For years, you’ve worked. For years, you’ve sacrificed. You’ve risked. You’ve hustled. You’ve made tough calls, maybe even left a few knives buried in a few backs. But all of it was aimed at getting somewhere–somewhere you felt you needed to go, to do something you thought was important.

And then you got there. And? And? It was a little disappointing, wasn’t it? Thus, it has always been this way. What do you think Seneca felt upon being elected consul, knowing that it means another day in Nero’s court? How do you think Marcus Aurelius felt, another victory on the battlefield, another year in office?

“The question pounds my head,” The National sings, “What’s a lifetime of achievement?” It’s nothing is what it is. Or at least not what you think it is. “Soon you’ll be ashes or bones,” Marcus Aurelius writes in Meditations. “A mere name at most – and even that is just a sound, an echo. The things we want in life are empty, stale, trivial.” Shadows and dust. Shadows and dust, that’s what Proximo shouts at Maximus as he trots into the arena in Gladiator.

These things we chase, what do they really matter? Are they worth the things we’re willing to do for them? The nights away from home, the questionable ethics, the flattery, the compromises? No! Not much is…