Fortune is seen in ancient philosophy as being a fickle mistress. One day, it comes to you, and all is well. Things go your way. the stars align and open a path that would otherwise be shut or difficult to walk. You get used to its good winds, leading you somewhere nice and pleasant and you remain content.
But then, the good winds turn into storms. When Fortune leaves you, seemingly unrelated things start going wrong, and all seems so much more difficult than you expected and believe it has to be. These storms make it difficult to navigate your path, urgencies and emergencies take away your focus and you end up expecting only the storms.
But reliance on Fortune is always ill advised, because it's not something within your control. Nothing you do or have ability to directly influence will affect how Fortune descends or not upon you, so there's no benefit in forming an opinion of how Fortune affects you. It just is what it is.
Marcus Aurelius put it best. "Fortune, I have nothing to do with you. I am not at your service. I know that men like Cato are spurned by you, and men like Vatinius made by you. I ask no favours"
How empowering this sentence is. He starts by distancing himself from being at the service of Fortune, implying that he doesn't make decisions based on how Fortune descends upon him but that he knows what he wants and will keep doing the work independently of how much Fortune helps clearing the path.
He then mentions the two extremes in ways one can deal with the impact of Fortune in our lives. We can either spurn it, rejecting its benefits and disdaining its presence like Cato. Or we can let ourselves be made by it, implying that conditions made themselves favourable to us and we just took advantage of these external circumstances, live Vatinius. None of these two options are particularly helpful.
Finally, he ends it with "I ask no favours". This tells us that Marcus Aurelius valued more his ability to know what needs to be done and put in the work to achieve it, rather than wish that his Fortune was different and that things somehow could be made easier for him, and this is the real lesson I believe from this.
So too, Rafael, I would urge you to live the same way. The winds of Fortune come and go, and you can't rely on them to ensure you reach your destination. Sometimes they'll blow for you, sometimes against you and there's nothing you can do about it or anything in your power to influence either scope or strength of Fortune.
But if you distance yourself from it by asking for no favours, Fortune has nothing on you. It can try and blow you in any direction, but you've made the commitment not to rely on it to achieve your objectives. You own your results, and realize the conditions to achieve them will change, will at times be favourable and at times adverse, but you commit to see it like it is and adapt to any changing conditions. Again, you make adjustments and not excuses. And when you do get or achieve what you had in your heart and mind to do, you'll know you've asked for no favours, from Fortune or elsewhere, and that your results in life are a result of what you put in to it. You've asked for no favours, and instead decided to ride the winds of Fortune as they presented themselves to you.
Nothing puts you in the driver seat of your own life more than knowing you expect no help from Fortune to be who and what you wish to be or achieve.
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