Discourses

'But difficult and disagreeable things happen in life.' Well, aren't difficulties found at Olympia [the site of the ancient Olympic Games]? Don't you get hot? And crowded? Isn't bathing a problem? Don't you get soaked through in your seats when it rains? Don't you finally get sick of the noise, the shouting, and the other irritations? I can suppose only that you weigh all those negatives against the worth of the show, and choose, in the end, to be patient and put up with it all. Furthermore, you have inner strengths that enable you to bear up with difficulties of every kind. You have been given fortitude, courage, and patience. Why should I worry about what happens if I am armed with the virtue of fortitude? Nothing can trouble me or upset me, or even seem annoying. Instead of meeting misfortune and groans with tears, I will call upon the faculty especially provided to deal with it.

'But my nose is running!' What do you have hands for, idiot, if not to wipe it?

'But how is it right that there be running noses in the first place?' Instead of thinking up protests, wouldn't it be easier just to wipe your nose?

... Come and appreciate the resources you have, and when that is done, say, 'Bring on whatever difficulties you like, Zeus; I have resources and a constitution that you gave me by means of which I can do myself credit whatever happens.'

But no. There you sit, worrying that certain events might happen, already upset and in a state about your present circumstances. So then you reproach the gods. ...

And yet God has not merely given us strength to tolerate troubles without being humiliated or undone, but, as befitted a king and true father, he has given them to us free from constraint, compulsion, and impediment. He has put the whole matter in our control, not even reserving to himself any power to hinder us or stand in our way. And even though you have these powers, which are free and entirely your own, you don't use them, because you still don't realise what you have or where it came from. Instead you sit crying and complaining, some of you blind to your benefactor, and unable to acknowledge his existence; others assailing God with complaints and accusations from sheer meanness of spirit.

I am prepared to show you that you have resources and a character naturally strong and resilient; show me in return what grounds you have for being peevish and malcontent.