The PATH: Simplicity, Direction, and Trusting Yourself
sent by J.W. Bertolotti | March 28, 2022
Welcome to The PATH — A weekly reflection with three timeless insights into daily life. This week’s reflection searches for ancient lessons on finding your way through life. Specifically, the insights of — simplicity, direction, and trusting yourself.
1. Simplicity
As legend has it, The philosopher Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king. Aristippus said, “If you learned to be subservient to the king, you would not have to live on lentils.” Diogenes replied, “Learn to live on lentils, and you will not have to be subservient to the king.”
From Socrates to Thoreau, great thinkers have stressed the wisdom of simplicity. The philosopher Confucius insisted that life is simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
In a letter, Henry David Thoreau wrote,
I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks they must attend to in a day; how singular an affair they think they must omit. When mathematicians solve a difficult problem, they first free the equation of all incumbrances and reduces it to its simplest terms. To simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run.
The way forward made be simpler than you think. For example, in my interview with Carl McColman (author of Eternal Heart), he explained, “The spiritual path seems to be one into a place where we already are.”
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2. Direction
“The road is safe and pleasant and is one for which you have been equipped by nature,” wrote Seneca to Lucilius. Discerning our path in life can be one of the most challenging decisions. We can often feel that we are missing some essential tool or skill to find our way.
In a letter to Lucilius titled On Consistency, Seneca wrote,
Philosophy teaches us to act, not to speak. Its demands are these: each person should live to the standard he has set; his manner of living should not be at odds either with itself or with his way of speaking, and all his actions should have a single tenor. This is the chief task of wisdom, and the best evidence of it, too: that actions should be in accordance with words.
Do your words and actions align with your desired direction? How often are you veering from the path? Seneca urged Lucilius to adopt a single rule to live by and conform his life to it — “one who is everywhere is nowhere.”
Although this does not mean the wise person walks the same steps, only they walk a single road, explained Seneca.
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3. Trusting Yourself
To quote the poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.” But, how does one know if they genuinely trust themselves?
David Foster Wallace (1962–2008), one of the most brilliant writers of his generation, once said these words in a speech,
There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, how’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”
If you’re worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise old fish explaining what water is, please don’t be. I am not the wise old fish.
The speech continued with Wallace explaining, “The immediate point of the fish story is that the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about.”
Trusting yourself falls in this category (at least for me) — a topic that we know intuitively is important but don’t quite understand completely.
Reflect on The Parable of the Raft by the Buddha,
Imagine, someone in the course of a journey who arrives at a great expanse of water, whose near bank is dangerous and whose far bank offers safety. But there is no ferryboat or bridge to take them across the water. So they collect grass, twigs, branches and leaves and bound them together as a raft. This raft supports them in getting across the water.
Now, what would they do with his makeshift raft? Would they drag it along with them or leave it behind? The Buddha explained that the dharma is like a raft. It is helpful for crossing over but not for holding onto.
What are you carrying around that no longer serves you (or your current direction)? As the poet Rumi put it, “Life is a balance between holding on and letting go.”
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful. If so, please consider sharing it with others.
Each week, we send a short reflection with three insights to help you live your highest good. If you are not a subscriber to The PATH you can sign up here to receive it right to your inbox.
Image credit: Street Lafayette by Edvard Munch (1891, Public domain)
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