the struggle of sisyphus

Insomnia has found me once again tonight, it seems to be my constant companion these days and so I have been reading old journal entries, letters I wrote with no intent to send, written for the sole purpose of processing my feelings and various lists of things in my life, both trivial and significant, and how I felt about them…some of which date back to ten years ago…and I have realized something that I already knew, but it hit me in a different, more profound way. I am who I am, my likes are my likes, my struggles are my struggles, and I will be me for as long as I am living. I guess I could be frustrated. I mean ten years of living, progressing, and learning only to find myself dealing with the same weaknesses and disappointments I have in my own imperfect self? I work through a personal trial at a specific time only to have it pop back up in my life after I thought I had it beat. I couldn’t help but think of Sisyphus.

Sisyphus is a figure of greek mythology who was condemned to repeat forever the same meaningless task of pushing a rock up a mountain, only to see it roll down again. Can you think of anything more futile or frustrating? Sisyphus is a great representation of the human experience. Everyone has their own personal rock to roll up the hill. We all have challenges that are unique to us, and some of those challenges last our whole life long. It is a never-ending battle to master ourselves and make strong within us those things that are weak. Though it is an ongoing struggle, think about what Sisyphus gained…how much stronger he must be forty years into his lifelong sentence than he was on his first trip up the hill…how, with each trip, it must become easier…how maybe, once he has built up strength and endurance to roll the rock up without much effort, he can focus on the sheer beauty of the hill. The rock is still his, it will always be his, but it will not always be the overwhelming trial that it started out as and he will have become a stronger man.

I think that is a great metaphor for life. We may carry long term burdens that seem at times, to be overwhelming and endless, but they will not always seem that way and in carrying them, they change us…we become stronger. And while I still have some of the same trials and shortcomings that I had then, they do not carry the same negative emotions that they used to...and through them, i have learned about myself and become a stronger person.