Getting Over It

The day after Christmas is always an anti-climax. In fact, Christmas itself is usually an anti-climax—even before this weird year of social and familial distancing. What can live up to all the hype—the gloss and glitter that comes before this magical day? If your spouse doesn’t pull back the curtains to reveal the black muscular jeep you’ve been longing for or doesn’t produce the diamond necklace of your dreams—whatever else comes is a letdown that one tries to bravely meet with a smile and positive attitude. I suppose that even the Jeeps and Jaguars, diamond necklaces and tiaras that are given are not enough either. Or they are enough for a brief moment, then the brief flood of serotonin recedes and we’re left once again on the arid beaches of everyday life.

For a wonderful illustration of this, I’ve especially enjoyed watching ‘The Crown’, a ‘based-on-real-life’ Netflix drama about England’s royal family through the long reign of the current Queen. Beautifully filmed in sumptuous interiors and casually fantastic cars and castles the series gives a palpable sense of the fantastic pressures of public scrutiny and the hollowness of the consequent human relationships. (Spoiler alert) The Royal family is not a happy family. Apparently even being married to a beautiful princess and having scores of gardeners at your beck and call is not enough to satisfy.

I turns out that all the things we think will make us happy, don’t really work. The possessions, the positions, even the relationships don’t save us from the ten thousand joys and sorrows of everyday life. This is ultimately good news. Because it means we can give up our grand dreams of how it, or we, or someone else should be and begin to work with and appreciate what is already here.

The ancient Greek Stoic philosophers clearly understood these issues and preached a brand of practical acceptance and enjoyment of life. One modern day adherent recently summarized this philosophy as ‘Do what you can, where you are, with what you’ve got.’ Sound advice for us all as it is pretty much our only option. Our sense of ease and freedom doesn’t come from having superpowers to control the kingdom (which even the Queen doesn’t have), but the gradual acceptance of how little is actually within our control.

One Stoic story that got passed down is about the philosopher who got in political trouble and was banished to a small barren island off the coast of Greece. The weather was good, but apparently the Internet was terrible and the local cuisine even worse. His devoted disciples would occasionally visit him to comfort him in his lonely exile. But he, in fact practices what he had taught and did what he could, with what he had, were he was and was quite content. He, the one who had lost everything, ended up being the one that comforted the students who had come to comfort him.

So here we are, back to sea level once again after the Christmas boondoggle or the Christmas non-event or whatever it was or wasn’t for you—back to everyday life. I find myself kind of relieved and curious about what comes next. I’m looking forward to this one weird week between Christmas and New Years. My goal for these days ahead is to be reasonably non-productive, to do some reflecting and writing. To do what I can, when I can, with what I’ve got.