Daily Meditations · Monday, August 10, 2026
On the harder opponent
"Difficulties are things that show what men are. For the future, in case of any difficulty, remember that God, like a gymnastic trainer, has pitted you against a rough antagonist." — Epictetus, Discourses I.24
Epictetus opens this discourse answering a complaint he heard often in his school: that hard circumstances are a punishment, a sign that fate has turned against you. He inverts it. The difficulty is not the enemy. It is the sparring partner assigned to you, the thing without which no strength gets tested or made. His image is athletic on purpose. A wrestler does not resent being matched against someone rough. That is the only way he becomes anything.
This week in Coventry, at the British Chess Championship, the 17-year-old Shreyas Royal followed a draw against Svyatoslav Bazakutsa with consecutive wins over Bodhana Sivanandan and top seed Luke McShane to reach 6/7, taking the sole lead. Royal was set to face nine-time British champion Michael Adams in Saturday's penultimate round. A weaker draw would have flattered him. A rough antagonist is what reveals what he actually is. Most of us treat the hard match as bad luck. Epictetus asks us to see it as the assignment.
The difficulty in front of you right now: is it happening to you, or has it been matched against you so you can find out what you are made of?
Source: en.chessbase.com →
