These
remarks of mine apply only to imperfect, commonplace, and unsound natures, not
to the wise man, who needs not to walk with timid and cautious gait: for he has
such confidence in himself that he does not hesitate to go directly in the
teeth of Fortune, and never will give way to her.
Nor
indeed has he any reason for fearing her, for he counts not only chattels,
property, and high office, but even his body, his eyes, his hands, and
everything whose use makes life dearer to us, no, even his very self, to be
things whose possession is uncertain; he lives as though he had borrowed them,
and is ready to return them cheerfully whenever they are claimed.
Confidence?
By all means. Weakness? Quite unacceptable.
Most people
would gladly insist on such principles, especially those folks caught up in the
world of earning money, of winning status, and of acquiring influence. Think of
all those inspirational phrases you will hear about the attitude of the winner,
about never being second best, or about taking what you know you deserve.
And the
meaning in all of that depends on our standards of winning and losing. It is
admirable to be confident, but in what should I have confidence? It is shameful
to be weak, but what actually makes me weak?
There is a vast
difference between two models of success, between being more and getting
more. What we mean by confidence or weakness hinges upon which model we choose.
The Stoic
attitude is quite natural, in that it derives from who we essentially are as
human beings, but it is also quite radical, in that it asks us to go against
the grain of all the artificial habits we have acquired.
Is it
reasonable to expect that the world will give us external rewards in proportion
to what we do, that we will be fulfilled by the acquisition of things as a
consequence of our efforts?
I have been told
that for all of my life, and I do not wish to be crude, but I call bullshit.
For each hard-working man who gets rich, another one remains poor. For each lazy
man who rots in the gutter, another one hits the jackpot. In this sense, life
is hardly fair at all.
Now consider
it from a different perspective. Why should those circumstances, which are
ultimately quite outside of our control, define who we are? There is another
option, and it is completely within our control. Let our own thoughts and deeds
define who we are, entirely for their own sake. In this sense, life is totally
fair.
Hence the
wise man is confident when he relies on his own actions, and he is weak when he
relies on the actions of others. In contrast, the fool thinks he is confident
when he worries about what he receives, and he thinks he is weak when he worries
about what he might give.
To be
confident in myself is not to make myself the center of the Universe; it is
simply to make me a center for myself. I take what I have been offered, and I
nurture it, and I make it grow. I can still be humble, since I know that my own
worth fits within the worth of the whole.
When I fall
into weakness, it has nothing to do with being worse than anyone else; it has
everything to do with being worse than what I alone am able to be. My weakness comes
from my requirement to define myself by everything except myself.
If I can
remember that, and not just conceive it but actually live it, Fortune has no
control over my happiness. I am the one who decides whether I will take it or
leave it. I can be confident in that.
Why should
Fortune hurt me, when everything she lends me was never mine to begin with? If
I am truly myself, then I will care little for the rest. To lose property, or
gratification, or reputation only causes such deep pain when I claim them as my
own, and they cease to be such a burden when I no longer think of them as
something to which I am entitled.
Was Dives
happier than Lazarus? The only way to answer that question is to further ask
who the better man was, the one who relied upon his own virtues or the one who
relied on his situation. Who was really strong or weak? Who was really living on
table scraps?
Written in 11/2011
IMAGE: Luca Giordano, Dives and Lazarus (c. 1680)
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