49 min
Tuesdays With Tashi: Help With Despair Over the State of the World—Buddhist Monk Tashi Nyima Help Existing
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- Self-Improvement
The world is a lot. It seems that everyone I talk to feels some sense of despair over the state of the world, an anxiety and general overwhelm that often bleeds into their feelings about their own lives as well. I think about the millennial saying of “can't even” — and I get it. But I also don’t want to identify with it. I want to be someone who can even. So I decided to start Help Existing for accountability and help with just that. I don't need to tell you how many things there are to worry about. Whether it's the assault on reproductive rights, climate change, institutionalized racism, war….the list of things to despair over goes on and on and on. First, a disclaimer: what follows are not suggestions about solving those problems on a structural scale. This is about how we, on a personal level, can deal with the very specific feeling of overwhelm over the fact that we can't fix everything — and never will. How can you hold that feeling without devolving into nihilism and hopelessness, overwhelming anxiety and despair? How can you be realistic while also taking care of yourself and being helpful?
I knew exactly who to ask. Monk Tashi Nyima, an ordained Buddhist monk who’s worked as an activist with some of the world's most vulnerable populations for decades, and who, as far as I can tell, never gets lost in despair. Tashi’s someone who's helped me on a personal level incredibly since I met him. (If you read my memoir, Open, you'll recognize him as the monk from the end who I talk about non-monogamy and non-attachment with.)
What follows are Tashi’s warm and practical suggestions about what we can do to cultivate a sense of calm and generosity within ourselves. They are aimed at helping us think about our interconnectedness, our gratitude, and our skills in a way that gives us hope and energy to be helpful in the best way we can.
And please, if you have any suggestions of your own, please slide into my DMs on Twitter and Instagram to let me know. We’re all in this together (in fact, that’s kind of the whole point of this advice).
The world is a lot. It seems that everyone I talk to feels some sense of despair over the state of the world, an anxiety and general overwhelm that often bleeds into their feelings about their own lives as well. I think about the millennial saying of “can't even” — and I get it. But I also don’t want to identify with it. I want to be someone who can even. So I decided to start Help Existing for accountability and help with just that. I don't need to tell you how many things there are to worry about. Whether it's the assault on reproductive rights, climate change, institutionalized racism, war….the list of things to despair over goes on and on and on. First, a disclaimer: what follows are not suggestions about solving those problems on a structural scale. This is about how we, on a personal level, can deal with the very specific feeling of overwhelm over the fact that we can't fix everything — and never will. How can you hold that feeling without devolving into nihilism and hopelessness, overwhelming anxiety and despair? How can you be realistic while also taking care of yourself and being helpful?
I knew exactly who to ask. Monk Tashi Nyima, an ordained Buddhist monk who’s worked as an activist with some of the world's most vulnerable populations for decades, and who, as far as I can tell, never gets lost in despair. Tashi’s someone who's helped me on a personal level incredibly since I met him. (If you read my memoir, Open, you'll recognize him as the monk from the end who I talk about non-monogamy and non-attachment with.)
What follows are Tashi’s warm and practical suggestions about what we can do to cultivate a sense of calm and generosity within ourselves. They are aimed at helping us think about our interconnectedness, our gratitude, and our skills in a way that gives us hope and energy to be helpful in the best way we can.
And please, if you have any suggestions of your own, please slide into my DMs on Twitter and Instagram to let me know. We’re all in this together (in fact, that’s kind of the whole point of this advice).
49 min