My Maxim: Life's A Teacher

It's day 198 of documenting 2025.

Man! It's pretty chilly here 🥶
I'm outside of course...this cold wind plus gloomy skies have become a part of the  weather here in Lagos.
As it is, rain can fall anytime and nobody would anticipate...
I wonder what the dry season would look like this year 🤔

That aside, lemme share how today went.
I woke up late because I stayed up late the night before doing God knows what...
(Doomscrolled....then stopped myself in time and started writing.)
Anyways, I had to rush off to the school and started working.

And by work, I mean my back bent over a hand-drawn record sheet...writing down scores of students and making sure no mistake has been made.
And not all subjects were recorded because some teachers were not available.
It was real hard work, I tell you.
The kind that gave me a headache.

When it was time to close, I still had a few more scores to record.
At first, I wanted to take it home to finish it up.
But then I thought, amidst the hunger and headache....
"Let me just get it done...when I get home, I will rest properly."
That, I did....and I rested properly with a long dreamy nap.
I woke up feeling much better before making dinner and here I am...typing after dinner.

It was very worth it to exercise that discipline muscle 💪🏼
I'm sure I can do it again tomorrow.
Long story short, today went great 😃
Now, let's see what we have for today on Highlights and Meditations.

365 Days With Self-discipline
📌 On Your Maxims

"The maxims of men reveal their characters."
Quote by Luc de Clapiers

Ponder the common statement that life is hard.
If you truly believe that life is hard, then how does it affect your character?
Are you going to be a cheery, optimistic person or adapt a defeatist outlook on life?

How about thinking that a stranger is a friend you haven’t met?
Will this make you more likely to be a friendly person and develop a supportive circle of friends or close you off to new opportunities to connect with like-minded
individuals?

What about adopting the maxim that everything in life is possible as long as you refuse to listen to reason?
Okay, you won’t become the President of the United States if you weren’t born in that country (and a few other things), but other than that, would you say that living by such a maxim will hinder your growth or perhaps empower you?

Your maxims expose your character. If you want to be successful, make sure that your maxims are empowering and positive.

Make a list of the most important truths you live by — consciously or unconsciously — and ask yourself if they all serve you to become a better person.
If they don’t, discard them and
replace them with different, more advantageous ones.

That's deep 😌
I haven't really thought about my maxims before...until now.
Now that I'm thinking about it...I would say that one of the maxims I unconsciously live by is that life is a teacher.

Let me explore that for a second...
I think that life will always have lessons for you.
Through your experiences...from other people...or even your own behavior.
It's up to you to learn and correct yourself where necessary.

If life's a teacher, I would admit that I'm a pretty rebellious student 😅
I run away from lessons and skip classes until a very shattering event happens.
Something that makes me so emotional that I shed tears.
Then I listen.
I start to correct myself.
To accept reality not run from it.

The most wonderful thing about life is that it always gives you a second chance.
To make things right, to make the necessary sacrifices and to eventually become the person you were meant to be.
God gave us life, so there's no life without God.
I always acknowledge that...and I hope you do as well.

Moving on to the next section...
Let's see what Marcus Aurelius can teach us today.

Meditations
📌 Book 4

27. An ordered world or a mishmash.
But still an order. Can there be order within you and not in everything else? In things so different, so dispersed, so intertwined?

28. Character: dark, womanish, obstinate. Wolf, sheep, child, fool, cheat, buffoon, salesman, tyrant.

29. Alien: (n.) one who doesn’t know what the world contains. Or how it operates.
Fugitive: (n.) one who evades his obligations to others.
Blind: (adj.) one who keeps the eyes of his mind shut tight.
Poor: (adj.) requiring others; not having the necessities of life in one’s own possession.
Rebel: (n.) one who is rebellious, one who withdraws from the logos of Nature because he resents its workings.
(It produced you; now it produces this.)
Schismatic: (n.) one who separates his own soul from others with the logos. They should be one.

30. A philosopher without clothes and one without books.
“I have nothing to eat,” says he, as he stands there half-naked, “but I subsist on the logos.”
And with nothing to read, I subsist on it too.

Interpretation

27. Marcus questions whether the universe is chaotic or ordered; but concludes that even apparent disorder is part of a greater order. He argues that if your own inner world can be structured, then surely the vast external world must also have an underlying order, despite its complexity.

28. This is a reflection on human character.
He lists various flawed traits; stubbornness, deceit, foolishness, tyranny, etc...to highlight the different ways people can fall short of reason and virtue.
It's a caution against letting our nature degrade into one of these caricatures.

29. Marcus redefines labels:
✍🏼 Alien: Someone ignorant of the nature and structure of the world.
✍🏼 Fugitive: One who avoids their duty to others.
✍🏼 Blind: A person who chooses not to see truth or reason.
✍🏼 Poor: Not in material terms, but lacking inner resources or self-sufficiency.
✍🏼 Rebel: Someone who resents nature’s unfolding, forgetting that the same force that made them is still shaping life.
✍🏼 Schismatic: One who cuts themselves off from the unity of human reason and spirit.
He’s encouraging unity; with nature, with others, and within the self.

30. A metaphor about simplicity and reliance on inner wisdom.
Just as a philosopher can live without material possessions by depending on the 'logos' (rational principle or divine order),
Marcus says he too can live without books; sustained by reason alone. It’s a statement of self-sufficiency and philosophical resilience.

Key Lessons
* There is deeper order even in apparent chaos.
* Inner virtue matters more than social labels or appearances.
* Ignorance of nature, reason, and duty leads to spiritual poverty.
* True strength lies in living in harmony with nature and reason, even with nothing else.

There you have it! 😊
I hope you learned something new today...or was at least reminded of something you already know.
I'm glad I could help with that.
And I thank you for reading 🎀

I always forget to share the usual links, don't I? 🤔
Let me do that now, before I leave it off again.
Main Blog Website
Reader Survey
99 Reasons To Write Online

I'm Duon Ada.
I'm documenting 2025,
And I'll see you tomorrow.
Ciao 💕