The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - Don't Panic ： Lessons from the Lost Ring (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_755).

00:00:00.000 I want to tell you about my adventure with a ring and how it taught me some valuable lessons about

00:00:07.420 life. A few years ago, my wife and I spent a day visiting my wife's brother and parents. Her brother

00:00:14.180 lives by a beautiful deep water lake and her parents live by a river not far away. We had a

00:00:20.300 great time hiking, swimming, and just relaxing. On our way home, we stopped for coffee. As I walked

00:00:27.220 into the coffee shop, my heart sank. I lost my wedding ring, I told my wife. I held up my bare

00:00:34.180 finger. Now she was as upset as I was. My wife and I love each other very much and our wedding bands,

00:00:41.440 each with a personal inscription, symbolize our bond. And now the chances of ever seeing my ring

00:00:47.980 again, given how active we had been, looked exceedingly grim. The easiest thing to do at this

00:00:54.520 point would have been to give up and accept the reality that the ring was lost forever. My wife 0.69

00:01:00.800 and I decided otherwise. First lesson, never panic. Stay calm and in that state of calm, figure out a

00:01:09.860 plan. There's almost always a solution to your problem. And even if there's not, just the process

00:01:16.700 of putting together a plan will settle your nerves, while panic never works. We began by combing through

00:01:23.920 the photos and video clips we'd taken to see if we could narrow the timeline. The first piece of

00:01:30.200 good news was that we found the photo taken after my lake swim and my ring was still on my hand. This

00:01:36.740 was a gigantic statistical victory. At least we knew that the ring was not irretrievably lost in a deep

00:01:43.780 water lake. We proceeded to look at the photos and videos taken at my in-laws' chalet to hopefully rule

00:01:50.200 out the possibility that it was lost in the river. The river's current is so strong that it serves as a

00:01:56.680 sort of swimming treadmill. If you swim against the current, you end up staying pretty much in one spot.

00:02:02.780 This is precisely what I was doing in several video clips, one of which captured the exact crawl stroke

00:02:09.760 at which I lost my ring. But this was hardly a time to rejoice. The riverbed is littered with rocks

00:02:16.700 and boulders and the current as noted is strong. Finding the lost ring remained a nearly impossible

00:02:23.720 task. We resolved to return to the scene of the crime. Prior to doing so, I realized that we needed

00:02:30.020 to answer a crucial hydraulic question. How would a ring of that weight and size behave in the current?

00:02:37.060 We tied a test ring to a piece of string and dropped it into the river. To our relief, the ring rapidly

00:02:43.920 sank at the spot that it was released. It was now quite conceivable that my wedding ring was somewhere

00:02:50.220 within a five foot by five foot square area. Second lesson, think like a scientist. You don't have to be

00:02:58.100 a scientist to think like one. Employ the scientific method, reason, logic, and evidence-based thinking

00:03:05.400 when navigating through life. All three are always available to us. Our hydraulic experiment allowed us to

00:03:13.080 reduce the search space to a small area. Still, the likelihood of finding the ring in such a cluttered

00:03:20.080 riverbed at a depth of five or six feet was minimal. Wearing goggles, I began the arduous process of diving

00:03:27.880 into the water to cover every possible nook and cranny. About 20 minutes into the process, I saw a shiny

00:03:35.820 light coming from a crevice between two rocks. I dove to the bottom and to my utter disbelief emerged

00:03:43.140 out of the water with my wedding ring in my hand. Third lesson, your spouse is your best resource.

00:03:50.700 One of the joys and benefits of marriage is that you have someone who can help you think through

00:03:56.440 problems. If you and your spouse are a good team, you'll have a much better chance of navigating through

00:04:02.660 many of the vicissitudes of life. My wife had the clever idea of going through our photos,

00:04:08.920 whereas I suggested the hydraulic experiment. Our collective brain power was greater than the sum

00:04:15.360 of our individual parts. Fourth lesson, hold on to hope. Hope is truly an elixir of life. Difficult challenges

00:04:24.480 are a given. A hopeful mindset is a valuable tool when these challenges invariably show up. The likelihood

00:04:32.220 of finding the ring was close to zero, and yet my wife and I persisted in our belief that the problem

00:04:39.020 could be solved. We never lost hope. Fifth and final lesson, no one can solve every problem or find

00:04:46.980 every lost ring. But this I can guarantee you, if you look for lost rings and use these lessons,

00:04:54.160 you will find some of them. But if you don't look, you won't find any. I'm Gadsad, Professor of Marketing

00:05:01.360 at Concordia University, an author of The Sad Truth About Happiness for Prager University.

00:05:08.160 Thank you for watching this video. To keep PragerU videos free, please consider making a tax-deductible donation.

The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - November 17, 2024

Don't Panic ： Lessons from the Lost Ring (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_755).

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