There is a short sentence from Vergil that says: …. “Endure,  and keep  yourselves  for  days  of  happiness.”

There are times when we feel that we can’t endure – that we can’t face what’s ahead of us;  that  we  can’t  live with the disappointments,  the problems;  that we can’t carry the heavy load.  But these times come and go,  as our strength and courage and circumstances run in cycles – from high to low to high – and in the low times we have to endure; we have to hold on until the  shadows  brighten,  until the load lifts.  “No one could endure adversity’ ” said Seneca “if,  while it continued, it kept the same violence that its first blows had…”

People often issue ultimatums. They say they can’t or won’t stand this or that – not another minute. “I’m leaving it all. 1 want out.” Such times could be likened to a circuit breaker or a fuse that blows when overloaded. We  do wonder  if we can take it at times  –  but  there are built-in safety factors, and we find that the human soul  –  the spirit,   the body,   the mind of man … is resilient.

There is more built-in strength in all of us than we sometimes suppose. And what once we said we couldn’t do or couldn’t live with or couldn’t carry,  we find   ourselves  somehow  doing  and  enduring,     as time,    reappraisal,   readjustment and sometimes sheer necessity, modify our sense of values and our attitudes, and we find strength and endurance and hidden resources within ourselves.

…. “Life is real!  Life is earnest!” as the poet put it,   and  facing facts,  adjusting to life,  isn’t always easy.  But before we give up, we should most seriously consider what we are giving up – and what we are going to. “The frying pan to the fire” is an old phrase that has much meaning.

Well, thus endeth the lesson – to pause,  to reappraise,  to take time for hope,  for faith,  and for strength to return – remembering,  as Solon said it: “If all men were to bring their miseries together in one place, most would he glad to take … home …. each his own.”

“Endure, and keep yourselves for days of happiness.”