Cicero
Cicero was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar and philosopher. The peak of Cicero’s authority and prestige came during the 18th-century Enlightenment, and his impact on leading Enlightenment thinkers and political theorists such as John Locke, David Hume, Montesquieu, and Edmund Burke was substantial. His works rank among the most influential in global culture. Cicero was executed by the Roman Empire for being an “enemy of the state.”
Cicero marble statue in front of Rome Old Palace of Justice
In our day it has never been more prevalent that people are guided primarily by what provides them comfort and happiness at the expense of what is moral and good.
But what is what a person believes is “good for me” necessarily good for their soul? Is the supreme goal in life to be happy – and happy at the expense of others? Perhaps we are gravely mistaken. Perhaps the goal in life is not personal happiness, but rather the accomplishment of some higher ideal that serves not the self but all of humanity. What can we do, then, to reach for just such a goal?
My wife, Erin, said this several years ago, “I don’t know what life is about, but I do know it is not about ‘self.'”
Eight months ago Erin was faced with a decision; a decision that led her to become her ailing mother’s personal caretaker. This decision came at the expense of a chasm being created between her and I of 800 miles. In the first six months, we saw each other physically all of four weeks total – one week at a time spread out over those months. These last two months we spent together over the holidays – Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s. This much longed for and needed time together came at the expense of my job. I had to officially quit my job in order to be away for so long. But this was not all. It meant we had no money coming in – only our personal savings going out to support her mother’s household – food, non-foods, and other expenses above and beyond paying the utility bills. But this is the commitment we made together.
When my mother was put in assisted living, Erin and I witnessed first hand what kind of hell such an existence is for the cast-away elders of our society. It was not in my power to do anything about it those years back. My mother was lucid enough to understand that she had been “kicked to the curb” and unwanted and of no further value to those she gave her life for – her husband, my step father, my brothers and I. When Erin’s mom had a cardiac event and had surgery to implant 2 stents in her heart, we knew there were only two options open for her – either Erin was to become a live-in caretaker, or her mother was to be put in a “home.” The latter was not – ever – going to happen. This was our commitment, no matter the personal cost to us. Erin has TEN brothers and sisters. Only one brother has started providing some financial support (after 8 months of our own savings has gone out).
Seeing as Erin’s mother’s care includes such things as bathing and dressing (in addition to laundry, making healthy meals, providing her meds on time during the day and tending to things like massaging her legs and feet to aid circulation etc.) her brother’s could not possibly provide any help in this area. She has two sisters, one of which has small children and lives 5 hours away. The other sister lives in town but has no time for her mother (in Erin’s mother’s own words). In short, Erin bears the full brunt of making her mother’s last times in life comfortable.
Does such a sacrifice on Erin’s part – and our own sacrifice regarding our own life together – make us “happy?” No. But it is the RIGHT thing to do. It is a sacrifice of self that must be made for another. To think that it would be “best” for “all” to put Mom in a “home” is at best unthinkable and, at worst, wicked.
When did we begin to neglect our responsibility to our elders? When did we decide that the value of a human being “runs out” at some particular point in their life? When exactly is that time? In short, I would say, “when they become a burden”; when they interrupt our bucket list and our budget that we had planned for our own life.
When our parents are gone, who will remember them? How will they be remembered? We tend to not want to remember them in their “last years” but rather in their “prime.” Why? Because that is when the held value, right? That’s when they were not a burden to our budget and bucket list.
I realize, of course, that not all parents are or were “good” people. But I’m not talking about the extremes of such a polarity. Certainly “bad” parents are worth putting up with if they have a swelled bank account and we want to remain in a good position in their will. What a shameful thought.
I have belabored this subject enough – perhaps too much. Erin and I? How will we fare after her mother has left this life? We may not have any money (right now, at my age of 61 we own no home of our own), we may have to appeal to the kindness of our own children to take us in. We simply do not know. But we have not given up. We hold on to our dreams. We continue to make plans for our future (albeit on a sliding scale). And as for our relationship? There is no concern there. It never has been a question. That is what love is, isn’t it? When you love someone, really love someone, you don’t need to think such things, worry about such things. When you love someone, you do the right thing without considering the cost, trusting God to help you through it all. Why? Because it is morally right, simply because it IS the right thing to do.
We run around in our made up lives thinking God takes an interest in our happiness. He does not. He takes an interest in our interest to follow His example: To love one another, as He loves us. I make no apologies if you, the reader, do not believe in God, or all that “Jesus crap.” It is your loss. On a side note – just know this, the Church has robbed you of the Truth. If you care to know, then search. It starts with you ending your war against the One Who has not given up on you.
One last thing. Stop fearing the “right things” in your life. Stop obsessing about your selfish desires, your money, your bucket list. Take a moment and consider someone else, someone who you might be able to help in some way. This is where it starts.
Since I began this post with a bit about Cicero, I’ll leave you with a few of his quotes to ponder. The first below is what prompted this post:
To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?
Six mistakes mankind keeps making century after century: Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others; Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected; Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it; Refusing to set aside trivial preferences; Neglecting development and refinement of the mind; Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.
Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions. Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the ‘new, wonderful good society’ which shall now be Rome, interpreted to mean ‘more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious.’
Never was a government that was not composed of liars, malefactors and thieves.
The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory.
When a government becomes powerful it is destructive, extravagant and violent; it is an usurer which takes bread from innocent mouths and deprives honorable men of their substance, for votes with which to perpetuate itself.
What society does to its children, so will its children do to society.
Morals today are corrupted by our worship of riches.
More reading: Cicero on Intelligent Design