Retire Like King Ashoka
Life arc hint #7. Retire like King Ashoka.
King Ashoka (304-232 BC) was an ancient Indian king. He spent the first half of his life embroiled in warfare. First in a violent battle for succession amongst his brothers when their father died, then in wars of conquest that massively expanded his empire to include most of modern-day India, Afghanistan, and Burma. Including one horrific battle in particular, when he successfully assaulted Kalinga, a kingdom, in southern India and lost 150,000 men in the process. Ashoka’s mythos holds that, as he walked amongst the wreckage after that battle, he finally recognized the brutality of his actions.
What tools had led to his success (violence, torture) were rendered meaningless as he crossed his crest. He sought out new tools. Converting to Buddhism, he spent the last 30 years of life, along with his sons, spreading nonviolence and enhancing the quality of life for the citizenry of his kingdom. He built irrigation systems, universities, hospitals, roads. Modern systemic change.
And as his rule faded, he had the lessons he had learned enscribed on a network of pillars topped with the lions above. And when he died, and fifty years after his own death, his kingdom died, his story remained, and his pillars still stand today.
In the declining slope of our lives, perhaps all that should remain is a symbol. A mythology. You were someone, who did something, and some people think it means something.
-Shlok
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