February 14
What would Heracles have become without the lion, the Hydra, the boar? What would he have done if there had been nothing of the kind? He would have rolled over in bed and slept. Slumbering in luxury, he would never have become Heracles.
Discourses I,6
Listening mode
What would Heracles have become without the lion, the Hydra, the boar? What would he have done if there had been nothing of the kind? He would have rolled over in bed and slept. Slumbering in luxury, he would never have become Heracles.
Difficulties you choose for yourself have one convenient quality: you know how big they are. A long distance, a demanding project, a resolution for the winter. They can exhaust you, but they stay within your measure. If it gets to be too much, you're allowed to stop, and nobody else pays for it.
What actually changed you, on the other hand, often came uninvited. A task you weren't ready for, a responsibility no one else would take on. Precisely because you couldn't opt out, you found abilities you hadn't known you had.
Not much of use follows from this, though. You can't order up situations like these without defusing them. And being grateful in hindsight sometimes feels wrong, as if you were giving your approval after the fact to what hurt you or others.
When someone asks whether you'd go through it again, you say no. Still, you wouldn't want to trade places with the person you would have become without that time.
