There is no other moment in history like the one we’re living through. There is a health crisis with no cure. And a financial virus ready to wreak havoc on victims who didn’t see these tough times coming.
There will be devastation. There will be beauty, too — that’s what you never want to forget.
Many of us will fall from glory. You might lose your job. You might lose your business. You might lose your home. You might develop an illness of the mind. You might lose a lot of money. Or you might meet someone who endures one of these unforgettable events and have it affect your life. All of these events have happened to me during my life. It has taught me so much.
This is my message to you if you fall.
You are not a failure. If you use that label to describe yourself then it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Nobody saw this crisis coming. If we went back in time and pretended 2020 didn’t happen, and I told you this would be your future, you’d spit on my face and tell me “you’re dreaming, mate.”
These unforgettable times are real. If the moment takes you off your feet and causes you to fall down, you will get back up. Failure only happens when you decide not to get back up. And you can always get back up again because you’re smart.
Here’s the thing: it’s okay to stay down.
Stay on the floor until you’re ready to get back up again. Enjoy the moment you fall. Document how you think, feel and act. These are the moments you’ll want to recall when this is all over. Because those words will form part of your comeback story.
We all fall down.
Falling down doesn’t make you a failure; it makes you human and susceptible to outside forces created by natural events.
This moment in history is a Black Swan Event. We describe these times with a stunning animal like a swan to accidentally demonstrate the beauty of chaos.
This is the time to level-up. You played computer games before, right? What happens when you lose or are defeated? You play again until you master the game. And eventually you do reach mastery.
These crazy times are no different. You can level-up when you fall. There are habits that a Zen Warrior like you can use to get off the floor. You’ve heard of them before: reading, writing, thinking, inspiring others, meditating, walking around your neighborhood, learning a new skill.
Archie Williams was incarcerated for 37 years for a crime he didn’t commit. He was eventually found “not guilty.” As soon as he got out of jail he performed the music he’d practiced in jail in front of thousands of people for all of those years.
The video was shared on Youtube and went viral. The feeling of rebirth made those 37 years in jail have meaning. Those years in jail were worth it.
You can fall down. The place you call prison can be the same rockbottom place you rebuild your life from.
You did your best. It’s not like you didn’t try. Okay, so you have less money and your home is under threat. You still got air in your lungs and people who love you. And don’t you dare tell me that nobody loves you. There is always one person that loves you, even if it’s a stranger who has never told you.
To believe you are loved is to believe in hope.
Hope is a powerful drug in these unforgettable times. Hope can make you believe a cure is on its way and the world will recover. Hope can make you believe we will travel through space and perhaps inhabit other planets one day. Hope is the stuff of dreams.
Hope is the stuff of basic survival too.
The comeback is sweeter. I’d be nothing without broken dreams and falling flat on my face. When mental illness took the air out of my lungs and made me feel like I was choking on life, thinking of the comeback helped.
The image I used to have was odd. I could see myself standing over my bloody body that was lying on the ground due to a severe fall caused by the mind. I could see myself holding out my hand to the man on the ground. This is what comebacks can look like; you can imagine your future self giving a hand to your present self.
It’s on the comeback trail that you learn all the hard lessons you were not open to learning during the good times. The good times can make us delusional. The good times can force you to prioritize dumb stuff: work, money, Lambos, successful people who act like assholes, etc.
The comeback teaches you what is real, and what is fake. Most of what you see during the good times is fake. You see fake people who pretend to be happy and achieve all their goals. The reality, behind the scenes, is never like the fantasy you see on social media.
You can literally come back from anything. When you do, your life changes and you discover something special: you can help people who suffered from the same downfall. In the process of helping others who fall, you might just change your life. Or discover a meaning for your life.
Do This If You Have Fallen Down
Help a human who has fallen down, just like you.
Show the world what you’re capable of. Show the world your soul. Show strangers your heart. Don’t let these unforgettable times in human history break you. Let the unforgettable times make you.
You can be anything you want after you fall.
- Take each day at a time.
- Prioritize stress-relief activities like naps, movies, and phone calls.
- Switch off the news. You’ve got enough bad news in your life.
- See your future self having survived these tough times.
- Find a way to teleport out of your mind and into the mind of a person who needs even more help than you. In someone else’s suffering you will find the keys to unlock your own problem.
The world is pivoting like a startup. Old paradigms are being destroyed. Those who want the world to stay the same are being told to sit down and shut up — by a gosh damn virus.
There is light after darkness.
Stay sane. Be patient. Document these unforgettable times. Save yourself; save others. Be generous to people doing it tough because you could be them.
You may fall down but you will definitely rise bigger and brighter after the unforgettable storm passes.
