Time Doesn’t Make Everything Better...It Just Makes Them What They Are
The Daily Stoic25 Okt 2018

Time Doesn’t Make Everything Better...It Just Makes Them What They Are

When we get dumped or we fail or we lose someone, we often hear that “Time heals all wounds” or some such remark, all of it in consolation. Obviously this is meant well, but it’s also frustrating--if only because it’s trite...and way too simple.

As Rilke wrote, “Time does not ‘console’ as people say superficially; at best it puts things in their place and it creates order.” There is a Zen story about a man whose horse ran away. People said it was bad luck. Then the horse came back, which people thought was good luck, and then his son broke his leg while falling off it and people thought that was bad luck come round again. But because his leg was broken, the man’s son was saved from fighting and dying in a war, and the cycle went on and on.

Time doesn’t make things better or worse, it simply makes them what they are. That’s why the Stoics talk about not rushing to judgment about anything, about waiting and seeing. Because we don’t know. Just giving something time isn’t automatically going to make it better--but it does at least give things a chance to shake out, for us to see the full picture. If there is one aphorism about time that we CAN rely on, that the Stoics would agree with, it's that 'time will tell.'

That’s the moral of the Zen story too. Trying to label things as good luck or bad luck is shortsighted. It assumes that all the facts have been entered into evidence. It’s better to hold off on forming an opinion, because fate is constantly unfolding around us, and today’s bad luck may very well be setting up tomorrow’s good luck (and vice versa).

Time isn’t a panacea, but it is a form of truth. So watch for it. Time will, in fact, tell.


See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Avsnitt(2882)

Nothing Exempts You From Hard Work

Nothing Exempts You From Hard Work

It’s interesting, if you think about Greek and Roman mythology, that the Gods were so active and busy. Athena and Circe and Hermes all worked to help Odysseus. Apollo guided Achilles. Zeus and Jupiter...

3 Okt 20182min

Nothing Can Touch The Soul

Nothing Can Touch The Soul

The anti-war novel Johnny Got His Gun and the song it inspired, One by Metallica, tell the story of Joe Bonham, a soldier who has been grievously injured on the battlefield in World War I. Upon waking...

2 Okt 20183min

It’s Time To Get Up. It’s Time To Get Up

It’s Time To Get Up. It’s Time To Get Up

One of the best passages in all of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations is the opener to Book V. In it, Marcus has a dialog with himself as he struggles to get out of bed in the morning. It’s just marvelousl...

1 Okt 20181min

Another Reason To Journal

Another Reason To Journal

In Walter Isaacson’s wonderful new biography of Leonardo Da Vinci, he spends a lot of time dissecting and exploring the ideas in Da Vinci’s notebooks. From his military sketches to his lesser known fa...

28 Sep 20183min

Don’t Make This Mistake (Or Stop Before It’s Too Late)

Don’t Make This Mistake (Or Stop Before It’s Too Late)

Why are good people attracted to serving bad people or bad causes? Aristotle taught Alexander the Great. Seneca advised Nero. Da Vinci attached himself to Cesare Borgia. Mattis accepted a cabinet posi...

27 Sep 20184min

Love Not Hate

Love Not Hate

It’s easy to stir up resentment, harder to create common ground. It’s easy to point out what’s wrong, it’s much more difficult to come up with a solution. Our current political and social dialogue has...

26 Sep 20182min

Make Sure You're Coming Home

Make Sure You're Coming Home

All of us have day jobs. Even professional philosophers are still professors or authors, which means they have other responsibilities than just thinking and reading. That means that like the rest of u...

21 Sep 20182min

Different Folks Need Different Strokes

Different Folks Need Different Strokes

Confucius was once asked for advice by a student, and in replying essentially urged him to wait and be patient. Later he was asked for advice by another student, and advised that student to not be pa...

20 Sep 20185min

Populärt inom Business & ekonomi

badfluence
framgangspodden
varvet
rss-jossan-nina
uppgang-och-fall
rss-borsens-finest
avanzapodden
rss-svart-marknad
fill-or-kill
rss-kort-lang-analyspodden-fran-di
bathina-en-podcast
rss-dagen-med-di
24fragor
tabberaset
lastbilspodden
borsmorgon
rss-inga-dumma-fragor-om-pengar
dynastin
svd-tech-brief
loungepodden