It is often difficult to distinguish whether someone possesses something in the having mode of existence or, to quote Fromm, whether someone “possesses as if he were not possessing.” Yet each person can quickly test himself or herself by asking what he or she finds particularly valuable, thereby getting an idea of what would happen if he or she were to lose what was important and valuable: whether he or she would lose the ground from under his or her feet and whether life would then become meaningless. If one can then no longer feel any self-reliance or self-value (intrinsic to oneself), if
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