How I Used Philosophy to Stay Cheerful, Productive, and Inspired After Getting Robbed at Gunpoint My First Day of Grad School
We've all been there. Life is chugging along. Everything's going great. And suddenly, life throws you a major curveball. Life brings you down to your knees. In these worst of moments, philosophy can save you and, indeed, help you turn this challenge into jet-fuel for your growth! Let me share with you how I did it.
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It happened to me. I was walking back home on my first day of grad school. Everything was going my way. I had moved to a new country and started settling into a great intellectual community I was excited about my new classes and projects! The day had gone amazing. "Life is really going to take off now!" I found myself thinking as I was walking back home in the evening. It was still bright out. I was near a major intersection. A man asked me if I had the time. I was in a bit of a rush but decided to make the effort to be considerate.
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Man did that backfire!
Before I knew it I was staring at a gun in my face. The man I thought I was helping was suddenly telling me to give him my phone. To give him everything I had. At gunpoint! I took a deep breath, stayed calm, and did as he asked. Then he walked away.
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I was shocked. One moment, everything was looking my way. Then the next, my life got turned upside down.
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You see, the robber took not just my phone but also my laptop, my passport, and all of my official documents. As my luck would have it, the dean's office had asked me that day to bring in all my stuff for them to take a look at. All of a sudden, I was 23. Almost 1,500 miles away from home. Essentially naked in a foreign country. As I realized these things, I was stunned. Shocked. Life had unexpectedly but completly rung my bell. And knocked me down.
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I was not only robbed of many of my most important things. I was faced with the unexpected enormous obstacle of having to do my first semester of graduate school while getting my whole life in order. I had to get a new phone. Without it, I would not be able to communicate with anybody needed to get my life in order. I had to get a new computer. Without it, I could not do the work my studies required. I had to get a new passport. Without it, I had no identification at all in a foreign country. And only once I sorted through those things could I begin to re-apply for a new visa for my studies. This essentially slowed my studies down by around two months! All this, right at the very beginning. Grad school for me did not start with my totally focusing on learning and immersing myself in philosophy. It started with my having to fight against the most mundane and frustrating stuff.
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It was a shock to see the robber run away with my things. I took another deep breath and told myself "Well, that sucked! But. It could have gone much worse! You are alive. You are physically unscathed. Yeah, life's going to be pretty hard for a while, but you got this! This is an opportunity to grow in ways you had not expected but that will help you become a better, more resilient person in the end."
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This was an incredibly powerful experience for me. Because in that moment, I lived the reality that philosophy is not a mere academic enterprise. In this moment of incredible difficulty, I used my philosophical training to maintain perspective on my situation and find an empowering way forward. I vividly experienced the fact that it is in life's most difficult moments that philosophy can help the most. You can use it to maintain perspective, to find the right meaning, and to carve an empowering way forward.
It is in life's most difficult moments that philosophy can help the most. You can use it to maintain perspective, to find a clear meaning, and to carve an empowering way forward.
As I came to terms with the reality that my life was in a very different state, I found a way of thinking of this new ordeal I was facing as an epic adventure, of the kind you could find in a videogame! In particular, I found myself feeling and thinking of myself as Alucard in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Here you begin your adventure with amazing equipment (dope glowing sword, sweet red cape, sturdy shield) and confidently slash through the first batches of enemies...only to be faced by Death Itself. Who then proceeds to steal all your awesome equipment! Like Alucard, I looked the possibility of death in the eye and then got my awesome stuff for my new adventure (philosophy grad school) stolen.
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I wasn't going to let this obstacle, unexpected and shitty as it may be, ruin or end my adventure! I was going to use it to gain new items, push myself, and grow in ways that would surprise even me!
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By keeping perspective and finding an epic meaning to my struggle, I found a way to stay cheerful and inspired as I took on this completely unexpected challenge. But of course, it was far from smooth sailing after that!
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My life was quite the mess! And cleaning it up proved to be quite the ordeal! I bumped up against all kinds of dumb and frustrating obstacles. Like the police report not being filed for almost two months. And when it did get filed, it did not say the right thing! I had to go to the police station more than five times (all without having any proper identification on me). And once I did have all my stuff in order, I had to travel back home. First, to apply for a new visa. And then to wait for it to come in the mail. This put me yet another couple of weeks behind on my studies. It was scary. It was hard. It was soul-sucking.
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There were plenty of moments when I wanted to give up. When life brings you down to your knees through some unexpected blow, it is all too easy to despair. To lose your inspiration. To become totally overwhelmed. You can end up thinking, "It was hard enough to do all that I need to do before, and now I have to deal with all of THAT on top of it?"
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Even worse, it can seem like the odds are totally against you as you try to fight this despair. As you try to get back on track. The more you try to fight it but fail to make progress, the easier it is to despair. To sink deeper. To think that you'll never get it all done. To wonder whether it is even worth it to keep trying.
BUT! I'm here to tell you. No matter what has brought you down. No matter how bad things look! There IS a way out of this despair and toward a better life! Toward a truly good life! The key lies in responding with philosophy. It lies in cultivating the right perspective. The right mindsets. And then using tools and techniques to reinforce these mindsets and keep them alive in daily consciousness. To have them shape the way you actually live for the better in the face of life's hypnotic rhythm and society's ordinary oppressiveness.
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That is precisely what I did. When life hit me harder than it ever had before, I self-consciously resisted the temptation to give into a mindset of despair, with its vicious spiral of debilitating thoughts, negative feelings, and harmful (in)action. Instead, I actively did everything in my power to cultivate an empowering and inspiring mindset. And I continuously worked to reinforce it with positive thoughts and feelings and effective action.
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Whenever the next frustrating obstacle showed up (like the police report not actually saying that my visa was stolen), I made the effort to stop myself from despairing, reframing the absurd ways the world seemed to refuse to cooperate as another funny aspect of this crazy adventure that I was going through.
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By using philosophy in this way, I was not only able to get through this ordeal, but I was also able to stay productive, inspired, and engaged with all the first-year material I had to learn for grad school. More than that, by using philosophy in these difficult times, I was able to grow in ways that I had not expected. I grew far more resilient, persistent, and patient than I ever thought I would in a couple of months!
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By using philosophy to overcome this ordeal, I experienced firsthand the power of philosophy to turn even the most unexpected, enormous obstacles into jet-fuel for your personal growth!
By using philosophy to overcome this ordeal, I experienced firsthand the power of philosohpy to turn even the most unexpected, enormous obstacles into jet-fuel for your personal growth.
Conclusion
In this post, I have shared with you my story of how I used philosophy to overcome one of the most trying times of my life: getting robbed at gunpoint of my laptop, phone, and official documents on my first day of grad school. If I can use philosophy to find meaning and a way forward during this absurd experience, then you can use it go get through whatever difficult times you might be facing!
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To help you do this, I have synthesized the essentials of the method I used to bounce back time and time again when life kept dealing me a terrible hand. I call it the Flourishing Grasp Method because it gives you a way to grasp an empowering meaning and way forward that will help you not only get back up and survive but actually flourish and thrive when life brings you down to your knees.
To get it, just click and sign up! When you sign up, you'll also get a list of Core Philosophical Mindsets for a Happier More Meaningful Life as well as Inner Game Techniques for Keeping the Core Philosophical Mindsets Alive and have them shape your life day in and day out!
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And if you're interested in how you can use philosophy to get more out of life in general (in the good and bad times), then check out my posts on how to find meaning in life and how to make life exciting!
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To your ongoing success & fulfillment,
Santi
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