Few saw the pandemic coming. But certainly the woefully inadequate response, at all levels, was predicted by many.
The same is true for most events, in politics, in sports, in business, in life. It’s next to impossible to know what adversity or what good luck will fall in someone’s lap. How they’ll be able to handle this—whether they’ll rise to the occasion, be corrupted or destroyed by it—on the other hand? That’s much easier to see coming.
A simple Stoic maxim guides us: Character is fate.
If someone is egotistical, selfish, incapable of processing information that contradicts what they want to hear, they will not do well in a crisis. If an organization or a person is poorly prepared, if they are obsessed with distractions, if they value ideology over truth, posturing over process, they will not do well over. If a sports team suddenly finds itself in a critical game, but the team’s culture is a bad one, it won’t matter how talented they are. Conversely, if a person or a team cares about other people, if they have put in the work, if they know how to learn and grow and adjust, they will find a way to succeed. There is also a better chance that they will remain uncorrupted and spoiled by this success if it occurs.
Look at Marcus Aurelius. He was granted all sorts of incredible power. How did he manage to remain good when so many others, from Nero to Tiberius, had been broken by it? The same way that he managed not to be broken by the incredible adversity of the Antonine Plague. It was his good character that protected and guided him. That’s what the expression “character is fate” means. It predetermined the outcome, just as it assured that Nero would never have been a good emperor, even without the Great Fire and the opposition he faced.
We can’t predict the future but character is predictive. It tells us how we will respond to the future, which in the end, is all we need to know.
P.S. This was originally sent on November 16, 2020. Sign up today for the Daily Stoic’s email and get our popular free 7-day course on Stoicism.
