Never Give Up: The Inspiration of Aeneas

In my first post I will discuss a story from Roman Mythology that inspires me.

In school, I studied Latin for 4 years and I loved every minute of it. One of the things we translated was the epic poem, The Aeneid. This post is about how The Aeneid has inspired me in my darkest and most dismal times. To me The Aeneid speaks to the fact that there are many things in life that will threaten you as you travel along your journey, but what God has for you, no one can take it away except you.

 In the epic poem the Aeneid,  the Trojan kingdom fell at the hands of the Greeks. But destiny had something much greater in store for the people of the fallen city of Troy. Aeneas, his family and the rest of the survivors of Troy escaped the ruins of the fallen city with danger lurking at every corner. The descendants of Aeneas would go on to found the Roman empire, which the Greek gods knew would someday surpass and even contribute to the demise of the Greek empire.

So Hera, the wife of the powerful Greek god Zeus, did everything in her power to stop the Trojans from reaching their destiny, which was to found the Rome kingdom. She placed seemingly insurmountable obstacles in their way at every turn of their journey. Despite this, she could not stop them because it was their destiny to found the Roman Empire.

To me story of Aeneas speaks to the importance of perseverance and never giving up. Whenever I'm going through difficult times I think of the strength of Aeneas and the importance of being dedicated to your passion, regardless of the challenges and setbacks that you will inevitably face. Through my life I have learned that the only person that can truly stop you from reaching your destiny is you.

In homage to never giving up, here is a song that I loved from the very first time I heard it.  "Someday We'll All Be Free" by Donny Hathaway