I cried this morning. I was sitting in my chair attempting to read the Yoga Sutras in its entirety before work, and I just started crying. My tears were a salty mixture of overwhelming gratefulness, a lifetime of regret and a sense of purpose.
This is the sutra that caused the first tear: “The cause of suffering is that the unbounded Self is overshadowed by the world” Yoga Sutra of Pantajali 1.17
I don’t deserve this life I have, and I am grateful for it.
I spent 20 years being a selfish manipulative asshole trying to achieve a twisted definition of success. For more than two decades I have been miserable trying to be what I thought the world said I needed to be. I drank so people would love me, and I drank because not everyone did.
I am frustrated I don’t know how to help others. When asked how I stopped drinking the only answer I can give is that I started doing Ashtanga yoga, began studying the Stoics, and I am lucky to have friends who never gave up on me. Friends who saw something in me I didn’t. Maybe it is helpful to know change is possible. I assure you if this addict can do it, anyone can.
Through my Ashtanga practice I have found faith. I’m sure I sound crazy when I tell people that studying the Yoga Sutras is like reading someone else explain what I have experienced over the last 4.5 years.
I am thankful to have found the Stoics. I wish I had been introduced to these words as a younger man. Maybe things would have been different. “Whatever anyone does or says, I must be a good man. It is as if an emerald, or gold, or purple, were always saying: ‘Whatever anyone does or says, I must be an emerald and keep my own color.” Meditations 7.11 “No, you do not have thousands of years to live. Urgency is upon you. While you live, while you can, be good.” Meditations 4.17 “All that you pray to reach at some point in the circuit of your life can be yours now – if you are generous to yourself.” Meditations 12.1 “What progress you ask have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself.” Seneca
I want to spend the rest of my days being a good man; a man worthy of the universe that gave me birth.