The struggle is great, the task divine – to gain mastery, freedom, happiness, and tranquility. – EPICTETUS.
As the famous conqueror and warrior Genghis Khan groomed his sons and generals to succeed him later in life, he repeatedly warned them, “If you can’t swallow your pride, you can’t lead.” He told them that pride would be harder to subdue than a wild lion. He liked the analogy of a mountain. He would say, “Even the tallest mountains have animals that, when they stand on it, are higher than the mountain.
How does what you do every day reflect, in some way, the values you claim to care about?
Would anyone think it normal to return a kick to a mule or a bite to a dog?
The first product of self-knowledge is humility,” Flannery O’Connor.
It’s that kind of energy and creativity and above all faith in yourself that you need right now.
People fail in small ways all the time. But they don’t learn. They don’t listen. They don’t see the problems that failure exposes. It doesn’t make them better.
Happiness has all that it wants, and resembling the well-fed, there shouldn’t be hunger or thirst.” – EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 3.24.17.
When children stick their hand down a narrow goody jar they can’t get their full fist out and start crying. Drop a few treats and you will get it out! Curb your desire – don’t set your heart on so many things and you will get what you need.” – EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 3.9.22.
Instead of wasting even a second considering the opinions of future people – people who are not even born yet – focus every bit of yourself on being the best person you can be in the present moment. On doing the right thing, right now. The distant future is irrelevant. Be good and noble and impressive now – while it still matters.
Here, we are setting out to do something. We have a goal, a calling, a new beginning. Every great journey begins here – yet far too many of us never reach our intended destination. Ego more often than not is the culprit. We build ourselves up with fantastical stories, we pretend we have it all figured out, we let our star burn bright and hot only to fizzle out, and we have no idea why. These are symptoms of ego, for which humility and reality are the cure.
Knowing that life is a marathon and not a sprint is important. Conserve your energy. Understand that each battle is only one of many and that you can use it to make the next one easier. More important, you must keep them all in real perspective.
The best plan is only good intentions unless it degenerates into work. – PETER DRUCKER.
To borrow from Aristotle again, what’s difficult is to apply the right amount of pressure, at the right time, in the right way, for the right period of time, in the right car, going in the right direction.
Play the game. Ignore the noise; for the love of God, do not let it distract you. Restraint is a difficult skill but a critical one. You will often be tempted, you will probably even be overcome. No one is perfect with it, but try we must.
You may be sure that you are at peace with yourself,” Seneca wrote, “when no noise reaches you, when no word shakes you out of yourself, whether it be flattery or a threat, or merely an empty sound buzzing about you with unmeaning sin.
But everything is in a constant state of change. We have certain things for a while and then lose them. The only permanent thing is prohairesis, our capacity for reasoned choice. The things we are attached to can come and go, our choice is resilient and adaptable. The sooner we become aware of this the better.
Greatness comes from humble beginnings; it comes from grunt work.
Who knows – maybe a downturn is exactly what’s coming next. Worse, maybe you caused it. Just because you did something once, doesn’t mean you’ll be able to do it successfully forever. Reversals and regressions are as much a part of the cycle of life as anything else. But we can manage that too.
Start thinking like a radical pragmatist: still ambitious, aggressive, and rooted in ideals, but also imminently practical and guided by the possible. Not on everything you would like to have, not on changing the world right at this moment, but ambitious enough to get everything you need. Don’t think small, but make the distinction between the critical and the extra. Think progress, not perfection.