Name: How to Cope If the Worst Came to the Worst..
Uploaded: 2018-06-05T07:31:34.000Z
Duration: 5 min 25 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Adverbs of degree

In the background, many of us are terrified
of so much – disgrace, illness, sacking,

our mortality, the suffering and death of
loved ones… When these fears come up, we

Basic passive voice

are often encouraged, out of kindness, to
think of the best-case scenarios. It's a

well-meaning move, but it also – unintentionally
– leaves our fears to fester; they fill

us with unnamed dread and sometimes loom far
larger than they should. So an opposite move

– displayed here – involves looking our
anxieties directly in the eye, refusing to

be cowed by them and examining them in exhaustive
detail so as to drain them of their debilitating

power. Doing so is liable to bring us to an
important realisation: we could cope – even

if the worst came to the worst… What follows
are some invitations to meditate on scary

things, not in order to depress us, but to
lend us a buoyant, optimistic sense of our

resilience and adaptability. If the worst
came to the worst…

…I would learn I had far fewer friends – but
the ones that remained would be the true ones;

the ones who could see past my (ruined) social
status to the genuine me beneath. If the worst

came to the worst… it would no longer be an option to follow

the safe, respectable, prestigious path. With
far less left to lose, I would at last be

granted the opportunity to explore the riskier,
yet more fulfilling occupations I had always

somewhere hankered for but been too socially-anxious
to try. If the worst came to the worst…

…I would learn to measure my self-worth

by my own standards rather than the whims
and applause of the crowd. I would grow a

sense of self independent of the verdicts
of others. If the worst came to the worst…

…I would look with new admiration and humility

at the unhurried calm, natural stoicism and
resilience of animals. If the worst came to

the worst…I would learn to contemplate my sorrows

from the vantage point of a distant nebula
and would recognise my life as the petty and

insignificant thing it truly is and always
was. If the worst came to the worst…

…I would develop appropriate gratitude
for every apparently minor thing – and every

day that unfolded without further catastrophe
would be recognised as the blessing it truly

is. If the worst came to the worst …I would understand that life was

not something that could ever be moulded into
a wholly flawless and error-free entity – but

is an always imperfect, necessarily wonky
cobbled-together construction, full of marks

and blemishes – which nevertheless possess
their own beauty and dignity. If the worst

came to the worst
…I would learn to distinguish between what

is really serious and worth lamenting and
what is only ever a passing nuisance. I would,

in so many situations, be infinitely calmer.
If the worst came to the worst

…my failure would embolden others to share
stories of their own sadness, confusion and

humilliation and we would, together, face up to the suffering we so often, currently, unfairly, endure alone.

If the worst came to the worst… I would see that the struggle for fame,

money and success was only ever a doomed attempt
to compensate for an unconditional love that

was longed for but denied in childhood. Worldly
craving would give way to melancholy and mourning.

to the worst … I'd cease
to be so scared of looking within – and

might, perhaps, one day give psychotherapy
a go.

If the worst came to the worst
…I would play the saddest songs that have

been waiting, in the wings, for me all this
time.

…truly the worst, then all the rage, grief,
anxiety and fear would be at an end – and

we would, at last, as the prayers so beautifully
put it, be at peace. Our cheerful despair

badge serves as an elegant reminder of the
art of cheerful despair during hard times.

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