“The most difficult thing in life
is to know yourself.”
~ Thales
The Quotable Greek: The Most Difficult Thing in Life
22 Apr- Comments 2 Comments
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Yiasou!
Stephanie Nikolopoulos is a writer, editor, writing teacher, and speaker based in New York City.
She is the coauthor, with Paul Maher Jr., of "Burning Furiously Beautiful: The True Story of Jack Kerouac's 'On the Road.'"
You can email her at stephanie_701 {@} yahoo.com
Unfortunately, it took me years to learn this. I was brought up to be polite, to give the benefit of the doubt, and to forgive, and I still believe in all those things, but if I’d followed my gut in certain situations I wouldn’t have had some of the pain I experienced in life. You can be nice and still say no, thanks. You can be generous and still have healthy boundaries. You can help others and still practice self-care. You can feel something is off and leave. You don’t need an excuse. You don’t need to give an explanation. Trust your intuition. And it goes the other way too: Society, family, and friends may have strong opinions about matters, and they may even have your best interest in mind, but sometimes breaking free of conventional wisdom is the wisest thing you can do. Sometimes your gut will tell you the risk is worth the reward. Sometimes doing the wild, weird, impractical thing is the right move. Blaze your own path. Follow your dreams. Dance with the whale. Live the life of your dreams, not someone else’s. Take to heart the Greek maxim “Know thyself.”
😇
Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg was only 15 years old when she began her school strike for climate change, sitting outside the Swedish Parliament. She is the youngest person to ever be included in The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women list put out by Forbes. She speaks boldly and passionately. Her critics have often tried to silence her, but what I love about this quote is that it speaks to how sometimes, even when we don’t feel comfortable doing so, we have to use our voice.
Thank you all for your generous donations to help out the sled dogs at Snowdog! Some of you dropped comments in my original post and others of you privately messaged me to let me know you’re helping to provide food and pay for veterinary bills. You are amazing. Thank you. Getting to meet and play with these gorgeous dogs was one of the highlights of my adventures in Kiruna, Sweden. If you want to read more about it, check out my story “Letting Go of the Reins” in Chicken Soup for the Soul’s Making Me Time. (Link in bio).
Have you ever gone on a pilgrimage? When I was an English major at Scripps College in Southern California, I roadtripped up the Pacific Coast Highway from Los Angeles to San Francisco, wondering at the wind turbines and inhaling the intoxicating aroma of Gilroy, and made a beeline for City Lights Bookstore, that iconic literary paradise that has its own press and has published all my favorite poets. I bought founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s “San Francisco Poems,” a thin paperback I carried everywhere with me for the duration of the trip. I’d pull it out at various sites and read the poems aloud to my dear friend, who humored my dramatic flair for the arts. Years later, my sister met Lawrence Ferlinghetti and got him to sign a book for me. Then, when I began my first job in book publishing, my editor told me he had corresponded with Ferlinghetti back in the day. As the years passed on, I would take myself on solo trips to the art house theatre in New York City to watch the documentary “A Rebirth of Wonder,” in which the poet visited his ancestral land, and I would head to City Lights every chance I got to go to San Francisco. You can well imagine then the great loss I feel today upon learning of Ferlinghetti’s passing. At 101 years old, he seemed immortal, and I suppose he is: for all writers live on, touching people’s lives, through their words.
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Sorta puts into perspective that other Greek quotable, “Doctor, know thyself.”
Oh, I don’t know that one!