XXX. It's Not Supposed to Be Easy
What happens to each of us is ordered. It furthers our destiny.
"Just as you overhear people saying that 'the doctor prescribed such-and-such for him' (like riding, or cold baths, or walking barefoot...), say this: 'Nature prescribed illness for him...or some other affliction.’
There 'prescribed' means something like 'ordered, so as to further his recovery.' And so too here, what happens to each of us is ordered. It furthers our destiny.
And in that case, let's accept it — as we accept what the doctor prescribes. It may not always be pleasant, but we embrace it — because we want to get well!
Look at the accomplishment of nature's plans in that light — the way you look at your own health — and accept what happens (even if it seems hard to accept)." — Marcus Aurelius
Below is a story of the Fox & the Goat from Aesop’s fables. It goes like this…
A Fox having fallen into a deep well, was detained a prisoner there, as he could find no means of escape.
A Goat, overcome with thirst, came to the same well, and, seeing the Fox, inquired if the water was good.
The Fox, concealing his sad plight under a merry guise, indulged in a lavish praise of the water, saying it was beyond measure excellent, and encouraged him to descend.
The Goat, mindful only of his thirst, thoughtlessly jumped down, when just as he quenched his thirst, the Fox informed him of the difficulty they were both in, and suggested a scheme for their common escape.
"If," said he, "you will place your fore-feet upon the wall, and bend your head, I will run up your back and escape, and will help you out afterwards."
On the Goat readily assenting to this second proposal, the Fox leapt upon his back, and steadying himself with the Goat's horns, reached in safety the mouth of the well, when he immediately made off as fast as he could.
The Goat upbraided him with the breach of his bargain, when he turned round and cried out:
"You foolish old fellow! If you had as many brains in your head as you have hairs in your beard, you would never have gone down before you had inspected the way up, nor have exposed yourself to dangers from which you had no means of escape."
Sometimes we don't feel like waking up.
We don't want to go to the gym or our morning run. We only want to eat junk food.
Working can feel like a struggle at other times and we wonder if it's worth it.
We sometimes want to lose our shit because we're just tired of dealing with dumb people.
Or we get jaded of being rational all the time. After all, it's boring on a surface level.
We desire to indulge a thrill because we've had a good streak going — giving in this once can't hurt.
Self-discipline is hard. So is practicing courage, justice, wisdom.
But we have to know it's inevitable that some days we'll feel off.
This feeling is natural to being human.
Maybe we've been pushing too hard, or we're coming down with some illness and this is our body's cue to relax as we talked about.
We have to tell ourselves that this doesn't mean something isn't for us.
Or slip down the trail of self-condemnation thinking we've become soft. Thinking we suck and we're not good enough.
"You don’t have to turn this into something,”
Marcus Aurelius would tell us.
We can stop it at that, think, and,
“Revert at once to yourself, and don't lose the rhythm more than you can help. You'll have a better grasp of the harmony if you keep on going back to it,” Marcus adds.
That's what a love for life is all about.
We take the good days and the bad with reasonable measure, knowing living with virtue is all that counts whether our day is filled with prosperity or hardship.
Nothing else.
And if we doubt that fact, we can remind ourselves that the stress and resistance we encounter in the slow days is good for us.
Overcoming it strengthens our minds, bodies, and spirit against any future challenges.
It's the hard winter training Epictetus talks about.
We've elevated more than we could imagine with past obstacles.
This can't be any different.
Say this little prayer when life gets tough.
"Heavenly Father, bear witness to the strength of your creation."
We become more fluent with our skills, we boost our self-esteem and we gain respect because not everyone would do what we do during those hard days. Seneca wrote,
"Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body."
We can choose to lean into these tough days and see the good in them.
Otherwise, the alternative is being drawn in by the allure of comfort as the fox did the goat and now we're stuck in a deep well of weakness that ruins our lives day by day.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, it didn’t fall in a day either.
We'll be unstoppable once we ingrain this Latin saying into our daily attitude,
Luctor et Emergo
It means I struggle and emerge, for as Seneca says, "Life's no soft affair."
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See you tomorrow. xo
A.V