An Attitude of Gratitude

Finding a medicine to arrest the Corona Virus in the body of those who test positive for it as well as a vaccine that will prevent it are both indispensable, and time is most important: the sooner the better.

In the meantime, something else strikes me as important in this global challenge—the attitude we each take up in our daily lives, which has to do with how we think about and respond to the virus’s threat. The Swiss psychiatrist and cultural mythologist, C.G. Jung (1875-1961), whose writings stretch across 20 volumes, offered an extensive description of the power and importance of the attitudes we carry into any daily situation, whatever its level of complexity and force.

Jung suggests that on its most basic level, an attitude is “a state of readiness.” The attitude we bring to any life situation will shape how we think about it, imagine it and respond to it. Attitudes are as important to our way of being as is our breathing.

As the virus unfolds globally and in our own nation, we hear or read of individuals or groups who live “as if” there is no virus or no systemic threat to them, even as it continues to kill thousands and incapacitate thousands of others. My estimates here may be woefully low.

Jung advises that we cannot perceive either the outer world or the inner world without a guiding attitude to help us navigate both terrains. I am learning that an attitude contours what we each select to claim as relevant and what we are inclined to leave along the side of the road as irrelevant, untrue, unimportant or simply non-existent.

Our habitual attitudes tend to gravitate towards what is familiar, has proven to be security-promoting and meaning-making, such that when a significant new reality, especially something as violent as the cv, we might tend to force it into the habitual attitude that sustains us so to lessen its destructive nature. When a habitual attitude will not budge, then any new reality must be persuaded to fit into its mold.

Of course, another possible option is that the individual or the collective shifts its attitude in order to apprehend more of the new content’s reality. The startling discovery here is that the attitude(s) that we cultivate figure largely into what reality we are capable of absorbing. A shift in attitude is also nothing less than a transformation of consciousness. Such a conversion means that one’s manner of selecting  a certain set of perceptions that comprise what one has decided to be conscious of, what is most important to pay attention to, to reflect or meditate on determines what reality one lives, and perhaps dies, by.

Something as massive as the current virus can push us to the edge of our comfort zone, and perhaps in some cases, shove us forcefully into a new attitudinal zone of awareness. Some may find themselves breaking the mold of an old attitude which has outlived its reassuring qualities. I ask myself with each news cycle and readings on this mysterious and ubiquitous entity:

What is my own attitude towards the virus?

How am I responding to it?

What am I willing to give up to contribute to arresting its spread?

Can I sacrifice parts of my life in order to serve a greater good?

C.G. Jung observed that depending on our attitude we can be swallowed up by the way we think and respond to any life situation, or we can be liberated by a shift in attitude, especially one that guides us to further self-understanding.

One attitude is clear that I share with others: the deep gratitude for all public servants in many professions whose attitude of serving others, even while risking their own lives, is unconquerable.