Bearing Bad Luck Nobly
“Bad luck, borne nobly, becomes good luck.”
Marcus Aurelius
2020 has been quite the spell of bad luck, to put it lately. The centurion plague is only one of many major collective challenges we’re facing.
The quarantine understandably wears on our mental energy and our psychological well-being. We are undergoing various levels of shared and personal trauma.
For those of us whose personal safety, health, and ability to have food and shelter are not directly threatened: is there a way we can become better by this?
Emperor Marcus Aurelius reminds us that bad luck is an opportunity to grow, and is thus good fortune if we use it right. How can we take what is hard about today and become better by it?
A friend of mine once said: “every moment is either a teaching or a celebration.” What does Covid-19 teach us?
For starters, it teaches us that everything we have is precious. It can be taken away in a moment. We should therefore practice being exceptionally grateful for our friendships, our financial well-being, our families, our past-times, and even the sunshine, the wind, the rain. We will not always have it.
Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking.”
Marcus Aurelius
And we can learn to hold onto these lightly, even while being grateful for them. At one point or another, we will lose everything. We lose various things at various times–friendships, loved ones, financial wealth, even our health. But at some point it is all gone. At different times, we have different things to love in life, even if it is as simple as the taste of fruit or the smell of fresh air. Today, it may be a video call with someone we have not heard from in some time. It may be taking a moment to read a book collecting dust on the shelf. It may be simply being quiet with ourselves and enjoying the feeling of life inside of us.
When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love …”
Marcus Aurelius
Everything we have is beautiful, and temporary. Every hardship is an opportunity to grow and become more grateful, become more compassionate, and become more at peace with what the world is. That peace is necessary for gratitude to spring forth. The world and its toils need not hurt us. We have the power to be overjoyed with what we do have.
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
Marcus Aurelius
Want more stoicism?
This week is stoicism week at ReConsider, so each day there’ll be a new article reflecting on how stoicism can improve our political climate in 2020, as well as our mental well being. articles and published podcasts on stocism, which you can check out here:
- Who were the stoics?
- Your mind makes your happiness
- Bearing bad luck nobly
Additionally, ReConsider’s Principles and Discussion Strategies are heavily influenced by stoic philosophy, which you can read about here.
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