On Slavery & Independence

How you become invincible.

The Magpie by Claude Monet. The painting’s innovative use of blue shadows was rejected by the Paris Salon, which held the convention that shadows should be painted black. His realistic portrayal was seen as “coarse” by the Salon, but it’s now considered a masterful Impressionist innovation and a popular work at the Musée d’Orsay. Never abandon yourself; embrace your weirdness.

“So you were born to feel ‘nice’? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being?… You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you.” - Marcus Aurelius

“Show me someone who isn’t a slave! One is a slave to lust, another to greed, another to power, and all are slaves to fear. I could name a former Consul who is a slave to a little old woman, a millionaire who is the slave of the cleaning woman. . . . No servitude is more abject than the self-imposed.” - Seneca

Today’s entry is a bit painful. I want you to look at yourself with honesty. What owns you?… Is it the cup of coffee without which you can’t function? The milkshake you keep rewarding yourself with? The scrolling into the night where you wake up with your phone still in hand? The warm blanket you refuse to leave in the morning? Or is it the approval of others? These don’t look like slavery, yet they hold us back all the same. They still undermine our sovereignty.

Take lust. It has ruined a lot of men. How many times have you felt the sting of giving in, knowing you could have stood firm- against pornography, against casual sex- knowing you wanted something realer? How many times have you wasted your strength on what left you emptier than before? Stop lying to yourself. It’s time you raised your standard and stopped taking the easy road. Couldn’t that same energy be directed into going on dates, into deepening your friendships, into work that fulfills you? Isn’t that a better investment than temporary pleasure?

Work is also no better if you can’t control it. Do you measure yourself by exhaustion, by hours tied to a desk, by the false pride of never stopping? What would happen if you drew clear limits, stopped when you said you would, and let the quality of your effort, not exhaustion or results, define your value? Wouldn’t you respect yourself more?

And sleep- how many mornings have you lost to ‘five more minutes’? Does it truly leave you better, or does it, drenched in regret and anxiety of the day ahead, rob you of the morning momentum that could have changed your day? If you set your intentions for the day the night before and rose without delay or bargaining, how much better would your life look like in a year, how confident would you be? It’s Marcus Aurelius invoking his sense of pride, asking himself,

“Is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?” -

Then there’s fear. Then opinion. How many times has it stopped you from greatness, only for you to realize later it was nothing but in your imagination? How much of your life is lived for an audience you don’t even respect- strangers you’ll never meet? Why surrender your uniqueness, your weirdness for that?

Rebel against the false necessities that society has convinced you you cannot live without. True freedom emerges when you can earnestly say, “I have enough, I’m loved at home, and I can walk away.” I want you to examine your own life. What small dependencies have you accepted as normal? I challenge you to go without them- for a day, a week, a month- just to reclaim your ability to say no, realize you have enough and see that some things are not as important as you think.

That’s how nothing outside of yourself can own you. That’s how you become invincible.

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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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