Therefore, I declare to you: he is lord of your life that scorns his own.
Think of those who have perished through plots in their own homes, slain either openly or by guile; you will then understand that just as many have been killed by angry slaves as by angry kings. What matter, therefore, how powerful he be whom you fear, when everyone possesses the power which inspires your fear?
"But," you will say, "if you should chance to fall into the hands of the enemy, the conqueror will command that you be led away.”—yes, whither you are already being led. Why do you voluntarily deceive yourself and require to be told now for the first time what fate it is that you have long been laboring under?
Take my word for it: since the day you were born you are being led thither. We must ponder this thought, and thoughts of the like nature, if we desire to be calm as we await that last hour, the fear of which makes all previous hours uneasy.
If I nervously seek only my survival, it isn’t just the bullies and the bigwigs who can have their way with me whenever they wish: absolutely anyone who is willing to risk his own skin can then make a handbag out of mine.
This is why so many of us will so readily do things that go against our conscience, because we fear the prospect of anything that will threaten our continued existence. We shudder not only at death, but at any pain, or loss, or rejection, and therefore we abandon our principles for our pleasures.
We sell ourselves cheap, and we call it prudent compromise, when it is actually just a form of cowardice; living is sadly more important to us than living well.
Once good and evil are seen in the circumstances instead of in the character, the whole world will make me cower like a scaredy cat. The fellow who cut me off in traffic, or the clerk at the grocery store who scowled at me, are now just as intimidating as those folks at the IRS.
The solution isn’t in becoming more powerful, but in becoming wiser. If I change my priorities in life, I also change where I see the dangers. I will then learn that my own thinking is my only enemy.
Yes, I might tremble at the thought of all the terrible things a tyrant, whether big or small, might do to me, and yet I need to look more closely at the true measure of gains and losses.
What can he take away from me? My property, my reputation, my body, and even my life itself are within his grasp. My judgments remain mine, however, and the more he takes from me on the outside, the more I can act well on the inside, for the time I am permitted to be here.
I was bound to be parted from all of those variable conditions in any event, whether at his hand or by some other means, so I should not act surprised when Fortune takes back what she had briefly lent to me.
This was always going to happen, in one form or another, and it only remains for me to face it with virtue and with dignity. Let Nature unfold as it should, and let me not resent the loss of what was not mine to begin with.
That the things of this world must pass is not terrible; that I should abandon myself and succumb to despair and vice, however, is the most terrible ending of all. Peace of mind is found in letting go of what is meant to go.
Think of those who have perished through plots in their own homes, slain either openly or by guile; you will then understand that just as many have been killed by angry slaves as by angry kings. What matter, therefore, how powerful he be whom you fear, when everyone possesses the power which inspires your fear?
"But," you will say, "if you should chance to fall into the hands of the enemy, the conqueror will command that you be led away.”—yes, whither you are already being led. Why do you voluntarily deceive yourself and require to be told now for the first time what fate it is that you have long been laboring under?
Take my word for it: since the day you were born you are being led thither. We must ponder this thought, and thoughts of the like nature, if we desire to be calm as we await that last hour, the fear of which makes all previous hours uneasy.
If I nervously seek only my survival, it isn’t just the bullies and the bigwigs who can have their way with me whenever they wish: absolutely anyone who is willing to risk his own skin can then make a handbag out of mine.
This is why so many of us will so readily do things that go against our conscience, because we fear the prospect of anything that will threaten our continued existence. We shudder not only at death, but at any pain, or loss, or rejection, and therefore we abandon our principles for our pleasures.
We sell ourselves cheap, and we call it prudent compromise, when it is actually just a form of cowardice; living is sadly more important to us than living well.
Once good and evil are seen in the circumstances instead of in the character, the whole world will make me cower like a scaredy cat. The fellow who cut me off in traffic, or the clerk at the grocery store who scowled at me, are now just as intimidating as those folks at the IRS.
The solution isn’t in becoming more powerful, but in becoming wiser. If I change my priorities in life, I also change where I see the dangers. I will then learn that my own thinking is my only enemy.
Yes, I might tremble at the thought of all the terrible things a tyrant, whether big or small, might do to me, and yet I need to look more closely at the true measure of gains and losses.
What can he take away from me? My property, my reputation, my body, and even my life itself are within his grasp. My judgments remain mine, however, and the more he takes from me on the outside, the more I can act well on the inside, for the time I am permitted to be here.
I was bound to be parted from all of those variable conditions in any event, whether at his hand or by some other means, so I should not act surprised when Fortune takes back what she had briefly lent to me.
This was always going to happen, in one form or another, and it only remains for me to face it with virtue and with dignity. Let Nature unfold as it should, and let me not resent the loss of what was not mine to begin with.
That the things of this world must pass is not terrible; that I should abandon myself and succumb to despair and vice, however, is the most terrible ending of all. Peace of mind is found in letting go of what is meant to go.
Written in 3/2012
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