Stoic practices for unfortunate events
Background
In light of rapidly spreading recent events Japan is taking immediate action in order to quarantine and limit the outbreak of the virus. They are conducting these measures to ensure that the Olympics can still be held in Tokyo.
After all, because of this recent pandemic the streets on often crowded tourist areas are surprisingly sparse. They want to do whatever they can by summer in order to not forego the huge economic opportunity that is the Summer Olympics.
What does this have to do with me?
For starters a friend and I have tentative plans in place to visit all over Japan (Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima) this Spring. We intend to visit a friend and explore the city and culture over late March to April. Unfortunately it overlaps on the cusp of a possible spread of the virus.
Fortunately Japan’s culture known for its cleanliness and etiquette. Often you will find citizens wearing face masks not when they are sick but to avoid confrontation! However like in most areas this recent Coronavirus scare has caused a stir in the country. Civilians buying up, stocking up on supplies as if it were already a zombie apocalypse.
The real concern
Funny enough their reasoning was to buy up the necessities such as toilet paper because they believe that China is their main manufacturing of said goods. In reality many of their supplied are locally made. Hah. Well this irrational behaviour has influenced the policies of WHO and airlines across the world.
The worry between my friend and I is not that we will contract the disease – even if we do, we are young and able enough that we should be able to recover. *Knock on wood.
On the trip leg back we have the fear if the airlines detect that we have the disease, or a false positive test that we would be quarantined for a minimum of 2 more weeks! Coming back to our home country this would be reported so we would be detained for an additional 2 weeks. All this time lost would be a great inconvenience. Possibly a huge wage/job loss for my friend, that is his primary concern. Not to mention being detained in a foreign countries hospital would be an unpleasant experience.
Over the weekend of our trip planning there were too many thoughts of disaster and catastrophe.
We will have to be pragmatic and watch the news this week before making our final decisions of following through with our trip.
Bringing it back to Stoic teachings
The first have was a good example of planning for events which could go wrong. Ie: “Premeditatio Malorum” Meditating on evils. So they we will be mentally prepared for said events.
Also, it is a practice of accepting things for what they are. Something like this is beyond our control, but we do have control over our thoughts and actions. If we do decide to cancel, we would know ahead to cancel and refund back our money. We won’t get back our time and effort spent on the planning, but we come to terms that these things are objective and inevitable.
On the flip side with so much disaster planning and negative thinking I want to put forth a different perspective on reflecting and meditating – Meditating on the chance things go well.
There are two cases where things can work out positively:
- The virus blows over or the public’s sentiment towards it settles and we can continue with our vacation.
- We proceed to cancel our trip but use this time and opportunity to do something else.
Now 1) would be the best case, while for some people 2 wouldn’t even be considered a positive.
Brainstorming of everything going well with 1.
- Streets will be empty, allowing room and peace to set our own pace for travelling
- Tourist areas will be empty, more for us to enjoy
- This will be a unique travel experience
- Prices for hotels, food, activities and airfare can be discounted
Now for 2.
- Could refund most of our money back
- Avoid any troubles at the airport
- Would reduce any chance of contracting the virus
- The time allocated for the vacation could be used for something else, something productive or a more relaxed time at home
- We wouldn’t compromise our livelihoods
- Can always visit and travel another time
Final thoughts
Mentally preparing for the negative side is necessary so that we won’t run into surprises. What if we went into this vacation completely ignorant of the virus?! Yikes!
At the same time with so much negative thinking it put us into a sour mood. I needed the balance of working out the benefits and positives to calm my worries and put me into this state where I work through my thoughts, challenge them to a point where you realize some thoughts are irrational after all.
It is neat real life application of two Stoic practices of Premeditatio Mallorum and Amor Fati.
A good rule of thumb is to be prepared for any case either way.
Live map of Coronavirus data gathered from John Hopkins