You Took The Job | Daily Stoic

The Emperor Hadrian’s life sometimes felt, as it does for all leaders, like an endless demand for favors. Letters came from across the empire asking for this and that. The Senate, the courts, his own family–everybody always seemed to need something. Naturally, he struggled under this burden. Naturally, he tried to create barriers and boundaries so he could do his job…and maintain some level of sanity amidst all the requests.

Once, on an imperial tour in some distant province, a woman darted out from the crowd and blocked his path, asking for help with some now forgotten issue. Hadrian tried to put her off, “I haven’t got the time,” he said, attempting to move past her. “Well stop being emperor then!” the woman shouted after him. Hadrian paused, turned back and helped her.

She was right. That was his job, after all.

It can be so easy to forget this, to feel imposed on, even resentful of it. But guess what? You took the job. You get the perks…you don’t get to shirk the responsibilities.

Marcus Aurelius sometimes struggled in the mornings, as we’ve written. He wanted to stay under the warm covers. He did not want to rise up and tackle the overwhelming correspondence and meetings and demands that awaited him. But he talked himself through it. He reminded himself that that was the job, that it was what duty and nature demanded of him.

And so must we. So must we.

This is something all great leaders and artists and thinkers have shared. When so much is being thrown at you, do you have the strength to slow down? To give everything you have to the decision in front of you? Even when you’re at a breaking point?