I try not to draw my inspiration from The Daily Stoic because I don’t want to be seen as copying or regurgitating the writing of Ryan Holiday, who runs that blog and email list.
But sometimes if a meditation is too on point and perfect for where I am right now, I can’t ignore it.
Earlier this week, Holiday brought up in his daily email that one can never know what his true potential if he is never tested.
The quote, forthwith, from Seneca:
“I judge you unfortunate because you have never lived through misfortune. You have passed through life without an opponent—no one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you.”
I’m sure it seems odd to think that the lack of troubles is an inhibition to you reaching your highest self, but it really does make sense.
How does one build up physical strength? By working out, forcing your muscles to break down and rebuild into stronger versions.
How does one improve at something? By failing, over and over again, until you get better at it.
How does one broaden their horizons? By going out beyond the limits of their comfort zones and testing themselves against new frontiers.
This fact of human growth appeals to me in particular because I am a little over three weeks from likely losing my job, a fact I have mentioned in a previous recent blog.
I am trying to put a good face on it and not reveal that the end of that certainty of income causes me some level of anxiety and fear. I tell myself I am resourceful and multi-talented, having succeeded in a couple different industries. I have a network of friends and former business associates whom I believe will help me find employment quickly if I need it. I am working on my own gigs and have the confidence I can do the work necessary to make those succeed. I am making plans to cut my expenditures and believe I can instill the discipline to do so and to live a life of less, at least for now.
But in recent days, as the end comes ever more perilously near, I have found myself uneasy. I have weird dreams and troubled sleep. I have a low-level anxiety at times that settles in deep in my gut and is difficult to root out.
And I know that is my fear of the unknown. I have never been actively unemployed from all jobs since I was 17. That is 29 years, for those of you without a calculator handy. I actually often joke that I in fact have had two jobs more often than one job in my working life.
And I don’t have bountiful savings to fall back on either. No, I am not going to be destitute, but like many Americans, I have not saved well. What I have saved will not last terribly long if I don’t find new income.
So this quote hit me hard. It seemed so apropos to what I am going through.
It is helping me understand that this challenge before me is not one to be avoided. No, I need this obstacle. I need to truly test myself. I need to have the courage to step out of my comfort bubble and take on the unknown.
For how will I ever know who I can really be if I take the easy way out? Scramble for some job that makes me unhappy, just to keep me at the status quo? Never try to do something I really enjoy and get more out of life?
If I am true to the person I wish to become, then I cannot take the easy way out. I must lose my job. I must fall back on my own resources. I must be willing to push my limits.
“You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice.”
— Bob Marley