Required Reading: Letter 22: On The Fulity Of Half-Way Measures
“…a good man will not waste himself upon mean and discreditable work or be busy merely for the sake of being busy.”
“No one has anything finished, because we have kept putting off into the future all our undertakings…” And who can argue with that?! Hence, we fear leaving; we wish to keep living in hope that one day soon we can finish what we started. But who has the TIME? Is it ever enough? So why start something new? Why keep being busy? Why don’t you finish what you started ten years ago? Was it to finish a degree; buy a home; get marry; have children? What was that unfinished business; that half-way measure? Halt! Finish what you start!
Now, what is this longing to stay at it? To not depart prior to? Does the hope of being an active-busy-body keep you feeling you are living? Life should be tranquil; still from the day to day hustle. Yet, who is to blame? Not you of course; you happen to be born and rolled right into it; that magnificent hamster wheel; the one that noone has the free-time to analyze and ascertain “how did I get on this in the first place? My parents were on it prior to and even after I was born; perhaps their parents too…Well, it just the way it is.”
Everyone’s starting to act because…there is some obligation that we have to fulfill. What if I loose my job? What if I don’t have money to pay the mortgage; what if the car breaks down; what if the kids can not go to college? What if ad infinitum!
I agree with you; yet, like the teacher, we must “loosen rather than cut the knot which we have bungled so badly in tying—provided that if there shall be no other way of loosening it, we may actually cut it.” Why not? That is indeed sound advice.
The more ambition we muster, the tighter the knot gets; you don’t need the extra; in fact give it away; why two mortgages? Two car payments—his and hers; yes; consolidate! Stop holding fast to slavery! “no man can swim ashore and take his baggage with him.” I presume you are genuinely studying philosophy to be FREE; that is the essence of it all; the goal is not to attain long life and its acquisition but a noble life indeed. Farewell.
Word of the day:
Dilatory (adjective): given to or causing delay. (The Oxford American Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus 2nd Edition).
Quotations:
“You understand by this time that you must withdraw yourself from those showy and depraved pursuits.”
“There are certain things which can be pointed out only by someone who is present.”
“You must be not only present in the body, but watchful in mind.”
“No man is so faint-hearted that he would rather hang in suspense forever than drop once for all.”
“This is of first importance—do not hamper yourself; be content with the business into which you have lowered yourself, or as you prefer to have people think, have tumbled.”
“…one should attempt nothing except at the time when it can be attempted suitably and seasonably. Then, when the long-sought occasion comes, let him be up and doing.”
“Nay, when he (a good man) sees the dangers, uncertainties, and hazards in which he was formerly tossed about, he will withdraw—not turning his back to the foe, but falling back little by little to a safe position.”
“From business, however, my dear Lucilius, it is easy to escape, if only you will despise the rewards of business.”
“Men complain about their ambitions as they complain about their mistresses; in other words, if you penetrate their real feelings, you will find, not hatred, but bickering.”
“…there are a few men whom slavery holds fast, but there are many more who hold fast to slavery.”
“But if you keep turning round and looking about, in order to see how much you may carry away with you, and how much money you may keep to equip yourself for the life of leisure, you will never find a way out.”
“Everyone goes out of life just as if he had but lately entered it.” – Epicurus.
“Take anyone off his guard, young, old, or middle-aged; you will find that all are equally afraid of death, and equally ignorant of life.”
“…we are worse when we die than when we were born; but it is our fault, and not that of Nature. Nature should scold us, saying: “What does this mean? I brought you into the world without desires or fears, free from superstition, treachery and other curses. Go forth as you were when you entered!” -Epicurus.
“A man has caught the message of wisdom, if he can die as free from care as he was at birth.”
“Men do not care how nobly they live, but only how long, although it is within the reach of every man to live nobly, but within no man’s power to live long.”
Questions:
1) Are there projects you have left unfinished?
2) Are they still meaningful to you?
3) What will it take to complete them?
Activities:
1) List all of the projects you have started but have not completed.
2) Cross off the least meaningful.
3) In order of ease of doing, make a plan to complete one each month.
