LXXXVI. How to Avoid Breaking Down When Life Gets Brutal
Life is warfare and a journey far from home.
Life, as Marcus Aurelius wrote, is warfare and a journey far from home.
You will face deadlines that press against your throat you’ll feel like choking and crying, conversations that feel like walking on broken glass, nagging and rude people to tolerate, people you must release even when it tears at you, and loneliness to endure. You’ll face truths too hard to digest you’ll need a laxative, and you will stare into the hollow eyes of an empty bank account, wondering how you will survive. You’ll have demons to feed and reign, your craft to sharpen to excellence against the fire of discipline and practice.
There will always be work to do.
But just as a doctor wouldn’t be surprised, get depressed, or complain about a sick person walking into his hospital, so the wise man doesn’t cower at the panoply of problems in the art of living—he might get his neat whiskey on the rocks, but he’ll be back in the battlefield calling shots.
Far from being depressing, this reality gives you the power of clarity—a conspicuous target to aim at, hit and destroy. It grounds you on the strong pillars of truth and rationality, protecting you from the illusions leading to wasted effort, like trying to fit a circle into a square hole when we complain — and apply working solutions.
Don’t worry about yourself too much. Your body, mind, and soul will adapt to the demands you place on yourself. Like firewood to a blazing fire, they’ll grow stronger under the weight. This is just your nature. Your birthright.
Marcus Aurelius understood this fact when he wrote:
“Nothing can happen to any human outside the experience which is natural to humans. Nothing happens to any man which he is not formed by nature to bear.”
When you stop seeing problems as anomalies, they become a natural occurrence in your life— inevitable, and when you start seeing, respecting and appreciating your power in guiding the bit of life you control, they become surmountable. They are not obstacles to your happiness; they are the very raw material from which you create your happiness, strength, and power.
And you’re well equipped to handle trouble because you’re part of a universe that operates on impossible odds—you’re an evolutionary miracle whose genome has survived plagues, wars, famines. A mighty force shaped by the same powers that carved mountains, filled oceans, made lions. You’re a divine entity with a great destiny to fulfil.
Marcus concludes by telling us:
“Just remember you can endure anything your mind can make endurable, by treating it as in your interest to do so. In your interest, or in your nature.”
So, “straighten up, little soldier. Stiffen up that upper lip,” Eminem would tell you. List down your problems. And attack them one by one, with confidence, genuine care and vigour, until nothing is left.
You were built for this. You’re the spirit of Alexander. Of Seneca and Epictetus. The universe made you to endure, to fight, to rise.
So rise.
Did you like this entry? I’d love to read your thoughts on this matter. What thoughts or quotes do you gravitate toward when life gets brutal?
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Previously,
Fall seven, rise eight.
Love the Van Gogh.
Everything u said was on point 🥹
Thank u ☺️