Endure
The impediment to action advances action.
“Two words should be committed to memory and obeyed by alternately exhorting and restraining ourselves, words that ensure we lead a mainly blameless and untroubled life. These two words were persist and resist.” - Epictetus
Epictetus said the art of living rests on two pillars. Persist and resist. These sound simple until life tests you. When you’ve done everything right- worked hard, learned the skill, kept your integrity- and still nothing gives, persistence feels absurd. You question whether the universe is indifferent or cruel. You feel a Sisyphean agony. Marcus Aurelius faced the same feeling as emperor. That’s why he reminded himself, “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” Failure and resistance are part of your training. Nothing ever goes to waste as long as you give it all your heart. Over time, you’ll see that what was once planted in you in the guise of exploitation will come to sprout into a fulfilling life. The obstacle is the way.
To persist means to stay loyal to what matters when you’re tired and the world keeps giving you shit. It’s the surgeon still studying at midnight after a long shift. It’s the writer editing the same paragraph for the fifth time because excellence demands it. You persist not to guarantee success, even though hard work does increase your probability for success, but because the work is important to you and you like the pride of doing it well. Marcus called this inner alignment “living in accordance to nature”- doing what fits your role as a rational, moral being regardless of reward.
Resisting is a more subtle battle. It’s the pull toward ease- the junk food after a long day, the scrolling instead of sleeping, the gossip instead of tact. To resist is to remember what’s real- to say no not because you’re puritanical, but because you’d really love to see your potential. You hate the sting of regret. You love yourself too much to be enslaved to anything, just as Seneca put it, “I do not maintain that the body is not to be indulged at all; but I maintain that we must not be slaves to it.”
Epictetus wrote that no one is free until they can command themselves. Every moment you resist what weakens you, you claim a bit of that freedom and power. Every time you persist through doubt, through what’s hard- you align with something beyond you. Something beautiful. Pain, failure, and fatigue become invitations to practice fortitude. And when you persist and resist long enough, dear reader, you start to embody strength and the advantages it brings- instead of yearning for ease. Instead of complaining and looking for shortcuts.
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P.P.S: Most people loved the series on How to Deepen Your Friendships, Part I, Part II & Part III. Also check out the practical entries on How To Deal With Toxic People, How to Process & Overcome Grief & How to Prevent and Overcome Burnout. Happy reading!
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Agree 100% with this article - doing the hard thing makes you feel good. I feel like I have done what I should be doing, no matter what happens after. I do this for each pocket of time I have and I feel better for it even when times are tough
There are things that appear along the way to growth that nature places in front of you. There’s a feeling when you experience that which can only be described as alignment.
This article is one of those things for me.