Eudaemonic Independence (Meditations (Again))

I began reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius on the flight to the Netherlands, but when I was half way through the book I put it down, deciding to read the latter half at the end of my journey. It was partially due to curiosity about how my experiences would impact my reading, somewhat because my eagerness to read other literature, and a little bit stemming from the fact it was getting stale. I love the book, but Aurelius tends to cover the same points repeatedly throughout each chapter, which makes it tough to stay engaged when reading in one go, but helpful when picking it up after several weeks of neglect.

As I was reading through Book Seven, I stumbled upon the word "eudaemonia" and it jumped out at me. In the text, happiness was written next to it in parenthesis but a google search returned a more interesting definition: commonly translated as happiness or welfare; however, "human flourishing" has been proposed as a more accurate translation.

With my trip winding down, I've been thinking a lot about what I want to gain from my time here. When I was setting out on my journey, a priority of mine was to "learn how to live with myself." It's weird to say, but I've struggled with it throughout my life; most of my life, my self image has been dictated either by other people's opinions or the very worst parts of myself. 

On this trip, I've been lucky to have been surrounded by people who think highly of me: Chiel was a good friend to me, Pytsje thought I was thirty based on my maturity (and in part due to my awful beard), and yesterday Siebe Klaas tasked me to milk the cows on my own. Of course, there were extenuating circumstances- he needed to use a forklift to get a cow out of a canal- but afterwards he told me that I was the first WWOOFer he would have trusted to milk the cows on his own. And I didn't let him down, I managed to milk all hundred-something cows independently without incident!

It feels good to be trusted, admired, and befriended but I think I have to move past letting other people's opinion, even if they are complimentary, influence my perception of self. Instead, on this trip, I've worked on grounding myself in the present and judging myself based on my actions. I've striven to be kind, fair, optimistic, grateful, honest, and forgiving; each is a virtue I actively try to embody to the best of my ability.

Of the six, when it comes to self-improvement, the most difficult to practice is self-forgiveness. I used to spend nights agonizing over the plethora of mistakes I've made in the past, a pointless exercise in masochism that only deepened the pit of self-loathing in which I would recreationally bathe. I even indulged myself some nights at Hof van Twello, thinking about what I could've done to not get fired from Outdoor Adventures, words I could've swallowed, actions I wish I could take back. But, miring myself in the past is fruitless, so I've been working on forgiving myself for the mistakes I've made. It's been hard, I cringe frequently thinking about the way I acted before junior year of high school, but it's been productive for self-improvement.

So is a good example of eudaemonic independence me graduating to milking cows without help? Nope. This morning, the cows were incredibly difficult: they didn't want to come in, they didn't want to be milked, and they didn't want to leave- it was a nightmare. Had they acted like this yesterday, I would've been dumbfounded, instead I had the help of Siebe Klaas and the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius. Before going to sleep the night before, I read a passage in Meditations which stated, "Don't be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you've been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So what?" I have never been quick to ask for help, whether on schoolwork or life advice, but who's to say that my past faults should determine my present actions?

Learning to live with myself has not been learning to be alone, in fact I've often found strength on this path of self-improvement in the love of family and friends, it has been learning to forgive myself for the past. My eudaemonic independence is a freedom from the past, the past versions of myself who scorned a helping hand, who labeled himself as an angry person, who did not always strive to be kind, fair, and optimistic. 

When this trip reaches its end, I will return to the U.S. a much different person than I left. I truly feel I have flourished into a new man, with more love for myself and those around me, ready to take on the turbulent world and excited to face the challenges it will throw at me! I haven't forgotten where I came from, what I've accomplished, or who I've hurt but I've freed myself from the constraints I once let the past tie me down with and it feels great.