A short spoken reflection (YouTube video) on pervasive discouragement across North America over the past three years, exploring resilience and the idea that suffering and struggle are persistent parts of life, with a contemplative nod to Buddhist thought about accepting and managing hardship.
If I had to give it one word, the central feeling in all of North America for the last three years, it'd be discouraged. The big changes happened. We thought we could change with it. We found out it's hard to be resilient. We're discouraged. We're discouraged because we want to be active. We want to change the world. All these expectations we have and it's still hard on a Monday. What happened? Nothing. That's life. The struggle doesn't go away. I read a bunch of Buddhism when I was in high school. Oh, this is really fascinating to think that suffering and struggle is kind of just a part of it. And life is really about how well do I deal with that period. That's a profound idea that it's just going to be there. The noise is going to be there, the struggle is going to be there, the losses are going to be there, the fails are going to be there. And now how do you deal with it?
