I spoke to you earlier about hope.
To cling to it in certain circumstances,
but in other circumstances...
Allusions to the ancients aside, today more than ever I want to tell you to let the big problems in your life that weigh you down and over which you have no control fly away,
fade away
and disappear
without hoping to see them again.
You see, sometimes in life we cling to things, and it is the most important teaching of Stoic philosophy not to cling to things. But this is a complicated task. A lover we can't forget or a hope we've lost forever sometimes affect us even more than purely physical pain.
We tell you to accept yourself, but that's like telling someone who has lost their legs to go for a walk outside.
You're going to go over these things again and again, as if you had set out on a melancholy highway, in spite of yourself. Again and again you drive straight ahead, staring dully in front of you and sometimes imagining the final destination, that of happiness. The one where the hope you have nurtured finally becomes reality, where this slow, painful race finally comes to an end, where you finally reach your destination.
You will continue to think of these things as if you are on a highway of melancholy despite your suffering. You always drive straight ahead, imagining the final destination - the hope that is finally being fulfilled, as the final destination of this slow, endless race that is driving you crazy inside.
This final goal, that you sometimes glimpse, gives you a sweet moment of fleeting happiness, like a hastily constructed respite of well-being between two stages.
In the spirit of the ancient Stoics who guide us, you must be ready to say goodbye. Forever.
Giving up the idea that.
To tell you sincerely that deep within you a page is turned.
And that when that page is turned, you will finally find your true freedom.
A freedom that is not hindered by the parasitic thoughts that cloud your mind.
And keep going.
Keep working, always,
but only on what you can control.
And here you are
at last,
mentally,
emotionally,
f_r_e_e_.