Wednesday Wisdom: Yielding, Acceptance, Contentment
January 31, 2024's Wisdom
Welcome to Wednesday Wisdom, our 3x3 Newsletter where I attempt to distill and share worldly advice for better living by presenting three quotes, three observations, and three questions.
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Yielding
🤨 Quote
“Fortune tests the spirit's mettle. A boxer who has never suffered a beating cannot bring bold spirits to the match. It is the one who has seen his own blood--who has heard his teeth crunch under the fist--who has lost his footing and found himself spread-eagled beneath his opponent--the one who, though forced to yield, has never yielded in spirit, who after falling rises fiercer every time: that is the one who goes to the contest with vigorous hope.”
Seneca the Younger
Source: Letters on Ethics
Observation 🧐
They say there is nothing more powerful than the human spirit, the sheer will to continually get up and keep pushing on no matter what life throws at you. But sometimes evaluating the context of the situation is in fact what is needed in order to determine whether persevering is the right move.
If you are playing the stock market, and you’ve lost most of your money on a bad investment, does it make more sense to persevere, hoping it turns around? Or does it make more sense to yield, cut the losses, and learn from the mistake?
Often times, it takes being in the situation to know. Seneca, writing to his friend Lucilius, stated:
“One can never be sure of one's strength until numerous difficulties have appeared on every side, or indeed until the moment when they have come quite close. That is the way for the true mind to prove itself, the mind that yields to no judgment but its own.”
Sometimes those difficulties are there to tell us we’re not yet ready or prepared to overcome them, that the best move for success is not to persevere, but to yield. And that takes tremendous strength of mind.
Sometimes we need to take that step back in order to take two steps forward. It’s not always easy to do and oftentimes when we’re in the situation it becomes even harder.
The persevering spirit will be there. Your job is to make sure you have another opportunity to utilize it.
🤔 Question
Reflecting on the last three months, what is one thing you should have yielded on but instead pushed through? Did the perseverance move you forward or hinder you more?
Acceptance
🤨 Quote
“If you think that no one in my situation could have been cheerful, you’re missing the point. Acceptance creates cheerfulness, which in turn creates contentment.”
Louis Zamperini
Source: Don’t Give Up, Don’t Give In
Observation 🧐
After having had his plane shot down during WWII, Louis Zamperini and his fellow soldiers survived over 40 days at sea before a Japanese vessel picked them up and they were held as prisoners of war for two-plus years. During such time, the men were tortured, starved, and subjected to humiliation.
But those who accepted their circumstance, who tried to ground themselves in reality, were the ones who had a better chance of survival. Writing about the experience, Zamperini stated:
“I noticed that the soldiers who suffered the most were the ones who wouldn't accept their situation... Those guys drained their personal resources by refusing to accept our (we all hoped) temporary lot.”
Reframing the imprisonment, Zamperini would find strength by providing himself with a purpose for the suffering.
“I decided to consider my incarceration as a challenge -- like winning a race. That gave me purpose. Sure, I wished I was home with my family, but I had to deal with the reality.”
Acceptance does not mean weakness and it does not mean giving up. It is coming to terms with the reality one is faced with. For Zamperini, it was through that reality that he was able to find contentment—contentment by way of knowing what was in store each and every day, much like the way Albert Camus’ Sisyphus found happiness in his plight of rolling the boulder up the hill only to watch it roll right back down.