Villains

Daily Meditation — 4/25/2022

You have an adoring wife.
Three children — a son and two daughters, perhaps — who think you’re the greatest.
A career where your team and cohort respect you very much.
Perhaps you regularly go to church and spend hundreds of hours each year working with your community.
Early to bed, early to rise, good physical shape, and all around a kind person…

Or maybe you’re a drug addict, trying to claw out of the enormous gutter of addiction.
You scrounge for pennies and nickels off the floors of your car to buy a pack of cigarettes.
Your addictions and wild mood swings lost you your rights to your children.
Even when things were good, you were cheating on your spouse…

In both instances, neither person is inherently good nor evil. They simply are.

But also in both instances, they are a hero to someone. They’re also a villain to yet another.

The traditional, churchgoer may be perceived as an “old guard” of the ancient world, outdated and part of “the patriarchy.”

The addict trying to quit may be greatly adored by their child, despite their shortcomings.

Knowing and managing your perceptions truly are the greatest superpower.

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These are distillations from my coming book “YouDaimonia: the Ancient Philosophy of Human Flourishing.”