White Knights

Daily Meditation #389–3/21/2023

“When my guy gets elected, he’s gonna fix this God-forsaken country!”
“As soon as I find the perfect woman, I’ll be really able to get my life together.”
“If only companies were more regulated to prevent greed, we’d have no poverty…”

We not only place responsibility and blame on the shoulders of others, but we too frequently make them into “White Knights,” who will come galloping in with the radiant sun pouring out at their backs to save us from whatever malady afflicts us and the world (if you also imagined, Gandalf in TT, leave a comment).

We cannot rely blindly on others to make life better.
There’s no guarantee.

If you’re over 30, but more specifically 50, answer this in a comment:

In your life and to your recollection, has any politician or political move ever actually brought a positive change from the “When my guy gets elected, he’s gonna fix this God-forsaken country!” angle?

I bet not once!

With all the examples above, here’s why:

OUR life is the only experience we actually know exists. And short of using force á la Stalin, we cannot make others “fix” anything.

And suppose that you were throned “King of the World,” how do you know how to fix all problems for all people?

You simply could not.

The only white knights coming to save us are ourselves.

We cannot continue to place medals and pauldrons and ornimented cloaks onto others of the world, expecting them to act in our best interests — because there’s no guarantee they will.
In fact, they’re probably more likely not to!

Physical Wellness.
Relationship Wellness.
Spiritual Wellness.
Financial Wellness.

The Four Tenets of YouDaimonia.
While I absolutely will not guarantee you a perfect life in striving for Eudaimonia with these Tenets, they take all the chains and burdens we place outwardly onto the world and instead turns them to a mirror with which we can inspect our own lives and how we behave.

They help us to identify ways to act that are consistent with the person we aspire to be!

Knight yourself.

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