This lesson is the foundation of the idea of tragedy, which Aeschylus helped to embed in our culture. By "tragedy" I mean that Aeschylus saw all of us—you, me, our friends, our neighbors, the men and women we served with, our leaders—as imperfect creatures with mental, emotional, moral, physical, and spiritual limitations. Eric Greitens, Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life, loc. 630. Kindle Edition * * * Walker, it might give you some comfort to know that even Mother Teresa had many people who hated her. You know that I worked briefly in one of Mother Teresa’s homes for the destitute and dying in Varanasi, India. I also had the chance to see her briefly in Calcutta shortly before she died. You mentioned that experience the other day, and I’m going to rewrite here what I wrote before about the work she inspired:   In a humble building not far from the River Ganges in Varanasi, India, Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity run a home for the destitute and dying. Their mission is simple: help the poorest of the poor die with dignity. Many of the patients are seriously physically ill, while some are severely mentally ill, and together, they live in a small concrete compound that is unadorned and true to the mission of the sisters who have pledged to live just as the poorest of the poor do. I had expected to see only adults in the home, but one boy lived there also. Mentally and physically disabled, he had been abandoned and for years before coming to the home he had begged on the street. He squatted in the home just as he had squatted on the street as a beggar, and he had squatted for so long that he could no longer straighten his legs. He smiled often, but the only word he could say was "namaste." Each time he said it, he would offer the traditional Hindu greeting and bring his hands together in front of his chest and lower his head. The namaste greeting has a spiritual origin that is usually understood to mean, "I salute the divinity within you." . . . I had expected to find an atmosphere of sorrow and penance and heavy burden under the shadow of death in this home. This was a place where people had come to die, and the dying were tended to by sisters of the Missionaries of Charity, who express their faith by living in absolute poverty and extraordinary hardship. These sisters, I knew, washed everything by hand just as the poor did. They owned three saris and a pair of sandals and nothing more. But I saw that the sisters sometimes skipped and ran through the home. They shared jokes with the patients. They laughed out loud. They did work that most of us would consider onerous—cleaning vomit from the face of a dying man—and they did it with a sense of great joy and light.   People criticize this. And not just under their breath, Zach. They publish articles. They write books. They go on television. And it started well before Mother Teresa became famous. When Mother Teresa was a young and unknown nun starting her work, she faced serious criticism from the leaders of the community where she was pulling dying people from sewers and giving them a place to die with dignity—because people in the community felt that Mother Teresa was implicitly criticizing them for not caring for their own poor. You might have to read that twice to untangle their craziness. Why does this make me so perversely happy? Because it’s so ridiculous. Mother Teresa spent a… Eric Greitens, Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life, loc. 758. Kindle Edition * * * And let me make a note here about heroes. Read about them. Really study their lives. Make sure that your kids do too. One of the problems with the teaching of history today is that we often talk about heroes as if they were never hated. Children come to think that to be heroic is to be liked a lot. They then make the natural mistake of conflating popularity with purposeful living. They… Eric Greitens, Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life, loc. 783. Kindle Edition * * * You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea. It is the cloud which thunders around everything that shines. Fame must have… Eric Greitens, Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life, loc. 787. Kindle Edition * * * I like how Thomas Jefferson put it: "How much pain have cost us the evils which… Eric Greitens, Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life, loc. 793. Kindle Edition * * * Taught poorly, this lesson results in children who are careless of the outcome of their actions, who are more concerned with doubleand triple-checking their inner state than with measuring themselves against the world. Taught well, though, this lesson makes clear that while the valiant might… Eric Greitens, Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life, loc. 2414. Kindle Edition * * * Intentions do matter. But they matter because they find expression in our actions and in our character. What ultimately matters is not what we intend, but… Eric Greitens, Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life, loc. 2417. Kindle Edition * * * Those who live by a morality of results and responsibility are much more likely to be resilient, because what… Eric Greitens, Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life, loc. 2418. Kindle Edition * * * Certain ideas can be understood only when we contend with them in practice. The philosopher Martin Heidegger famously pointed out that you can’t come to know a hammer by staring at it. You can’t come to know a hammer… Eric Greitens, Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life, loc. 2422. Kindle Edition * * * Philosophy is meant to be done, not just studied. Only by using philosophy do you come to… Eric Greitens, Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life, loc. 2427. Kindle Edition * * * The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses . . . in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance… Eric Greitens, Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life, loc. 2430. Kindle Edition * * * Part of the joy of entertainment is that we can appreciate the fruits of someone’s labor without having to do the work ourselves. We watch the dance, but we don’t have to sweat. We watch the game, but we don’t have to practice through injury. We watch the… Eric Greitens, Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life, loc. 2434. Kindle Edition * * * But if we’re entertained too much and forget to practice ourselves, we’ll lose sight of the work behind the beauty in front of us. We come to believe that dancers, players, and actors simply have talent, and we can forget that they have to struggle every day to develop it. We see the product, but forget the sweat that put it… Eric Greitens, Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life, loc. 2436. Kindle Edition * * * Zach, this is going to read like a Zen koan, but I want you to practice practice. You must… Eric Greitens, Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life, loc. 2442. Kindle Edition * * *