The Only Thing Holding You Back From Cultivation Is You.
Welcome back to Mid-Week Meditations , Lifehacker’s weekly dip in the pool of stoic wisdom and a guide to using its waters to meditate and improve your life.
This week’s selection belongs to the Roman philosopher Guy Musonius Rufus . In his ninth lecture, he says that even expulsion from your homeland cannot prevent you from gaining knowledge:
“Moreover, how should exile be an obstacle to the development of what is yours and to the acquisition of virtue, if no one has ever been hindered by the knowledge and practice of what is necessary because of the exile?”
What does it mean
How does exile stop you from learning and getting better? This is not true. No one has ever been hindered from doing the necessary work due to such complex scenarios. No difficult situations can and should not prevent you from improving yourself and achieving results.
What to take from there
Rufus was banished three times in his life, but he still studied philosophy and found ways to become more knowledgeable. Moving or looking down never stopped him from doing what he needed to do. In fact, he talks about how ridiculous it is to even think that things like this should affect you:
“Thus, as a person who lived in his own country, but in a different house than the one where he was born, will be considered stupid and an object of laughter if he cried and sobbed because of this, so the one who considers this misfortune due to the fact that he lives in another city, and not in the one where he was accidentally born, he will rightfully be considered stupid and stupid. “
For him, being in a different place or in a different situation does not change anything. You shouldn’t have that either.
Remember, it doesn’t matter where you are or what happened to you. You are still yourself and you have work to do and your aspirations. New restrictions may be imposed on you – your own version of exile – but there is always a way to work with them. So let’s get down to it. Exile is not a reason to give up and do nothing.