When the Plan Goes Underwater

Dear friend,

Last weekend, Bangkok flooded.

More than 12 inches of rain fell in parts of the city over the course of two days (about three months’ worth of rain in New York City). And coincidentally, that happened to be the exact weekend I decided to fly down from Chiang Mai.

Getting into the city Friday night was an adventure to say the least. We spent two hours at the airport trying to get a taxi, and when we finally found a Grab driver willing to take us, he made it about halfway before pulling into a 7-Eleven and telling us he didn’t want to go any farther.

The water was already spraying up around the car, so I didn’t blame him.

We eventually made it to the hotel, around 4am.

Still, our night was nothing compared to what some people were dealing with. Homes and businesses flooded, roads became impassable, people had to figure out how to get to work, get home, or protect whatever they could from the water.

But walking around Bangkok over the weekend, I noticed something.

Amid the chaos, there were still people finding reasons to smile.

To laugh.

To joke around.

I can’t speak for the entire city, and I’m sure there were plenty of people who weren’t finding anything enjoyable about the situation. But everywhere I looked, people were figuring out ways to lighten the situation and make do with what they had.

There’s a phrase the Thais like to say:

“Mai pen rai.” (ไม่เป็นไร)

Usually it’s translated as “no worries,” but I don’t think that quite captures it. Mai pen rai is less “nothing is wrong” and more “well, this is what we’re dealing with now, so what else are we going to do?”

The road is flooded.

Fine.

The taxi can’t go any farther.

Fine.

You deal with what you can deal with, laugh when there’s something worth laughing about, and keep moving, because frankly, the water isn’t going to disappear just because you’re angry about it.

I’ve come to appreciate that about Thailand.

There are plenty of things in life you can plan for, optimize, worry about, and try to control. But when the flood hits, there’s not much more you can do than work with what you’ve got and keep moving forward.

So let me ask you this:

What in your life isn’t going according to plan now?

Maybe there’s something you can do to change it. Great. But sometimes the thing has already happened, and all that’s left is deciding how much more time you want to spend being annoyed that it happened.

That’s what Bangkok taught me last weekend.

Mai pen rai.

~ Joshua
Chiang Mai, Thailand 🇹🇭