QUESTION
Hi Ven. Robina,
I hope this finds you well and your activities unimpeded by current circumstances. Unfortunately here the situation is highly unstable and the outlook uncertain.
Apologies for taking so long getting in touch, but our organization, which as you know is huge, has been forced into a restructure and redundancy process due to budget cuts. As you can imagine, it’s an incredibly disruptive process during which, frankly, it’s very difficult to get anything done.
My colleagues and I would be grateful for any advice you might have about how to weather our current career storm. In particular we are keen to hear of any practice that might help us retain our positions, or at the very least, seeing we’ve lost our illusion of control, reconcile us to summarily being demoted or made redundant.
With all my best wishes and assurances that I remain a committed supporter for the continuation of your work,
A
ANSWER
So so nice to hear from you, dearest A. You’ve stayed very firmly in my mind all these years!
I can imagine how difficult things are for you right now. In a place as big as stable as your organiation, it must be scary to see jobs disappearing, things radically changing.
Buddhism makes a big deal about change, as you know. But it’s the reality of life, isn’t it? Buddha didn’t make it up! People die, husbands leave us, we get sacked, money runs out, we get sick — or coronavirus comes along and disrupts everything.
And things change for the better, too — but we don’t mind those kinds of changes!
We totally know that these things happen, but because we can’t stand the thought of it, we live in denial, we lull ourselves into believing that because things are going well today, they’ll be like that tomorrow. We all do it! So when something like this coronavirus comes along, it’s a wake up call.
We can see so clearly, don’t you think, that the extent to which we kind of cling to the notion that everything’s going nicely and it won’t change is the extent to which we’ll suffer when things do change.
So the learning is to realize this. If we really internalize this, we’re way more happy, less fearful, less controlling. This doesn’t mean we become fatalistic and just give up. No. Have long term plans, but know that things change — no contradiction.
And right now, realize that the seemingly bad changes can lead to good ones. Then, ironically, we’ll really feel we’re in charge, because no matter how bad things get, we will always find new ways, new things, new jobs, new opportunities.
Much love,
Robina