"I think it's overblown and will be mostly over in a month,On March 12, 2019, I texted the same friend with a link to a news story where the governor of California, Gavin Newsom tells people to cancel, postpone events of more than 250 people.
but I've been wrong before trying to predict the future."
"I never thought I'd be proven wrong so quickly"Soon I was working from home, and plotting the daily growth in cases. At first the data was upsetting when I projected the exponential growth forward. Last week I expected 1 million cases by this week and today my prediction proved accurate. I expect 1 million deaths by the end of the month. Although upsetting, I have had to adopt a pandemic mindset.
This is hard due to the concept "regression towards the mean" that has us conditioned to expect things to eventually improve. A down market recovers. Bad weather passes. I basically have seen this "regression" mindset pervade until something clicks and the person adopts the pandemic mindset.
I give everyone a pass that has been or still hasn't yet adopted the pandemic mindset.We all refuse to accept it at first. Everyone has their reason for waiting. But the pandemic will continue to grow exponentially until it can't be denied or ignored. It will continue for weeks, months, maybe years. Eventually, we WILL have "regression towards the mean" where things return to normal. It may be one year or many. Most likely it will be longer than we expect due to our biases.
Meanwhile, I'm thankful that our governor, president and much of the public have adopted the pandemic mindset. I'm watching Brazil carefully because their president still hasn't adopted the mindset.
Coping with a Pandemic Mindset
How do you cope after adopting the pandemic mindset? For me, I'm learning about secular Buddhism. There is suffering in the world. One cause of suffering is us trying to avoid suffering. We can end the suffering. I can't concern myself with worldwide suffering. Even more, I need to be aware of any suffering I am causing myself by my thoughts. Recently I learned about meditation using the method R.A.I.N (Recognize, Accept, Investigate, Non-identify). This is how it works. You sit quietly and try to quiet your mind. When a thought, emotion, feeling distracts you, you recognize it. Then you accept that you are experiencing it and don't try to fight it. Then you investigate. What part of your body is experiencing it? What part of your body released the hormones to drive the emotion? What experience triggered the response? Are your thoughts accurate? Finally, you realize that these things are external to you and not you. Your adrenal gland secreting adrenaline was not commanded by you. The external triggers weren't requested by you. Don't identify with it.If we take the time to look at how we see things, then the way we see things changesI can't control the pandemic. I can only control my thoughts and actions: how I spend my time, how I treat those around me, how I communicate with others. And I can do it in a way that reduces suffering for anyone or thing in my realm of influence.
I believe that this is an opportunity for our culture to evolve in positive ways.