Lameness may strike your leg, but not your resolve. Sickness may weaken your body, but not your determination—unless you let it. The only thing that can impede your will is your will itself.
Each time an obstacle arises, remind yourself of this truth. While it may hinder some part of you, it cannot constrain your true self.
Epictetus, Handbook (Sam Torode adaptation), 9
Life is hand-to-hand combat with self.
Awakened at 4:50 pm by a troublesome dream and my bladder, I let the dog out and make coffee.
It is Saturday. There are obstacles, if you want to call them that. The 10,000 tasks.
Restrained by 10,000 strands, each of which alone is trivial. But collectively? Daunting.
It’s easy to hesitate, defeated by their sight. Or worse yet, I imagine that there are 10,000 (in reality there might be 50 or 100) and I create my own despair by my own self-created illusion.
Determination. Willpower.
Just do.
The burden I perceive does not exist.