Compulsory shut downs 

Within the past few days, the French government announced the closing of all schools, restaurants, and all places of social and cultural gathering, as well as full isolation at home for the population. Companies that can are implementing distance working, and those who can’t are exploring temporary unemployment measures. 

Easy to give in to fear and panic 

With the COVID-19 pandemic spreading and governments taking drastic measures to contain it, it is tempting to give in to fear, panic, and paranoia. Now is the time to make good use of our philosophy and of our ruling capacity: our judgement. 

Sound judgment is not easy 

But exercising sound judgment is not easy. A few days back, I was taking the crisis lightly, thinking the media was blowing things out of proportion. I even felt proud to say I wasn’t over-reacting. But President Macron’s announcement of schools closing down came as a shock. 

After a day of panic—between fear of the virus itself, feeling anxious at having the children at home for 5 weeks and wondering how long we could survive with no incoming money from clients—I decided this was perfect Stoic training. 

The big Stoic challenge 

Apart from the legitimate concern for the health of the population, and the social and economic consequences, this confinement raises a big challenge for busy people such as I: dealing with ourselves. 

With no work to go to, no external leisure to fill our lives, the requirement to minimize short- and long-distance travelling, we will have to rediscover how to feel content with a situation we have not chosen but against which we can do nothing. 

We waste so much of our time 

Reading Seneca’s On the Shortness of Life proved the most helpful thing to do. Seneca explains: 

It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. (…) when it is squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no good end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we perceive that it has passed away before we are aware that it is passing. So it is—the life we receive is not short, but we make it so. 

Seneca, On the Shortness of Life, 

The pandemic as a wakeup call 

The pandemic should be a wakeup call for all of us, on an individual and collective basis. I understood that I could take the next five (maybe ten?) weeks as a great opportunity to prolong my life by not wasting it. 

It’s certainly about what I do—how I decide to use my time—as much as about how I do it—the attention I give to each moment, however small it may be, the love and care I put into what I say. On a collective level, in the light of climate change and overconsumption concerns, this is also the opportunity to test joyful frugality. We didn’t create the opportunity, but here it is. 

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Flora Bernard co-founded the Paris-based philosophy agency, Thae, in 2013. Flora now works to help organisations give meaning to what they do. 

 

 

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