To help and to be helped.

"Do not be ashamed to be helped; for it is your business to do your duty, like a soldier in the assault on a town. How then, if being lame, you can't mount up on the battlements alone, but with the help of another, it is possible?"

--Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7 (tr Long)

The Stoic is hardly cold or indifferent. To depend upon our own character for happiness does not exclude others, but rather must include them. Indeed, acting with love and concern for others is a very fulfillment of our nature.

 I have far less problem giving aid to others, however, than I do in accepting it. Perhaps I am too stubborn, maybe I have been burned once too often, but it's something I have had long need to work on.

Written on 2/7/1996