This Year I Want to Live Ethically

I grew up with Santa. When December came you had to write a letter to Santa to ask for presents. However, you also had to show Santa you had behaved, and in order to do so, bring evidence to support your case: you needed to deserve those presents. I realised too late that I would get my presents anyway, but at the time of writing those letters panicked set in because I could only think of my misbehaviours, my little acts of indifference, my little lies, my selfish deeds. Thinking about it now, it is paradoxical to start thinking about the way we behave when it was too late. A bit like thinking we shouldn’t have smoked when we already have cancer. And true, my parents would remind me throughout the year, now and then, that if I didn’t behave Santa would not visit us that year. But it was so remote that I didn’t really pay attention. Then December would come and I wasn’t sure I really deserved any presents.

It’s more or less the anniversary of the pandemic. A virus came and changed our lives. I can still hear people telling me they are waiting for normality to come back so they can go back to their lives. It’s as if their lives were suspended in some form of limbo or spatio-temporal anomaly. This thought worries me, because I feel there has been a paralysis of morality, an ethical break – until better times. No matter how we behave this is not who we are. It’s only because of the virus. This is scary, because I think the individual, every one of us, in the last year has shared the illusion that we as individuals are innocent victims, we are not responsible: it is because of the virus; it is because of the government; it is because of the deniers; god hates us; etc. This is scary because for what I have seen this has been the year of the Selfishness of the Individual, a sort of Year of the Ego. I have often thought that we show our true colours when it really matters and in the past year, in the Year of the Ego, we have shown our true colours. How many of us have considered behaving in a way that protected not only us, but the Other? Most of the people I know wear a mask to protect themselves not the people they may cough at. The motto at the beginning of the pandemic in England was: Protect the NHS (the English National Health Service). It failed because it required for the individual to worry that hospitals didn’t have enough spaces and resources to cope with a pandemic. It failed because it required from the individual to care for Others.

Now, I am generalising here. There have been plenty of cases of good Samaritans and thousands have died between doctors and nurses doing their jobs no matter how dangerous they were. But how many can deny the general attitude? But as the Stoics would say “ta eph’hemin, ta ouk eph’hemin,” a distinction between “what is up to us, what is not up to us.” Some think this motto stands for a denial of responsibility. Again, it’s up to the government, it’s up to hospitals, it’s up to someone else. I have no power, other people do. But this is not what it means at all, on the contrary, it means that there are things in life we have no control of, such as the past, or the way another person behaves. It is not up to me how my neighbour behaves, but it is up to me how I decided to behave. It is then, on the contrary, a full acknowledgement of the responsibility I have towards the things I have control of. The way I decide to behave is in my control, the pandemic is not. Why should I blame the virus for visiting my Nan even though I knew I had been out with friends with the night before and were weren’t really wearing masks? Why is it the government’s fault if I decided to travel back home during the holidays because, you know, it’s Christmas?

So, for this year I have started reading about meditation and the Stoics. Because this year my aim is not to become richer or slimmer. This year I want to be a better person and realise that there are other people around me that are affected by my behaviour even when I don’t realise it. It is not up to me how they react to my actions, but it is up to me how I behave towards them. The intentions are all mine. It is up to me to decide to live the pandemic as an individual or as part of the human community. It is up to me to realise that the Other exists and suffers and laughs just like me. I don’t want this to be another Year of the Ego for me. I want to live ethically this year. I want to be the best version of myself, this year I want to be a better person.