“What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.”
Ecclesiastes 1:9
When your car breaks down on the way home from losing your job, a couple of days after you forked out money you didn’t really have for a service…
When the person you thought you’d spend the rest of your life with suddenly tells you they fucked your best friend…
And when you see corrupt politicians rewarded for telling lies, for cheating, for decimating lives and communities…
It’s tempting to see these as entirely unique problems. Things that have never happened before and never happened to anybody else.
Except that they have. Hundreds, thousands, millions of times. To people of every colour, on every continent, and in every era of human history.
And this is why I read. To help me realise that whatever I’m going through, I’m not alone – people before me have not only solved the exact problems I’m facing, but they had the generosity of spirit to write it all down!
There is nothing new under the sun, and this includes problems. So read for fun. Read to relax. But most of all, read to connect yourself to the human race.
PS: If this post has inspired you to read something, I recommend you start with something which has stood the test of time.
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius has been championed by the wisest amongst us for hundreds of years now. Here is an Amazon link to the best translation of it.
Disclaimer: Just so you know, I don’t receive any money if you happen to buy the book through that link – I have no idea how you set that up and I don’t really care.
I just want you to read the book!