Boethius had reached everything a Roman could reach: consul, highest official to king Theoderic, a scholar with a library where he translated Greek into Latin. In the year 523 he was accused of treason, imprisoned and, without any proper chance to defend himself, sentenced to death. In his cell, awaiting execution, he wrote The Consolation of Philosophy. In it Fortune appears, turning her wheel, and asks him reproachfully why he complains: he played her game and won, for years, and now that the wheel turns he acts as though a contract had been broken. The book became one of the most read works of the Middle Ages.
From the top to a cell, without a fair trial, with death in prospect. What do you do with the time you have left when there is nothing left to win?
The wheel, the sentence and the time remaining to him: not his, and Fortune had never promised otherwise. What was his: what he filled his last months with. He chose thinking and writing over resentment, and that work outlived not only him but the kingdom that condemned him.
If you knew you had six months left, what would you finish? And what is stopping you from starting it next week?
Yours, Not Yours · A Stoic practice ground · All cases