inspiration – Page 2 – Cristian Mihai

The Rubicon Paradox

During the Roman Republic, the river Rubicon acted as a sort of frontier line between the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul to the northeast and Italy proper, controlled directly by Rome, to the south.

In 49 BC, perhaps on January 10, Julius Caesar led a single legion, Legio XIII Gemina, south over the Rubicon from Cisalpine Gaul into Italy. In doing so, he deliberately broke the law limiting his imperium, his authority to control his army.

As he led his army across the Rubicon river into Central Italy, Julius Caesar is credited to having said the following words, “Alea iacta est”.

“The die has been cast.”

Your Ego Is Not Your Enemy

Defined as a person’s sense of self-esteem, the ego has become a sort of villain in the personal development community.

Your ego is not your enemy. Your ego is not an excuse for being obnoxious, arrogant, or self-centered.

Your ego is simply who you think you are. Your ego is either the reason you are walking through hell or the reason you often catch a glimpse of heaven.

If you look within, you are able to venture in the center of your fears and confront them. If you look around, you are often told that those fears are who you truly are.

Little by Little, a Little Becomes a Lot

Some two and a half millennia ago, in what is now Southern Italy, there lived a legendary wrestler by the name of Milo of Croton.

A six-time Olympic Champion, Milo’s career spanned 24 years, during which he was undoubtedly the best wrestler of his generation. He is said to have been able to carry a bull on his shoulders and to have burst a band about his brow by simply inflating the veins on his temples.

Your Journey Towards Home Is Your Home

We often think the point of being a human is to establish a self that is free from suffering, that is free from the outcome of pursuing happiness, love, success, fame, money…

The point of being human is not to travel to a place where everything is perfect. Instead, it is to understand that your struggle to establish a human self is inseparable from the self it creates.

In other words, your journey towards home is, in fact, your home.

Conquering the World: Choose One of Two Paths

In 336 B.C., a brash 20-year-old prince visited the Greek city-state of Corinth. During his stay, the prince visited the philosopher Diogenes of Sinope, one of the founders of the Cynic philosophy.

The philosopher was quite a controversial character, infamous for his open criticism of Plato and his rather shocking lifestyle; he begged for a living and often slept in a large ceramic jar, or pithos, near the gymnasium in Corinth.

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