What life would be like as a prince or some other form of royalty? Waking up to others tending to the beauty of many acres of gardens with statues and brilliantly designed pieces of architecture. To see fountains flowing and meals prepared to be brought to your hall and placed where you sat shared by company from anywhere and most probably staying in your home. To be a host and a guest of your own sanctuary. To be paid based on the quality of your decisions rather than the value of your physical labor. It seems to be one of the higher forms of being to allow one's self to be free from toil and instead based in the mind. Although, the two — mind and body — are bound to each other. Tangent aside, it does seem to be a challenge to be a prince. There are other burdens to face and greater challenges that come with leadership:
- Leaders must care for the people they serve, or risk ruling in poor taste and being overthrown.
- Leaders must release the need to control others and instead build the trust and respect of the people they serve.
- Leaders are servants of their people.
- The result of decisions in leadership will affect more people than an individual life, which is why great leaders will achieve fortune.
- Leaders will have to deal with a growing sense of self importance and ego by reminding themselves that although their role is to help other people, that does not make them better than other people.
Overall, it seems like the benefits of being a prince outweigh the challenges that come with it. Essentially, to be royalty means to be a free person, and to spend time in thought and exploring life's metaphysical questions:
- Why are we here?
- What is good?
- What is just?
- What is honorable?
- What is loyal?
- Is it possible to achieve leadership without being authoritative?
- What determines success?
- Who am I?
- Why am I here?
- What sets my soul on fire?
- What drives me to be better?
For the answers to these questions we can take the advice of the philosopher king Marcus Aurelius to “look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and... foresee the future too.” (Meditations). Until next time!