There Is No Instant Success
Welcome back to Mid-Week Meditations , Lifehacker’s weekly dive into the pool of stoic wisdom and how you can use its waters to meditate and improve your life.
This week’s choice is made by the slave philosopher Epictetus . This is shown in Discourses:
Suddenly nothing more arises than a bunch of grapes or figs. If you tell me you want figs, my answer is that there must be time. Let it bloom first, then bear fruit, and then ripen.
-Epictet, Book I, Ch. 15.
What does it mean
This quote is quite simple, but carries a lot of weight. The basic idea is that great things – projects, inventions, works of art, personal goals – take time and effort to create. Patience is a virtue, and to do great things you must combine it with unrelenting perseverance.
However, there is more to the comparison between Epictetus and figs and other fruits. It takes not only time to grow a fig, but several stages and transitions for the fig to reach its full, edible stage.
What to take from there
Success is not something that happens overnight, regardless of character. From time to time you may hear stories of instant success, but you don’t understand the whole story. In fact, you see that someone jumped at the opportunity thanks to the years of hard work and preparation they put in. This may be the first time you see their “fig”, but they spent a lot of time and energy growing it. …
Don’t be discouraged if your work doesn’t pay off immediately. This is how the world works. After all, even a success as small as a fig, a fruit you can eat in seconds, takes time, growth, and milestones to go along the way. Set milestones to reach your goals and stay on course – blossom, bear fruit, and then let it ripen. Focus on turning your work into a plump, juicy fig that hangs seductively from the tree of life. Eventually, the hand of opportunity will come to rip it out and you will be ready.