By Marnie Ashbridge.
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Warning: the following reading touches on suicidal themes which may upset some readers.
As a teenager one day Simon Reeve found himself on a ledge contemplating the value of his life. Having left school with few qualifications and a track record of frequent run-ins with the police, he believed his future was bleak. In the end, he didn’t jump. Nothing particularly epiphanic stirred him to get down from the bridge and walk home; he simply decided to keep walking. One foot in front of the next. After a slow and arduous process and several job rejections, he landed an employment opportunity as a mailman in the Sunday Times. Now, Simon Reeves is an award-winning documentary maker, acclaimed writer and is happily married with a child. There was no watershed moment where life seized him by the reigns and forced him to evaluate the direction of his future. He just took things one step at a time.
Heraclitus told us that we can’t step in the same river twice. Not only will it change but so will we. Today, it feels as though the stream we stepped into a month ago has become a tempest sweeping us off our feet. A lot of what we understood about life and ourselves has been thrown up into the air, leaving us to mourn what could have been. Lost terms with friends, some of which would have been their last. Getting to grips with living away from home whilst balancing your work and social life. Mastering your degree, getting onto that hockey team, becoming president of that society or settling into a relationship. In this unprecedented time, everything feels uncertain. This summer term was when everything was meant to be figured out. The lack of control is extremely disconcerting. We are all on edge, not knowing what will come around the next river bend.
Since we are helpless to change the way the world is, we are forced instead to adjust our own approach to it. The little things can help us stay afloat. Psychologists often cite gratitude as an essential meditative tool. To take the minor gains: a warm spring evening, the company of your family, an interesting fact you come across in a book. Only now can we be acutely aware of all we have to be thankful for. Society often pressures us into thinking that we must pursue a grand life full of major accomplishments and goals: romantic love, perfect grades, changing the world and leading a fulfilled career. Social media, in particular, fuels this mentality. Every time we unlock our phones, we are bombarded with the fanciful idea that the grass could always be greener. We are constantly chasing a happiness that is just out of our grasp, forever desiring more instead of being content with what we have.
My mother repeatedly advises me that in times of uncertainty I should be asking for “serenity to accept the things I cannot change, knowledge to be aware of the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” As cringe-worthy sayings you print on your kitchen wall go, it’s no “live, love, laugh” but it’s fruitful, nonetheless.
Friedrich Hayek, a liberal philosopher of the twentieth century, wrote the following haiku:
Reason’s poverty
Man’s desire to control-
This road walks the serf.
To relieve some of the pain of not knowing what will happen next, we try to control the uncontrollable. But this leads only to frustration when our endeavours fail. It is the kind of arrogance the Greek Gods chastised people for, and we continue to be punished for it today as slaves to our desire for order in a meaningless world full of absurdities.
Forcing ourselves to leap over an abyss in order to achieve happiness typically only leaves us with disappointment upon falling. Like Lana Del Rey, the queen of melodrama and icon of the soppy love song, rightfully crooned “happiness is a butterfly.” The closer we feel we are to it the further away it appears to be. Whilst we still hold onto this mentality, we can never allow ourselves to be happy, we are stuck enduring the torture of bathing in regrets and yearning for what could have been. This is the key difference between happiness and contentment. Happiness will forever be a paradox, something we will perpetually aspire to have but never possess. Contentment, on the other hand, whilst less powerful, is long-lasting and most importantly achievable. For those waiting away these days restlessly, some serenity is much desired. Acceptance of what we cannot change is not only of value in the light of the challenge we are now facing but it can also be a rewarding mindset in our everyday lives. There will be ups and downs in the months to come and not every day will be easy. But patience is a virtue and, as we are unable to leap ahead to our imaginary futures, we may need to learn from Simon Reeves and take things one step at a time. Only then can we be truly content.
Edited by Izzy Tod
The Quarantine Times 