But Chrysantas, when he was about to strike the enemy, and heard the bugle sounding the retreat, desisted: so convinced was he that it was more to his advantage to do the general's bidding than his own.
But not a man of us, even when necessity calls, is willing to obey her easily, but we bear what comes upon us with tears and groans, and we call it “circumstances”.
What do you mean by “circumstances”, fellow men? If you mean by “circumstances” what surrounds
you, everything is circumstance; if you use the term in the sense of hardships, how is it a hardship that what was born should be destroyed?
The instrument of destruction is a sword or a wheel or the sea or a potsherd or a tyrant. What matters it to you, by what road you are to go down to Hades? All roads are alike.
But, if you will hear the truth, the road the tyrant sends you is shorter. No tyrant ever took six months to execute a man, but a fever often takes a year to kill one. All these complaints are mere noise and vanity of idle phrases.
But not a man of us, even when necessity calls, is willing to obey her easily, but we bear what comes upon us with tears and groans, and we call it “circumstances”.
What do you mean by “circumstances”, fellow men? If you mean by “circumstances” what surrounds
you, everything is circumstance; if you use the term in the sense of hardships, how is it a hardship that what was born should be destroyed?
The instrument of destruction is a sword or a wheel or the sea or a potsherd or a tyrant. What matters it to you, by what road you are to go down to Hades? All roads are alike.
But, if you will hear the truth, the road the tyrant sends you is shorter. No tyrant ever took six months to execute a man, but a fever often takes a year to kill one. All these complaints are mere noise and vanity of idle phrases.
—from Epictetus, Discourses 2.6
We are so busy struggling to be free from things, we forget how to be free in things. The true liberation comes from working with Nature, not from fighting against Nature.
I suffer under a deadly illusion when I assume that what is good for me must be in conflict with what is good for another. If I am insisting on going my own way, how much of that is honestly about thinking for myself, and how much of that is just stubborn vanity? When a command comes to me, am I worried more about my love for the true and the good or about my own lust for dominance and superiority?
I should advance when it serves the whole, and I should retreat when it serves the whole. It makes no difference if an order comes from a rich man or from a poor man, only that I am willing to follow the guidance of a wise man, who is doing nothing more than echoing the ultimate purpose of Providence. Let me remove any hint of self-importance from my judgments, for every man is important when he is happy to share in a responsibility.
When I am angry about the circumstances, and I begin to grumble and scheme, it is always because I am starting with an implicit premise that my worth is defined by the conditions of fortune. Once I return to forming the content of my character, the tears and the groans pass away, slowly but surely. There is no magic to it, only an awareness of how my feelings are joined to my understanding.
The events cannot be avoided—they are to be accepted for what they are, so that I can thereby become what I am meant to be. Wherever I try to run, however much I plot, the world will bring all sorts of trouble, which is a fitting mark of a world that is charged with change. Yes, that includes death itself, through which the new is born from the old.
There ought to be less anxiety about when I will die, and more of a commitment to how I will rise to the occasion. If I can manage it with such an ultimate question, all the rest of the hardships will feel like a walk in the park.
We are so busy struggling to be free from things, we forget how to be free in things. The true liberation comes from working with Nature, not from fighting against Nature.
I suffer under a deadly illusion when I assume that what is good for me must be in conflict with what is good for another. If I am insisting on going my own way, how much of that is honestly about thinking for myself, and how much of that is just stubborn vanity? When a command comes to me, am I worried more about my love for the true and the good or about my own lust for dominance and superiority?
I should advance when it serves the whole, and I should retreat when it serves the whole. It makes no difference if an order comes from a rich man or from a poor man, only that I am willing to follow the guidance of a wise man, who is doing nothing more than echoing the ultimate purpose of Providence. Let me remove any hint of self-importance from my judgments, for every man is important when he is happy to share in a responsibility.
When I am angry about the circumstances, and I begin to grumble and scheme, it is always because I am starting with an implicit premise that my worth is defined by the conditions of fortune. Once I return to forming the content of my character, the tears and the groans pass away, slowly but surely. There is no magic to it, only an awareness of how my feelings are joined to my understanding.
The events cannot be avoided—they are to be accepted for what they are, so that I can thereby become what I am meant to be. Wherever I try to run, however much I plot, the world will bring all sorts of trouble, which is a fitting mark of a world that is charged with change. Yes, that includes death itself, through which the new is born from the old.
There ought to be less anxiety about when I will die, and more of a commitment to how I will rise to the occasion. If I can manage it with such an ultimate question, all the rest of the hardships will feel like a walk in the park.
—Reflection written in 6/2001
No comments:
Post a Comment