“Would not anyone admit how much better it is, in place of exerting oneself to win someone else’s wife, to exert oneself to discipline one’s desires; in place of enduring hardships for the sake of money, to train oneself to want little?”
-Musonius Rufus
Last month I read That One Should Disdain Hardships by Musonius Rufus, a Roman Stoic. I got so much out of it. The book’s title chapter struck me the most.
Living virtuously is hard work. To more cheerfully and readily endure the hardships that go with pursuing the worthy aim of virtue, Musonius Rufus reminds us of the hardships people willingly endure for much less worthy aims.
Think about how people exert themselves to make a profit, the toil and pain they inflict on themselves pursuing fame, or the sweat they pour into achieving a different kind of pleasure. “Is it not then monstrous,” asks Musonius Rufus, “that they for no honorable reward endure such things, while we for the sake of the ideal good—that is, not only the avoidance of evil. . . .but also the acquisition of virtue—are not ready to bear every hardship?”
Why is it that, to pursue virtue (the key to happiness and contentment), we are so much less willing to exert ourselves than those who pursue empty things? People will argue until their veins pop, but when it comes to attempting to understand a different perspective, it’s too hard. They’ll work and scheme their entire lives to find ways to make more money, instead of training themselves to know when enough is enough. They’ll study every way in which they’re different from others, instead of holding fast to the truth that we’re all the same.
“People strive in this world,” said Leo Tolstoy, “not for those things which are truly good, but for the possession of many things which they can call their property.”
Musonius uses acrobats to demonstrate his point:
“When we see acrobats face without concern their difficult tasks and risk their lives in performing them, turning somersaults over ruptured swords or walking ropes set at a great height or flying through the air like birds, where one misstep means death, all of which they do for a miserable small recompense, shall we not be ready to endure hardship for the sake of complete happiness? For surely there is no other end in becoming good than to become happy and live happily for the remainder of our lives.”
We’re going to struggle either way. Why not struggle for something that’s actually good?
“Understand that while the pursuit of such indifferent objectives [money, fame] is natural,” said Epictetus, “neither failure nor success in attaining them has the slightest bearing on your happiness.”
“Not ‘some way to sleep with her’— but a way to stop wanting to. Not ‘some way to get rid of him’— but a way to stop trying. . . .Redirect your prayers like that, and watch what happens,” Marcus Aurelius said.
What are you really working for?
What are you getting for all of your hard work?