S

November    25th

FUNNY   HOW THAT    WORKS   OUT

“As for me, I   would   choose  being   sick    over    living  in  luxury, for being   sick    only    harms   the body,

whereas luxury  destroys    both    the body    and the soul,   causing weakness    and incapacity  in  the

body,   and lack    of  control and cowardice   in  the soul.   What’s  more,   luxury  breeds  injustice

because it  also    breeds  greediness.”

—MUSONIUS   RUFUS,  LECTURES,   20.95.14–17

tories about lottery winners tend to share one lesson: suddenly coming into a great deal of money is a
curse, not a blessing. Just a few years after they get their big check, many lottery winners are actually
in worse financial shape. They’ve lost friends, they’ve gotten divorced. Their whole lives have been
turned into a nightmare as a result of their obscenely good fortune.
It’s like that Metallica lyric (fittingly from a song called “No Leaf Clover”): “Then it comes to be that
the soothing light at the end of your tunnel / Is just a freight train coming your way.”
And yet the most common response from a cancer survivor, the person who went through the thing we
all dread and fear? “It was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Funny how that works out, isn’t it?