“Do
you see now,” she continued, “what follows upon all that we have said?”
“What
is it?” I asked.
“That
all fortune is plainly good,” she answered.
“How
can that be?” said I.
“Consider
this,” she said. “All fortune, whether pleasant or difficult, is due to this cause;
it is for the sake of rewarding the good or exercising their virtue, and of punishing
and correcting bad men. Therefore, it is plain that all this fortune, which is allowed
to be just or expedient, must be good.”
—from
Book 4, Prose 7
Even as the
whole argument of the Consolation has been leading us to this insight,
it can still be a difficult conclusion to accept. We are so accustomed to
thinking that bad things happen to good people, and that good things happen to
bad people, precisely because we assume that happiness or misery proceed from
our external conditions. We look to the circumstances to provide our blessings,
instead of looking to our own character to give meaning to the circumstances.
We can
hardly be blamed for such habits, having been told for our entire lives, by
those who would call themselves our betters, that “getting what we want”
requires making the world fit our preferences. We remain ignorant of the other path,
that we need only master ourselves.
Rarely
will a day pass when I don’t find it necessary to remind myself that all
fortune can be good for me, if only I understand it rightly. If I deliberately go
through the argument in my head, then I restore my sense that nothing is ever
wasted, and that every occurrence is an opportunity.
What is
good for me? All that increases my own virtue, my power to live well through understanding
and love. What is bad for me? All that increases my own vice, my weakness of
living poorly through ignorance and hatred. Once I clearly understand this, and
I put it into concrete action instead of merely mouthing the words, then
everything else will fall into place.
If I am
working toward improving myself, then any kind of fortune, whether we
traditionally call it “good” or “bad”, will be of assistance in that
improvement. If something is given to me, I now have a chance to make proper
use of the situation, and if something is taken away, I also have a chance to
make proper use of the situation. Whether it is pleasant or unpleasant, easy or
difficult, it is helpful to me, and therefore it is good for me.
Do I
need to be encouraged in one way? Some things come to me as rewards. Do I need
to be discouraged in another way? Other things come to me as corrections. My
own awareness of my moral worth will tell me the difference.
And what
if I am oblivious to the content of my character, only interested in acquiring
and consuming more? Then, out of my own confusion, no state of affairs will be
of any use to me at all. Closing myself to the difference between right and
wrong, I won’t know where the value is in something that is given to me, and I
won’t recognize the benefit in something that is taken away.
Can I
still choose to turn myself around? Of course, but that will be entirely up to
my own judgment, not up to the whims of Fortune. No reward or punishment has
its intended effect without my willingness to embrace its purpose.
Now I
can see more clearly what was at first so confusing: All situations are good
for the good man, and all situations are bad for the bad man. The one sees them
as occasions to act well, while the other sees them as excuses to act poorly.
The light
or the darkness are in the quality of my thinking about things, not in the mere
presence or absence of things.
Written in 12/2015
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