Good morning!

As you all know, I’ve been leaning heavy into Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche recently. However, there’s another writer from that era who hails from the same country as our beloved Fyodor Dostoyevsky; Leo Tolstoy. Last week, I had the pleasure of spending time with some of Tolstoy’s short stories in depth and I was moved by them like I haven’t been in a while. Which brings me to today’s piece.

Today we’ll be thinking about the desire to be good, using Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Burning that off, we’re going to do a thought exercise called the Meaning Check. Wrapping up, we’re going to look at a quote that burns through Ivan’s head for the majority of the story.

Pull up your seat and pick up your utensils. Thought Breakfast is served!

Society gives us a script for what a successful life looks like. We’re taught to pursue things like status, career, respectability, and approval. Following the script feels safe not only because it promises security in our well-being, but also because everyone else is doing it too. But living according to what is “proper” is not always what is true.

Outward success can conceal inward dissatisfaction. People can appear successful, respected, and stable while quietly feeling disconnected from themselves. In a word, social success does not guarantee inner meaning.

In The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Ivan slowly realizes something absolutely terrifying: he may have lived incorrectly. He thought he was doing everything right. He followed what society told him was good. Near death, however, his life abruptly feels hollow and artificial. Tolstoy shows us how it’s possible to spend years pursuing the wrong things without noticing.

The story shows how real self-examination often begins during suffering or crisis. Comfort can keep the difficult questions away, but only for a certain amount of time. Near the end of his life, Ivan only begins asking if he’s lived rightly, if any of it was real, and what actually mattered. Ultimately, the desire to live truthfully and meaningfully often awakens in us too late.

Ask yourself:

“Maybe I did not live as I ought to have done.”
— Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich

Leo Tolstoy captures one of the deepest human fears in this line: the possibility that we spent years living in a way that was never truly ours. In The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Ivan realizes too late that a life can look successful from the outside while feeling empty underneath. That question, “Did I live as I ought to have done?” becomes terrifying because it forces a person to confront whether they were truly living, or simply following the script they were handed.

Munch on that for today. Have a great day, and come back tomorrow for another steaming hot plate of Thought Breakfast!

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Remember to stay mindful, smell the flowers, and take it easy.

Chef Ricky - Thought Breakfast