Don't Panic ： Lessons from the Lost Ring (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_755).
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
162.01791
Summary
A few years ago, my wife and I spent a day visiting her family near a deep water lake. On our way home, we stopped for coffee. As I walked into the coffee shop, my heart sank. I had lost my wedding ring.
Transcript
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I want to tell you about my adventure with a ring and how it taught me some valuable lessons about
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life. A few years ago, my wife and I spent a day visiting my wife's brother and parents. Her brother
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lives by a beautiful deep water lake and her parents live by a river not far away. We had a
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great time hiking, swimming, and just relaxing. On our way home, we stopped for coffee. As I walked
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into the coffee shop, my heart sank. I lost my wedding ring, I told my wife. I held up my bare
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finger. Now she was as upset as I was. My wife and I love each other very much and our wedding bands,
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each with a personal inscription, symbolize our bond. And now the chances of ever seeing my ring
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again, given how active we had been, looked exceedingly grim. The easiest thing to do at this
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point would have been to give up and accept the reality that the ring was lost forever. My wife
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and I decided otherwise. First lesson, never panic. Stay calm and in that state of calm, figure out a
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plan. There's almost always a solution to your problem. And even if there's not, just the process
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of putting together a plan will settle your nerves, while panic never works. We began by combing through
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the photos and video clips we'd taken to see if we could narrow the timeline. The first piece of
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good news was that we found the photo taken after my lake swim and my ring was still on my hand. This
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was a gigantic statistical victory. At least we knew that the ring was not irretrievably lost in a deep
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water lake. We proceeded to look at the photos and videos taken at my in-laws' chalet to hopefully rule
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out the possibility that it was lost in the river. The river's current is so strong that it serves as a
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sort of swimming treadmill. If you swim against the current, you end up staying pretty much in one spot.
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This is precisely what I was doing in several video clips, one of which captured the exact crawl stroke
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at which I lost my ring. But this was hardly a time to rejoice. The riverbed is littered with rocks
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and boulders and the current as noted is strong. Finding the lost ring remained a nearly impossible
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task. We resolved to return to the scene of the crime. Prior to doing so, I realized that we needed
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to answer a crucial hydraulic question. How would a ring of that weight and size behave in the current?
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We tied a test ring to a piece of string and dropped it into the river. To our relief, the ring rapidly
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sank at the spot that it was released. It was now quite conceivable that my wedding ring was somewhere
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within a five foot by five foot square area. Second lesson, think like a scientist. You don't have to be
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a scientist to think like one. Employ the scientific method, reason, logic, and evidence-based thinking
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when navigating through life. All three are always available to us. Our hydraulic experiment allowed us to
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reduce the search space to a small area. Still, the likelihood of finding the ring in such a cluttered
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riverbed at a depth of five or six feet was minimal. Wearing goggles, I began the arduous process of diving
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into the water to cover every possible nook and cranny. About 20 minutes into the process, I saw a shiny
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light coming from a crevice between two rocks. I dove to the bottom and to my utter disbelief emerged
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out of the water with my wedding ring in my hand. Third lesson, your spouse is your best resource.
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One of the joys and benefits of marriage is that you have someone who can help you think through
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problems. If you and your spouse are a good team, you'll have a much better chance of navigating through
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many of the vicissitudes of life. My wife had the clever idea of going through our photos,
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whereas I suggested the hydraulic experiment. Our collective brain power was greater than the sum
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of our individual parts. Fourth lesson, hold on to hope. Hope is truly an elixir of life. Difficult challenges
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are a given. A hopeful mindset is a valuable tool when these challenges invariably show up. The likelihood
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of finding the ring was close to zero, and yet my wife and I persisted in our belief that the problem
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could be solved. We never lost hope. Fifth and final lesson, no one can solve every problem or find
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every lost ring. But this I can guarantee you, if you look for lost rings and use these lessons,
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you will find some of them. But if you don't look, you won't find any. I'm Gadsad, Professor of Marketing
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at Concordia University, an author of The Sad Truth About Happiness for Prager University.
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