The problems that you face are there to test your endurance.
Your mind will need a resolution before the body can perish, for if the mind caves in while the body is young, the freedom to live will leave your grasp and only regret shall inhabit your soul.
Know that there is nothing original when living a good life and an upright soul is all that is needed.
The soul creates all of its problems. Accessories become necessities which fill us with emptiness. The judgment of others become our truths to despise.
“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking.” “I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.” — Marcus Aurelius
The meanness of the soul finds its mark when we derive pleasure from the possibility of acquiring than from what is being acquired. We find more enjoyment in contemplating possibilities than doing the “impossible” and as the stoic philosopher Seneca put’s it:
Can anything be sillier than those who boast of their foresight? They keep themselves very busily engaged in order that they may be able to live better; they spend life in making ready to live! They form their purposes with a view to the distant future; yet postponement is the greatest waste of life; it deprives them of each day as it comes, it snatches from them the present by promising something hereafter. The greatest hindrance to living is expectancy, which depends upon the morrow and wastes to-day. You dispose of that which lies in the hands of Fortune, you let go that which lies in your own.
This definition of “impossible” gets set by the expectations of others which eclipse our own will to live.
The remedy to one’s meanness rests in stillness. Take a moment to be with yourself in 3rd person. This is important as man, being the creator of all sin, can only plan folly in his loneliness and play with his base desires. We need others to do good. But when this isn’t possible, one must create another for the sake of himself.
Now from this perspective, look to your physical surroundings and check for anything that is of need. Be critical, but don’t despise. See how you’ve learned to live with it and likewise, do the same with your soul.
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”― Epicurus
The problems which exist can be solved in an instant just by acknowledging that they exist. Strive to advance beyond this and know that the path is clear and has a great many teachers to keep you company along the way. Realise that the path of virtue endures on the state of constancy.
