You Can Be Happy Even In The Face Of Adversity 

Last two Saturdays, I lost my phone which I had used for just less than a year. Strangely, while getting a new phone was straightforward, recovering my line (welcome back) turned out to be a torturous exercise that lasted for a week and two days! I didn’t see that coming.

The first SIM swap that I did resulted in my getting an SMS message from the service provider indicating that my line was back. But moments after this, service disappeared from the SIM. All efforts to reverse this proved abortive. Another SIM swap was recommended by the service provider agent that did the first one. This was done. Service did not leave the SIM this time, but I had not got my line back as the new SIM could not be used for anything – call, SMS and Internet.

My forth and back email communication with the MTN customer care has so far resulted in about 17 messages exchanged. I now have my line back after a third SIM swap was performed at an MTN office, an exercise that kept me from the usually deluged office from 6.40am to 11.30am on Monday. While I can now make calls, send and receive SMS messages as well as access the Internet with the SIM, I can still not receive calls on the line. Those that have been attempting to call me have been reporting that the system is indicating that my number “does not exist.” So, I’m still on the matter with the service provider’s customer care.

One thing that has been obvious for me in all this is the power of detachment. As I went through all this, I was intentionally detached, hence my ability to stay without much mental stress. I lost access to my social media accounts which are crucial to my office work and other personal engagements. I could not access my mobile banking services which affected my flexibility to make purchases and pay for services. A significant disruption was thus created in the normal functioning of my private and social life.

However, my sanity was adequately preserved by the insight I have gained over the years regarding how much we suffer as a result of our attachment to things we hold dear. This insight has been accompanied by deliberate efforts at self-training to attain a strong disposition towards detachment from things. So long as we are humans, we are trapped in a space where we cannot completely discard our tastes, fancies, desires, love for persons and things, emotions and other traits that dispose us to attachment to things around us. But fortunately, we can draw from the immense depth of human mental possibilities to recreate our personality and thought process towards some degree of detachment from things and even persons.

This is where knowledge becomes important, knowledge of the fact that we suffer not necessarily because of what has happened to us but also because of how we react to it. This is where understanding becomes necessary, understanding of the reality that this phase of our existence called earthly life is too ephemeral and full of vicisitudes to deserve absolute investment of our craving and emotional energy. Some persons would put it figuratively this way, “never take life seriously.”

A colleague learnt from someone of the loss of my phone and the difficulty in retrieving my line and wondered why she had not noticed that I was undergoing an “ordeal”. She said I had maintained my calmness as though nothing was happening. What happened was that I have over time learnt to see things differently and which results in calmness in the face of adversity. I’m still on this learning process, there is still much ground to be covered towards becoming always detached.

But the road to the destination is clear: consistently meditate on what life is, its pleasures and pains, assurances and disappointments; train the mind to be in tune with whichever direction the pendulum swings – after all, the swinging will never cease as long as we are alive. This is how to be happy in the face of adversity.

This is my meditation this midweek.

Henry Chigozie Duru, PhD, teaches journalism and mass communication at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.