1. Accept that people will not understand. Do not expect it; do not ask for it. Ask only for acceptance. Don’t blame them for their lack of understanding. It’s not their fault that they don’t understand because they are not able to understand. People can only judge things as they seem to them, and what you can see is limited to what you are able to see. A silent movie means nothing to a blind man. Most people do not understand what it is like to have a chronic illness because they cannot understand such a thing; they are not in a position to be able to understand. And you can hardly blame them for that. If you accept that they will not understand, you must expect them to say and do the wrong thing, because ignorance rarely produces the right words or actions. They are not right to do these things, but it’s not their fault. If you must blame then blame yourself for asking someone for something they can’t give. And so ask only for acceptance, because everyone is capable of that, but recognise that what you ask of others you must also ask of yourself.
2. Do not lose yourself. You are not your illness. You are the thing that gets to decide how to live with your illness. Do not pretend that you don’t have a choice. Your choices are limited in many ways, it’s true. But this is true of everybody. Physically you have more restrictive limitations that other people but that doesn’t make you any less free, once you understand what it means to be free (see #5 below). Princes and slaves both have their chains, though they are different in kind. The person who is physically healthy and uses their good health badly because they are a slave to their ignorance is less free than you could be if only you understood yourself. The goal in life is not to have more good things and fewer bad things but to use all things well. There is nothing stopping you from doing this, even when ill, because it depends only on your will, your understanding, and your capacity to exercise good judgement.
3. Know thyself. You must understand your nature. You must understand your illness, your circumstances, your choices and the consequences of your choices. Put all your efforts into investigating these things because everything depends on them. If you do not understand yourself then you will always fall into the wrong thing. Knowledge is power, and ignorance is your enemy. Ignorance of yourself is the most damaging thing.
4. Align yourself with your nature. Live in a way that is in accordance with your nature. If you live in a way that goes against your nature then you will never see an end to trouble and suffering. This is true of everybody, but it is particularly true of life with a chronic illness because the consequences are made so clear to you. Most physically healthy people can continue in their errors, living in disharmony with themselves, and they only realise this when bad fortune hits or they burn out after many months or years. But if the chronically ill person lives one day in disharmony with themselves then their body will surely tell them about it.
5. Live by your own judgement. Philosophers call this ‘autonomy’ or ‘self-rule’. This is what it means to be free. It does not mean doing whatever you feel like doing. It means doing what you know you have most reason to do. It means living by rules or standards, but rules and standards that you decide for yourself. You must decide what standards to live by because no one else can do this for you. For one, they do not understand and are not in a position to understand your particular circumstances (see #1 above); for two, they are not you. You must decide how you are to live your life, because you are the one who must live it.
6. Learn philosophy. In learning philosophy you will find consolation without end, depth without limit. It is a lifetime’s task and, whilst it requires a bit of work, the payoff is contentment, tranquillity, freedom from troubles and invulnerability to bad fortune. Philosophy works not because it gives you what you want but because it gives you something better: wisdom, self-mastery, true beliefs about what really matters, and in that it changes what you want. In learning philosophy you will find how to be free when in chains, healthy when sick, wealthy when poor, proud when disgraced, fortunate in bad fortune. Understanding what freedom is, the philosopher knows they are always free because they can always rule themselves by their good judgement: chains are no impediment to this self-rule. Understanding what health is, the philosopher knows that a healthy soul is the real prize, and that physical ill-health is a natural inevitability and no impediment to a healthy soul. Understanding what wealth is, the philosopher knows that all the money in the world will not make you wealthy if it is not sufficient to satisfy your desires, and so she is wealthiest who needs least and is content with least, not who has most. Understanding what honour is, the philosopher knows that reality is worth more than reputation, and if you know you have good reason to be proud and no reason to feel ashamed then it does not matter what the world may say about you. Understanding what it is to be fortunate, the philosopher knows that good fortune hides your errors from you, but that bad fortune reveals them to you, and so you should wish for bad fortune because you are fortunate to have its lessons.
Understanding what really matters, the philosopher sees that the goal in life is not to get more of what is good but to be more of what is good. This is not what most people aim for. Most people are chasing shadows, grasping nothing. If you go along easily in the world then you never have reason to doubt this activity. I wasn’t given that option: chronic illness denied it to me. In childhood, it taught me a lesson: the world is not easy or kind. It has deep, dark, cold waters. You must learn how to live with this or else drown in suffering. Perhaps you have been thrown into this deep water. You must learn how to swim in it. And you will, if you choose.
If you choose well, you will be better off for it. Like all deep suffering, your illness can give you an insight into what really matters. Few things are more valuable. Without this insight, the true forms of what most people chase would have remained hidden from you and you would have spent your life chasing the shadow-forms of them: indulgence, physical attractiveness, money, praise, luck. It is a shameful thing to live a life in ignorance, in pursuit of things that don’t really matter. Be glad that you are not one of those people. You have been given the opportunity to rise above what most ordinary ignorant people are capable of. Use it well.
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