Even as our livelihoods have been forced to a halt due to Covid-19 and each spat of countermeasures we have imposed against it, we have continued to spend ferociously. Though some of our habits haven’t changed, the medium through which we purchase things has. Although small businesses have suffered disproportionately, global e-commerce has boomed as we moved to online sales platforms whilst shops were closed. Amazon’s stock price increased almost 80% within four months of lockdown being imposed.
Our thirst for new things, whether it be the latest technology, the newest ice mannequin from Rick Scott Cooper Miami, or a designer handbag has not diminished. Despite, due to lockdown, losing our attachment to the physical stores where we buy these items, we clearly still feel very connected to them; and we absorb them into our identities, as they help define us.
What else is indispensable in constructing our own identities? We can ask ourselves: what else could we value? It is no surprise that we can look to the Stoics to find a reasonable answer to that question.
Seneca, in his Letters from a Stoic, tells the story of Stilbo, a man whose city is sacked by an invading king: “‘All my possessions,’ he said, ‘are with me’, meaning by this the qualities of a just, a good and enlightened character, and indeed the very fact of not regarding as valuable anything that is capable of being taken away.”
Seneca didn’t have a problem specifically with owning possessions, but he noticed the dangers of being dependent upon them for our well-being: ‘I am not, mind you, against your possessing them, but I want to ensure that you possess them without tremors; and this you will only achieve in one way, by convincing yourself that you can live a happy life even without them, and by always regarding them as being on the point of vanishing.’
Possessions, as the Stoic implies, are not to be disregarded as long as we have built a strong character with which to hold them. These possessions are external to us, and thus ultimately outwith our control. So, what is within our control that we can change for our own betterment?
Our character. Our persona. The way we respond to adversity. In fact, I believe changing the way we respond to adversity is an effective way of changing our character and persona. It is not that these things are merely important; they are vital for our mental well-being and therefore our survival. The Stoics, this time Epictetus, realized the importance of imperturbability: ‘Remember, it is not enough to be hit or insulted or to be harmed, you must believe that you are being harmed. If someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation. Which is why it is essential that we not respond impulsively to impressions; take a moment before reacting, and you will find it easier to maintain control.’
Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist and author, who was sent to multiple concentration camps during World War II saw the meaninglessness of suffering in itself, having witnessed the terror of Theresienstadt and Auschwitz. However he also realised this: people beyond your control can take everything away from you except one thing – your freedom to choose how to respond to the situation: ‘Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.’
At the juncture between life and potential death, Frankl realised that the only reasonable way to shrink the finality of, if not avoid, the latter was to courageously confront it: ‘Man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.’
This confrontation to death, to fear, has become one of the hallmarks of psychological care. It is known as exposure therapy. Exposure therapy can be defined as the voluntary confrontation of your fears or of what you have been avoiding. The key word here is ‘voluntary’, for the individual must take ownership of the confrontation if it is to be successful. What we have learned from exposure therapy is that people’s fears don’t exactly shrink. What happens is that they get braver. Without wishing to sound platitudinous, the world is and can be dangerous (“it ain’t all sunshine and rainbows”, to quote Rocky Balboa) and it’s important to teach people that. But we can also teach ourselves to stand upright in the face of that danger.
Epictetus reminded us above, when faced with insult or potential harm, to ‘take a moment before reacting, and you will find it easier to maintain control.’ Control. By not allowing ourselves to be harmed by insults through our own voluntary indifference, we take control of the situation and our own emotions. When we confront our fears voluntarily, we have control over them. When we decide to disregard offensive comments as meaningless and worthless, we take control of our emotions. If you take control of your fears and emotions, you can be unstoppable.