{"id":5193,"date":"2019-09-21T19:26:14","date_gmt":"2019-09-21T19:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailystoic.com\/?p=5193"},"modified":"2019-09-21T19:26:14","modified_gmt":"2019-09-21T19:26:14","slug":"just-dont-make-things-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailystoic.com\/just-dont-make-things-worse\/","title":{"rendered":"Just Don\u2019t Make Things Worse"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the beginning of <\/span>The Odyssey<\/span><\/i><\/a>, Zeus utters a famous lament that must, one imagines, be shared by all gods and parents and presidents alike:<\/span><\/p>\n

This is absurd<\/span><\/p>\n

That mortals blame the gods! They say<\/span><\/p>\n

we cause suffering but they themselves<\/span><\/p>\n

Increase it by folly.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At the heart of Stoicism is an admission that life is unfair and largely out of our control. <\/span>Bad stuff happens to everyone<\/span><\/a>, the vast majority of it not even remotely our fault. Nobody asks to die. Nobody asks to be lied to or smacked by a natural disaster or leveled by some freak accident. The Gods, or luck, or Fate\u2014that\u2019s who is responsible for these untimely deeds (to us at least).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But the Stoics also agree with Zeus\u2019s complaint: That humans take this misfortune and compound it. We make things worse than they need to be. By complaining. By quitting. By getting upset about them. By placing blame. By trying desperately to undo what must happen, or to outsmart it by scheme or by bargain. We add folly on top of misfortune.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s really the plot of <\/span>The Odyssey<\/span><\/i> if you think about it. Odysseus is too clever for his own good, and it gets him into trouble <\/span>constantly.<\/span><\/i> He was almost home, but then he took a nap and his curious men\u2014who he refused to explain himself to\u2014opened a bag of wind that set them back. He was free of the Cyclops\u2014who was awful, yes\u2014but then he had to taunt him, not content to leave well enough alone. <\/span>It was the costliest of all the errors<\/span><\/a> he made. The whole story is Odysseus making a bad situation worse, over and over again until he is rescued by Athena.<\/span><\/p>\n

The key to life may not be brilliance or power. What if it\u2019s just not being stupid? What if it\u2019s just not increasing our troubles by adding folly and hubris and greed on top of them? There\u2019s no guarantee, but it\u2019s worth a try\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

P.S.\u00a0<\/i><\/b>This was originally sent<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/a> on September 27, 2019. Sign up today for <\/i><\/b>the Daily Stoic\u2019s email<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/a>\u00a0and get our popular\u00a0<\/i><\/b>free 7-day course on Stoicism.\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the beginning of The Odyssey, Zeus utters a famous lament that must, one imagines, be shared by all gods and parents and presidents alike: This is absurd That mortals blame the gods! They say we cause suffering but they themselves Increase it by folly. At the heart of Stoicism is an admission that life […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nJust Don\u2019t Make Things Worse<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dailystoic.com\/just-dont-make-things-worse\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Just Don\u2019t Make Things Worse\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At the beginning of The Odyssey, Zeus utters a famous lament that must, one imagines, be shared by all gods and parents and presidents alike: This is absurd That mortals blame the gods! 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