Status Updates From The Enchiridion

XXIV: consider first what the matter is and what your own nature is able to bear... for different people are made for different things... You must watch, you must labor, you must get the better of certain appetites, must quit your acquaintances... You must be one man, either good or bad.

passage XXIV

XXII : "For remember that, if you are persistent, those very persons who at first ridiculed will afterwards admire you. But if you are conquered by them, you will incur a double ridicule."

V: When therefore, we are hindered, or disturbed or grieved, let us never impute it to others, but to ourselves, -that is, to our own views. It is the reaction of an uninstructed person to reproach others for his own misfortunes, of one entering upon instruction to reproach himself, and one perfectly, instructed to reproach neither others nor himself."

Apliquemos esta máxima a objetos más serios. Si alguno pierde la mujer o el hijo, no hay quien no le diga que esa es la suerte de la humanidad; pero si nosotros nos hallamos en el mismo caso, nos desesperamos y gritamos al instante: "Ah! cuan desgraciado soy!" Entonces es preciso acordarse de la sangre fría con que oímos que a otro le haya sucedido el mismo accidente.