If you remember, I already wrote about acceptance. Alongside that word there is another interesting one: succumbing. Said like that it sounds negative, and looking closely at its etymology, that impression turns out to be correct.
But the more time passes, the more I realise that alongside other steps and evolutions, one of the biggest challenges is not defeating, eliminating, or forgetting the pains of the past. It is not succumbing to them. This word is closely tied to acceptance, perhaps its natural completion.
Accepting does not mean feeling fine
When I started understanding the origin of one of my triggers, when I learned to recognise it and accept it, only one thing remained: not letting it get to me. I use that phrase deliberately. Accepting does not automatically mean feeling fine. It means the mind recognises it, processes it, accepts it.
But to complete the process, when the trigger resurfaces, a memory, anything at all, we must not succumb to it. We must not suffer over it again. Because even having accepted it, if it still gets to us, or worse, we succumb to it, that means we have not truly processed it. It means we are still at its mercy, even if on the surface we think otherwise.
When metacognition becomes a spectator
You know when you realise all this? When you are tired. It is not by chance that I am writing about this today. You know the period of tiredness I am coming out of, and precisely in this last week I have started processing the trigger better, bringing acceptance to a higher level. By higher level I mean that moment when the trigger happens but no longer controls you.
It is not easy. Not at all.
When we are tired, our filters break down. Even metacognition risks turning into someone on the couch with popcorn, commenting on the scene without acting. We observe ourselves with awareness, but we cannot act.
And yet, perhaps it is not wrong to say that precisely in these moments something kicks in. It is like having your back against the wall, and finding in that moment the strength in everything you have built before. Phrases, quotes, philosophers come to mind, all sorts of things. And if we manage to use that little bit of remaining cognitive energy, we can build the next moment.
The next moment means no longer being at the mercy of suffering, of the trigger. And thinking of the Go strategy, it is the stones placed in the past, in calm moments, that make the difference precisely in the less calm ones. Because now, tired but deeply aware, instead of giving in we ask ourselves a simple, plain, powerful question: “What can I do?”
Liquidity, an example that is not random
And that is where the solution emerges, the one I used to hope would arrive out of nowhere in the past, thinking it depended on others or on events outside my control. The solution is observing the here and now. Acting step by step. Not denying anger or negative feelings. Not denying tiredness. Listening to the body.
Let me give an example that is not random at all, because I am living it right now. Do you have a liquidity problem? Do not run yourselves into the ground trying to recover one euro at a cost of a thousand. Keep investing in the long-term strategy, the one capable of generating real stability. Look at what works right now. What do I need to pay today, not what I will need to pay in two months.
Spend even ten days recovering with your own restorative activities, keeping work to the essential minimum, and you will notice energy coming back. Does the tiredness go away? Is the problem solved? Absolutely not. But the mind is more ready.
August is ahead, another month capable of frightening anyone with liquidity issues. But if you have recovered some freshness, invest in those long-term Go stones, the essential ones. Reach September. With a bit of creativity, fit the liquidity together as best you can. And keep placing stones.
Meanwhile, as always happens, late payments start coming in, some standard work starts appearing. But the real success is something else: you. You recovered energy, you did not move illogically, no burnout, and you invested for the long run. The results will slowly start compounding through winter, and by next summer you might find yourself in the opposite situation to today.
Two ways of teaching the same thing
How do you manage all this? By accepting, and then, as the next step, by avoiding succumbing to situations and the emotions they generate.
After all, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius already taught this, each in his own way. Epictetus was a former slave who became a teacher, and he taught through dialectic, precise logical distinctions about what depends on us and what does not. His was pure theory, rigorous, almost mathematical in structure.
Marcus Aurelius, on the other hand, taught no one. He wrote for himself, as a private exercise in self-discipline, while ruling an empire under enormous pressure: wars, epidemics, betrayals. His Meditations are not a treatise, they are a man applying philosophy while the world around him gave him no rest.
In this period, with the liquidity, the tiredness, everything I am managing, I feel closer to Marcus Aurelius. I am not theorising, I am applying it, right now, while holding steady. But I know that when calm returns, it will be Epictetus’s turn, the time to put the theory back in order, to distinguish again with clarity what depends on me and what does not, so as to be even more ready the next time pressure comes back. The two do not exclude each other. They alternate, depending on the moment you are living through. And the more time passes, the more this balance appeals to me, and the more it helps.