“He however, who is only on the road to virtue, although he may have made great progress along it, nevertheless needs some favor from Fortune while he is still struggling among mere human interests, while he is untying that knot, and all the bonds which bind him to mortality.” – Seneca

All of the binds which bind us to mortality. We will only shed those binds at one point in our lives, the end. Here we allow ourselves to understand that this is a life long pursuit and that we will not arrive at the end until we actually arrive at the final end.

No matter the progress we make, we will not be perfect, we will still have further to go. We will still have weaknesses to battle, we will even develop new weaknesses along the way. We will still stray from the path. We will still fall short of our goals.

And how could we not? We are aiming to forge ourselves into the absolute best version of who we are. This isn’t just a difficult task. It is impossible. The target is always moving a little further away. Our ideal will always pull just a little further away every time we make a successful step towards it.

And that is the point. Becoming the best versions of ourselves is a conscious, life long pursuit. It is the only hobby we will ever need, it is the only task that goes with us everywhere we go and takes up one hundred percent of our waking hours. And we will never achieve it.

But the effort alone will be worth the exceedingly small but meaningful results we do achieve.

virtus fortis vocat