we can always control our attitude. We can choose to lift where we stand.
The reality is there are only a few things we can ever control. The things we can control need to be taken very seriously. And then let the chips fall.
It’s impossible to move a fully grown Redwood. But it is much easier to manipulate a sampling.
We can’t assume that people automatically get wiser with age. People can get wiser. For sure.
Yet…
As we get older, for many, the more we stay the same. That is why it is so difficult to change our minds the older we get. We would have to admit that we have been wrong this whole time.
It’s not about right or wrong or fault-finding but rather, “Knowing what I know now.”
“Knowing what I know now about how the meat industry affects the climate, I am going to eat like a vegan.”
“Knowing what I know now how pornography contributes to human exploitation, I am going to quit watching it.”
“Knowing what I know now…” that’s really the key to change. We are either evolving or we are hiding.
We have a really difficult time with pauses.
For some reason, we have this incessant need to fill in our everyday conversation with something. Even if we fill it in with just garbage.
Um
Well
Ahh
Yeah
So
You know.
Like.
It turns out, that most conventional speech is broken down into short pauses (0.2 seconds), medium pauses (0.6 seconds) and long pauses (1 second). Except the long pauses are actually not that long.
Great public speakers can hold a pause for 2 to 3 seconds.
…
It just isn’t in our speech either. We have a difficult time pausing our careers, the market, economy. We cannot stand when our lives are on hold. And COVID-19 is exposing this.
Why?
Pausing creates tension. Just like watching a magic show, after the trick has been performed we want to know the magician’s secrets. If she reveals the secret, it’s no longer magic but simply a trick.
Adults struggle with this tension. We spend a lot of time wishing for it to go away. Instead of wasting our time trying to avoid it, the alternative is to learn to lean into it, to dance with it.
Jim Collins tells a great story about Admiral Jim Stockdale and how he survived being captured and tortured 20+ times.
In Stockdale’s words, the ones who didn’t survive captivity were “the optimist”.
The optimist believed that they were going to be rescued by Christmas. And when they weren’t they died from heartbreak.
It appears that social distancing is working (at least here in Utah).
And it’s tempting to say, we need to reopen up restaurants, go back to work, go back to church, see a movie…go back to normal. Some will even argue that our liberties are at stake and that we have to take risks.
Here’s the truth: We are not going to be returning to any sense of normal until we have a vaccine.
When we have enough PPE for healthcare professionals, enough ICU beds, enough ventilators, and we have a high volume test and trace program in place THEN it’s time to talk about how we can start opening some things back up.
Until then focus on the milestones and not the date.
Josh Allred's Blog 