March 4, 2018: Virtue

Musonius Rufus, Lectures, 9.37.30-31, 9.39.1: "Indeed, how could exile be an obstacle to a person's own cultivation, or to attaining virtue when no one has ever been cut off from learning or practicing what is needed by exile?

Everyone has to go through obstacles in life to reach virtue and tranquility or peacefulness. The obstacles we have can be big or small, and the big ones are the ones that will challenge us. If you lose your sense of sight or ability to walk would be major obstacles for anyone. But the right attitude is to take the obstacle and turn it into a challenge that once you overcome you stoicism wins out.

Ganesha from Hinduism is the remover of obstacles and over my time learning about stoicism I have noted a lot of correlations with Hinduism. I think in the future I'm going to write about how the two have similar thoughts/actions/duties.

So today when you run into an obstacle, think about how you can turn it into a positive for you, and if you can't, at least have the right attitude about it overall being a challenge