You're Too Good to Feel This Bad: An Orthodox Approach to Living an Unorthodox Life

by Nate Dallas

That 500-calorie, mocha-frocha-choca-woppa-latte is not doing any favors for your brain or your muffin-top. Stop drinking daily desserts. That much sugar should only be consumed once per year anyway. It’s called your birthday.

Greek philosopher Epictetus: “Any person capable of angering you becomes your master.”

Justifying our shortcomings and pretending we don’t see them is a terrible surrogate for real action and virtue. I can blame my workplace, my spouse, my kids, my lack of support, or even my DNA for my problems, but to what avail? The problem is still sitting there, unresolved. When I’m willing to accept an excuse in place of the goal itself, I should admit that I never wanted it badly enough in the first place. My actions expose my true passions, or lack thereof. They are condemning. We can often fool others, but not ourselves.

As Marcus Aurelius states, “Choose not to be harmed, and you won’t feel harmed. If you don’t feel harmed, you haven’t been.” When we enter this realm of thinking, many of the people around us cannot comprehend our actions or lack thereof. That’s fine because being understood is no longer required in our new model.

When we are lone individuals, only focused on and concerned with self, we always lose. Inevitably, in this isolated situation, everything gravitates toward a “me against the world” attitude. That place is where we remain permanent victims and interpret the actions of the world as personal and oppressive, even when they had nothing to do with us.

We usually live life forward, but often understand it backward.