Daring to Live
Well Tribe, it’s been rough lately. I know that I am not the only one feeling this way — each and every one of us has “stuff” -something they are struggling with, or mourning, or anxious about.
There is an odd but comforting solidarity in the knowledge that we are all going through something. So, that is what I have decided to delve in to this week. This month at Vibe Vault, we have chosen to focus on the following theme: “dare to live; dare to grow; dare to be bold”. My first inclination was to write something about being bold because well, it just sounds the most exciting. But the more that I sat with it, the more I felt pulled to start at the beginning: with daring to live. Perhaps it is quieter and more mundane, but that is why it is so important.
While trying to navigate my way through a huge and unexpected change over the past few weeks, I have found myself turning to books for both direction and distraction. Perhaps I’m not alone in this, but I struggle with a lot of the modern “self-help” books. I don’t meditate well. I get defiant when encouraged to “be positive”. And, while I am a person who feels very deeply, focusing on my emotions has historically been neither enjoyable or helpful for me when navigating the heavy parts of life. So, where else was there to turn but the Stoics? In my reading I came across one particular quote that stood out to me—both because it is true, and because it actually made me laugh out loud. This quote is from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, and goes as follows:
1. “Begin each day by saying to yourself: ‘Today I am going to encounter people who are ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, and hostile’” (2.1)
Ouch, right? At first, this statement may seem pessimistic or harsh. But it is actually just the opposite. Aurelius is pointing us toward a type of letting go that is crucial for us to flourish as human beings. Many of us wake up each day filled with anxieties. Our brains reel with questions: “Will this work project go well? Is my spouse upset with me? Do my friends really like me? What if I mess something up?” All of those what-ifs are exactly what keep us stuck. They hold us back from daring to live. It truly does take strength to begin the day knowing that it will be hard, knowing you may be hurt, and choose to live anyway. And I don’t just mean breathe—I mean dare say yes, this is going to be difficult, but I can still better myself in the midst of it all.
So, what does this look like practically? It could look like bracing yourself for the person who cuts you off on the highway or snaps at you, while being able to acknowledge that they are separate from you, and therefore you have no control over their actions. It can be so difficult not to play unpleasant interactions over and over in your head and brood over how inconsiderate people can be. But, while it is valid to feel things about these interactions, the better choice is to feel them, and then move forward. So many of us humans can be “ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, and hostile”. That doesn’t mean that we should reciprocate those feelings back out into the universe. We should dare to remember that we have the power to cultivate within ourselves virtuous qualities that will enable to live fully, regardless of the actions of others.
It is not my intention to make this mindset sound easy to reach. It is not, especially applied to the big things. “What if everything changes? What if they don’t love me anymore? What if I have made an irreparable mistake?” Would you be prepared to keep cultivating your soul, to keep truly living, if the answer to any of those questions was yes? Are you prepared to wake up in the morning and say, “I know this is going to hurt, but I must continue to grow in my own right, because that is what I am meant to do”? If we begin to practice this Stoic type of letting go in the small things, it will prepare us to face the great changes and loss that we will encounter. Yes, it will all still hurt. But the ability to acknowledge our separateness from harmful events and people will enable us to keep moving forward. So, I dare you to exhale, and let go. I dare you to take an honest inventory of the emotional entanglements that are holding you back. I dare you to live.
I promise you that you can.