August 1
Lead me, Zeus, and you, Destiny, wherever you have appointed me: I follow without hesitating. Were I unwilling — I would have to follow all the same, only worse.
Prayer, preserved in Epictetus’s Handbook (Enchiridion), 53
Listening mode
Lead me, Zeus, and you, Destiny, wherever you have appointed me: I follow without hesitating. Were I unwilling — I would have to follow all the same, only worse.
Some things are decided before you are asked. A department is restructured, a lease is terminated, an appointment that a lot depended on is moved. You can be annoyed about it, and often you have good reason to be. You still have to go.
The annoyance changes the situation less than it changes how you see it. If you arrive somewhere new reluctantly, the place easily becomes proof that things were better before and that others could have spared you all this. Every inconvenience confirms the suspicion. Whatever happens to go well there hardly counts, because it doesn’t fit the complaint.
The only difficulty is that you rarely know in advance what is really settled. Some decisions can still be challenged. If you consent too early, you may give up something that would have been worth defending. Consent, too, can be a form of complacency.
At some point you notice that you have been there for a while. The colleague at the next desk knows your name, and you know which window sticks. Whether you chose to be here or simply stayed, you can no longer quite say this morning.
