Today’s quote from Thus Spoke Epictetus is a very powerful one:
“Once you allow outward things to dominate what is your own, you had better become a slave and have done with it. Don’t be drawn this way and that, wishing to be a slave one moment and free another, but be this or that simply and with all your mind, free or slave, philosopher or unenlightened, a fighting cock of spirit, or one of no spirit; either bear stroke after stroke patiently till you die, or give way at once. Let it not be your lot to suffer many blows and then give way in the end.”
-Epictetus, Discourses 2.2.12-14 [Matheson Trans.]
This reminder comes at a good time for me, when I’ve been contemplating giving up on law school from the pressure. It’s tempting to leave the struggle and the deadlines and the pressure to return to a life where I have leisure time. As Epictetus points out, it’s fine to join the struggle and equally fine to not struggle, but vacillating between the two is unacceptable.
Also, thanks to DT Strain for creating the Stoic emblem.
Yours truly,
Mr. X
…getting back on track…
