That
is for the good of each thing, which the Universal Nature brings to each.
And
it is for its good at the time when Nature brings it.
—Marcus
Aurelius, Meditations, Book 10.20 (tr
Long)
“But it wasn’t supposed to happen
this way!”
I said that whenever people I loved
chose not to love me in return, but I was confusing what I wanted to happen
with whatever was going to happen. My own choice to love was my own, and that
was what I brought to the table. The choice of others to dispose of me was their
own, and that was what they didn’t bring to the table.
My wife said that to me when we lost
almost everything we had in this world, beyond our own humble dignity, but she
was confusing what we thought we deserved with what other people were willing
to give us. Our commitment came from us. That other people looked away came
from them.
My son said that when he was ripped
away from a school that practiced compassion, and sadly forced into a school
full of bullies, but he was confusing how he treated others with how he wished
to be treated. This one was the most difficult and painful, because he was
hardly old enough to even judge for himself. Still, he came to see that he was
made to be kind. He should not require to be treated kindly.
It was easier for me to learn this,
far harder for me to ask my wife to accept it, and an absolute torture for me to
ask my son to learn it. I could rule myself, but I neither could, nor should,
rule them. I was grateful that we stuck it out together, and that we suffered
through it together, and that we learned to live a better life together.
I have often felt quite disappointed
with what life has offered me, and once I had a family to care for, I often
felt like I had failed them. I never had enough money to make their lives more
comfortable, and I never had enough power to make their lives easier. I dragged
a fine woman into even more suffering than she had already been through, and I
brought children into this world with no means to make them to be people of
importance. This worry will gnaw at me to my dying day.
My only possible consolation is expressed
in what Marcus Aurelius tells me here. How have I defined success for myself,
or for my wife, or for my children? Things will happen, and they are usually
quite beyond my own power. Being rich, or influential, or respected has little
to do with me, and most everything to do with the opinions of others. I did not
decide it, but I can decide what I will make of it.
What is the only legacy I can leave
for my family? Not that hard work will make you rich, because it won’t. Not
that sucking up to other people will make you popular, because it won’t. Only
that whatever may come to us, and however it may come to us, it is the wisdom
and virtue by which we choose to live for ourselves that will matter.
“Only losers say that!” I hear you
snicker. No, define your terms. I think that only the real winners say that
life should first be loving and beautiful.
It is not only a matter of accepting
all the things that happen, but also a matter of seeing the good in all the
things that happen. Many modern “Stoics” like the self-sufficiency part, but
they reject the Providence part; they are missing a necessary half of the picture.
It is not only that things may happen to us that are painful, but coming to
embrace that they are meant to be good for us.
If Providence, the very order behind
Nature itself, intends for it to occur, it should
occur. May events take my prosperity, or my security, or my comfort? Yes, yes,
and yes.
Will they take my character? Hell
no, not if I refuse to let them do so. It was meant to be from the very
beginning, for many reasons, but in a very small part so that I could choose to
become better; so that all of us could choose to become better.
“Why this? Why now?” Don’t ask
that. Ask rather, what was I made for to do with this, at this point right now?
I never gave my family the comfort
of fancy circumstances. All I ever offered them was the comfort of seeking
wisdom and love.
Written in 8/2012
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