While searching for the right email address to request an extension for my mother’s taxes, I stumbled across my Sunday email from March 15, 2020. I had sent it to my CPA and he had written back, asking permission to forward it to his office.
It was a good message for then and it’s a good message for now.
Because of things that are swirling—coronavirus and financial markets—I want to interrupt our series on finding our True Selves and go elsewhere.
We learned in US history class that when the stock market crashed in 1929, some people chose to exit. We heard stories of stockbrokers jumping from office windows.
My great-grandfather was one of those people.
He wasn’t a stockbroker, he was the president of the First National Bank of Schuyler, Nebraska. He was the richest man in the biggest house in a small farming community.
I saw the house once. It reminded me of the Wizard of Oz and the house that fell out of the sky and landed on a witch. Not because of the style or condition of the house, but because of the impression it gave.
My great-grandfather’s house was large and white and two stories tall, with four fluted columns holding up an imposing, embellished pediment. It gave the same impression as the Wizard of Oz house—as if it had fallen from the sky and landed in the wrong place, among a crowd of neighbors half its size.
In 1929, if you had money in one of my great-grandfather’s five banks—you lost it.
All of it.
All of it.
As a result, my great-grandfather went from being the richest man in town to, in my father’s words, ‘the town pariah.’
There were many courses of action my great-grandfather could have taken, but he chose the one that left him without subsequent actions.
I don’t judge him for this, having had my own boxing matches with thoughts of exit. But I take measure of the impact of his decision.
The role of money in his family before he killed himself is a mystery, but I have a sense of what it became after—an object of irrational fear and desire, which led to harmful frugality and excess.
My great-grandfather’s daughter, my grandmother, pregnant with her first child, saved money on medical expenses by seeing a relative who claimed doctoring skills but wasn’t a doctor. Thanks to the mangling of my uncle’s skull during birth, he arrived brain-damaged.
My father, born second, received the benefits of a real doctor and a normal head.
Based on how my father lived, I believe he felt both relieved and guilty. He alternately obsessed over money and spent it lavishly. After inheriting $1.6 million dollars (equivalent to about $5.1 million today) from his brain-damaged brother who died at 55, Dad was almost out of money when he died thirty years later.
I wonder if my uncle’s brain and my father’s seductive|destructive relationship with money would have happened if my great-grandfather hadn’t chosen to end his life. I don’t know.
What I do know is that, whether you are warned about a virus or a stock market or both, worry is not a helpful response.
Worry and fear are not automatic.
Worry and fear are a choice.
When the Twin Towers fell in 2001, I didn’t worry. I missed it. My mind was occupied. I was out of the country, in a place where I could see the US news for only about ten minutes each day. At the time, I felt cut off. In hindsight, it was a gift.
When the stock market sunk in 2008, I didn’t worry. I missed it. My mind was occupied. I had been on the road for client work, came home to a husband in the process of leaving the planet, and didn’t turn on a TV or a computer until several weeks later.
When I eventually saw the evening news and the newscaster quoted the S&P 500 and NASDQ closing values, I assumed he’d made a mistake. A couple of days later, after realizing the mistake was mine, I felt stupid for not being more in touch. I felt irresponsible for being so distracted. In hindsight, it was a gift.
Now, in 2020, I am not out of the country, I am not grieving. Nothing is pulling me from the news. There is nothing occupying my mind other than what I put into my mind.
I can change what I put into my mind.
After I have done whatever I can do, after I have exercised my agency within my circle of influence and there is nothing more to do about whatever I am worried about, I have a choice about what I do next.
I have been swinging between obsession with the swirl and thinking about other things.
After a few days of swinging, I’ve noticed that thinking about other things feels better, so that’s what I’m doing now.
Each morning I read a page from Thich Nhat Hanh’s Your True Home. The entries are numbered, there is one for each day of the year.
On February 28th, the 59th day of the year, I read entry 59:
Children of the Earth. We are children of the earth. We rely on the earth and the earth relies on us. Whether the earth is beautiful, fresh, and green, or arid and parched, depends on our way of walking. Please touch the earth in mindfulness, with joy and concentration. The earth will heal you, and you will heal the earth. Thich Nhat Hanh
I have long believed that the earth heals me. I have never thought I might heal the earth.
So, if you are feeling worried or fearful, here’s something you might try…
Step away from the screen. Put down the phone. Walk away from email and your news feed.
Go outside if you can get outside. If not, look out a window.
Assess the conditions:
⏤ Is the sun still in the sky or has it fallen into the ocean, and daylight has disappeared from the earth forever?
⏤ Is there still ground under our feet and under the feet of our buildings, or has it turned to dust and blown away, blowing everything and all of us away with it?
⏤ Is there still air to breathe or has oxygen turned to steel, with nothing to give?
Let the earth heal you.
Bonus points: Consider how you may be healing the earth. Consider what matters to you, what your heart holds most dear. Consider, and enjoy considering.
Come out of your considering and do something—something useful, something you enjoy—something that will occupy your mind.
Chewing the Cud of Good
Thankful for a heart that beats.
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