It’s Only Heavy if You Pick it Up

Heavy

We’re now a few weeks into the American-wing of the Coronavirus. New York is already feeling the effects of overcrowded hospitals and healthcare workers on the front lines are reporting how dire the situation really is. We seem helpless to stop the overcrowding from reaching every major city. To say our collective hearts and minds are heavy is an enormous understatement.

Over three million people applied for unemployment in the first week of the Coronavirus lockdown—a record that dwarfs any other week in American history—and the stock market fell over 30% in like two days. Many people lost their jobs, their retirement, and a loved one in the span of a week.

Suffice to say, anxiety over the future seems to be at an all-time high.

We recently listened to a Tim Ferriss Podcast with Jack Kornfield. Jack is an author and trained Buddhist monk. He was one of the key teachers to introduce mindfulness to the west. It was a great episode and gave us a lot of helpful ways to cope, both emotionally and physically, with the pandemic.

Full Episode Here.

Although the entire episode was great, one story stuck out to me and lodged itself in my brain. It was when Jack told the story of the monks and the giant boulder. This is a classic Buddhist parable so you may have heard some version of it before.

The Monks and the Giant Boulder

The story goes like this: An old monk and his two disciples were walking through a field when they came across a giant boulder. The old monk asked the two disciples, “Is this boulder heavy?” “What?” They replied, not sure if the monk was serious. Again he asked, “Is this boulder heavy?” The two monks looked at each other then looked back at the old monk and said, “Yeah. It’s very, very heavy.” The old monk smiled and replied, “Only if you pick it up.”

With the fear and anxiety that’s been surrounding our entire planet these last several weeks, this story hit me like a train. It’s only heavy if you pick it up. This has become a mantra in our house. We’re constantly tempted to imagine the worst-case scenario unfolding before us with very little we can do to protect ourselves.

Our healthcare workers are woefully unprepared to face this pandemic. Mrs. Burrito Bowl is a nurse who could very likely be tasked with joining the front lines in the fight against Covid-19. She and her colleagues will be outnumbered and largely unprotected.

Our tiny apartment has no place for her to isolate herself from us. With an incubation period of up to two weeks before symptoms show up, we’re not sure what, if anything, we can do to protect our baby.

There are millions of people in this country living out this exact same predicament. Spend a few minutes on social media and it’s clear we’re not the only ones feeling anxious. Anxiety is helpful in that it gets you to prepare. Once you’re as prepared as you can be anxiety becomes wasted energy.

It’s only heavy if you pick it up.

The Coronavirus is a giant boulder of uncertainty in each of our lives. But, you don’t have to pick that boulder up. You can just let it be.

I’m not advocating for pretending the Coronavirus doesn’t exist. I think we should be following the guidelines of the CDC. Shelter in place. Don’t go around visiting friends or living life like normal. It’s incredibly important that we do our best to flatten the curve so our hospitals don’t get overrun.

Once you’ve down everything you can do to prepare, it’s okay to let it be. This boulder of uncertainty isn’t yours to pick up and you can’t pick it up no matter how hard you try. Any attempt to move the boulder is wasted energy.

Right now everything is fine. At this moment, Baby Burrito Bowl is sleeping peacefully and Mrs. Burrito Bowl is knitting while reliving her childhood through Dinsey+. I just had a strong cup of coffee with coconut cream and cinnamon. When I take a step back I can see this is just about as perfect of a moment as I could imagine.

We’re safe, we’re healthy, we have caffeine. We’re well stocked up on food and could easily lock our doors to the outside world for a couple of months if we had to. For the last several years we’ve saved as much money as we could. We weren’t planning on a global pandemic, but now that one’s here we can breathe a little easier knowing we’re as prepared as we possibly could be.

Despite all that, it’s an incredibly anxious time for us.

Mrs. Burrito Bowl is terrified she’ll bring the virus home. While unlikely, the odds of Covid-19 killing someone very close to me is not zero. The odds are not zero for you, either.

The fracturing of families is a reality many are facing. It’s very likely someone in your circle won’t see the other side of this pandemic. Every person on the planet has this in the back of their mind to some degree. There’s nothing we can do to move this boulder.

Our choice is to either a) dwell on the worst-case scenario or b) prepare as much as possible and then just let the boulder sit.

It’s only heavy if you pick it up.

If you’re looking for some practical tips to help during this time of social isolation I wrote an article about what I’m doing to keep from losing my mind. Maybe it will help you. 

Here are a few more articles about mindfulness if you like that sort of thing.

The Day After You Die

Gratitude and a Lukewarm Shower

Being There- How to Enjoy the Now

Author: MrBurritoBowl

Mr. Burrito Bowl is a 34-year-old man from Whitefish, Montana who likes to draw stick figures and say things that sometimes relate to finances, but not always.

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