No man achieves without hardships.

"One might reasonably reflect upon characteristics even of certain animals which are very well calculated to shame us into endurance of hardships.

"At all events, cocks and quails, although they have no understanding of virtue as man has and know neither the good nor the just and strive for none of these things, nevertheless fight against each other and even when maimed stand up and endure until death so as not to submit the one to the other.
 
"How much more fitting, then, it is that we stand firm and endure, when we know that we are suffering for some good purpose, either to help our friends or to benefit our city, or to defend our wives and children, or, best and most imperative, to become good and just and self-controlled, a state which no man achieves without hardships.

"And so it remains for me to say that the man who is unwilling to exert himself almost always convicts himself as unworthy of good, since we gain every good by toil."

Musonius Rufus, Lecture 7 (tr Lutz)

There are two principles that have often stood in the way of my practice of Stoicism. The theoretical understanding was fairly easy, but the practical doing has always been very hard.

The first was the recognition that obstacles, suffering, and hardship need not be bad things, but can just as easily be good things.

The second was the related recognition that ease, utility, and convenience need not be good things, but can just as easily be bad things.

I often bewail, complete with an unhealthy dose of self-pity, the struggles I've endured.

Two further observations are necessary to overcome this.

First, though I felt that they would destroy me, my hardships have been nothing compared to those I have seen some of my friends, students, or clients have to face.

Second, I need to see that every obstacle has been an opportunity. Sometimes I have taken it rightly, most times I have cast it away. And that was entirely on me.

I often jump for joy when something goes my way, when I receive the 'get out of jail free' card, when things just seem to fall into my lap.

Two further observations are necessary to overcome this.

First, though I have at times felt that I have been blessed by fortune, my good luck usually never made me any better of a human being.

Second, I need to see that every blessing is often wrapped in a curse. If the world gives me something beyond my own merit, I easily make myself a slave to that sense of entitlement.

I have quite a list of fortunes and misfortunes, of blessings and curses, that have come my way over the years. If I only choose to look at them with any humility and integrity, I understand that the good luck has often been a curse, and the bad luck has often been a blessing. This isn't because Nature and Providence are sick or malicious, but because it is right and good that any person should depend upon his own judgment and action to live well. And he needs to make an effort to do so.

If the world gives me what I want, then I so readily assume the world will provide as long as I jump through the hoops. But if the world fights me, denies me what I want, I can learn to see something so much greater. I can learn what I should really want. I can learn that hardship is not an obstacle, but the very means to excellence I have always desired.

When I see wrong, when I see injustice, when I see the games and hypocrisy sadly so common in our world, I can run away. Or I can face the wrong, and I can fight to make it right.

Will I win? Define winning. What are the measurable results? I am a great fan, being a deeply hopeless romantic, of director Frank Capra and of actor Jimmy Stewart. Two films have long been among my favorites. In Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, a good man faces the graft and corruption of politics. In It's a Wonderful Life, a a good man questions the value of his very existence.

Now imagine if either movie ended differently. What if Jefferson Smith, the idealistic Senator, lost his office, career, and reputation because he stood upon against the bigwigs? Imagine if George Bailey went to jail that Christmas Eve, because no one in town supported him, and his family saw him dragged away in handcuffs?

Would these stories still be just as powerful? Yes, I would argue, and perhaps even more so. Smith and Bailey were men who learned that being right didn't always mean being successful in the eyes of the world. Smith was vindicated and got the girl. Bailey was vindicated, was reunited with the lovely Mary and the adorable Zuzu, and became the hero of Bedford Falls. But what if it had ended in more hardship, and not the usual 'happy' ending?

Both men would still have been heroes, and both men would still have been happy to take the fall, precisely because both men had learned a deeply Stoic lesson. The winning isn't about fixing the world. We sadly can't always do that. The winning is about fixing ourselves. We can always do that.

The struggle against obstacles isn't about being manly or tough. That is sadly a misunderstanding of Stoicism. The struggle against obstacles is a means, and never the end, because the end is simply nothing more than choosing to live well, regardless of the circumstances. And the more the world pushes against me, the more I have the opportunity to push right back. The winning is already within my own soul.

Written in 5/2001

Image: George Stubbs, A Lion Attacking a Horse, (c. 1762)