Stoicism, How I got Swindled, and How It’s Still My Fault
I bought a broken 2015 MacBook Air for $400.00 from a random dude without a profile picture on OfferUp. It was a dumb mistake, but his two 5 star reviews had seemed credible enough to me.
It looked like a great deal to me: Intel Core i5 processor, 8 GB of RAM, and a 121 GB of flash storage. But as the fourth word of this article suggests, some deals are too good to be true.
Before writing more, I want to first acknowledge I’m incredibly privileged to be able to spend so much money on something as superfluous as a MacBook in the first place. It’s not lost on me that there are far worse things a person can do to someone else than sell them a kind-of-working laptop.
But I don’t think there’s anything enlightened about false positivity or pretending to not feel resistence. I want to learn how to acknowledge and embrace reality. I don’t want to be a Sisyphus that pretends he’s not rolling a boulder for all eternity, but I want to be a Sysphus who honestly and openly falls in love with rolling the boulder.
I think it’s valuable to share how we deal with the mundane inconveniences and the small problems of our lives. So yes. This is a particular first-world problem. And yes, it’s absolutely my fault. But that’s exactly why I’m writing about it.
Let’s break down my first-world problems:
1. I’m down $400, I bought a broken computer with cash, and seller Dan doesn’t really care (and he probably never will).
2. The computer costs $500 to fix, and it’s only worth about $700 total. There’s an issue with a sensor on the motherboard, the built-in speakers, and headphone jack.
3. I’m grumpy, and I care about this more than I probably should.
How to Solve Problems But Love Them Too:
I love stoicism because it’s an all-weather belief system. It seems to be incredibly trendy right now with popular advocates like Ryan Holiday and Tim Ferriss leading the charge like a Silicon Valley cult. I’m glad our culture is taking to something so useful though. While they may talk and write about it much better than I do, but I want to add my piece to the puzzle.
Here’s how Stoicism is making me a better person in the specific and real example of buying a broken computer. Abstract ideas without actual implementation are nearly useless, and there is value in seeing how philosophy helps us live in the mundane and ordinary.
My first response might be a little unorthodox outside of Stoicism, but I sat and imagined my family and closest friends were dead. I tried to really sit in it. By taking my mind to these worst case scenarios, I could feel gratitude emerging. Realizing they’re alive allowed my normal to be a new standard for joy. It was like practicing how to have happiness without hinges, where there is always something I can be grateful for. It’s ruthless optimism, akin to the Gary Vaynerchuk method of deploying gratitude.
Secondly, I’m learning how to be responsible for my problems—as Cheryl Strayed said: "This is not your responsibility but it is your problem." I’m somehow complicit in all of the circumstances I dislike. I trusted the random guy. I didn’t check the audio. I didn’t run the proper diagnostic tests. I bought the computer. I know from the third person, these observations are obvious, but the truth is I’m an egocentric creature looking to escape discomfort and blame. I’ll mentally parkour my way over and around anything toward self-preservation. I didn’t realize that this kind of thinking was not only useless, but I was constructing an identity that revolved around what others did vs. what I could do. I was trying to wrestle the wind, and it’s much easier to lift or shift the sail.
While uncomfortable and sometimes painful, I feel more empowered by what I can do over what I can’t. When I accept ownership over all the events of my life, I can see how I prefer discomfort over helplessness and pessimism any day of the week.
So that’s how I’m working to solve my most important problems. I hope sharing this concrete, ordinary, and privileged problem shows how valuable Stoicism and awareness can be in the everyday.
P.S. As far as the broken computer goes — it’s actually not so bad. I installed fan controlling and CPU monitoring software for free, and the audio actually works via Bluetooth. If you’re more computer savvy than me and want to help me, I invite all possible solutions!
