Meditations

by Marcus Aurelius

Treat what you don’t have as nonexistent. Look at what you have, the things you value most, and think of how much you’d crave them if you didn’t have them. But be careful. Don’t feel such satisfaction that you start to overvalue them—that it would upset you to lose them.

Self-contraction: the mind’s requirements are satisfied by doing what we should, and by the calm it brings us.

Wash yourself clean. With simplicity, with humility, with indifference to everything but right and wrong. Care for other human beings. Follow God.

“Kingship: to earn a bad reputation by good deeds.”

Love this. No one over leaves a presidency more popular than they entered

Is it not possible that a real man should forget about living a certain number of years, and should not cling to life, but leave it up to the gods, accepting, as women say, that ‘no one can escape his fate,’ and turn his attention to how he can best live the life before him?”

Look at the past—empire succeeding empire—and from that, extrapolate the future: the same thing. No escape from the rhythm of events. Which is why observing life for forty years is as good as a thousand. Would you really see anything new?

Love this. Something we continually lose sight of

Where there is profit because our effort is productive, because it advances in step with our nature, there we have nothing to fear.

Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly.

If I died today, would I die satisfied, in my deepest soul? Let that answer guide what you do today and with all the time you yet have

In all that happens, keep before your eyes those who experienced it before you, and felt shock and outrage and resentment at it. And now where are they? Nowhere. Is that what you want to be like? Instead of avoiding all these distracting assaults—leaving the alarms and flight to others—and concentrating on what you can do with it all? Because you can use it, treat it as raw material. Just pay attention, and resolve to live up to your own expectations. In everything. And when faced with a choice, remember: our business is with things that really matter.

In particular the last 3 lines

Dig deep; the water—goodness—is down there. And as long as you keep digging, it will keep bubbling up.

Not a dancer but a wrestler: waiting, poised and dug in, for sudden assaults.

place your own well-being in your own hands. It’s quite possible to be a good man without anyone realizing it. Remember that.

And this too: you don’t need much to live happily. And just because you’ve abandoned your hopes of becoming a great thinker or scientist, don’t give up on attaining freedom, achieving humility, serving others, obeying God.

Perfection of character: to live your last day, every day, without frenzy, or sloth, or pretense.

Nature willed the creation of the world. Either all that exists follows logically or even those things to which the world’s intelligence most directs its will are completely random. A source of serenity in more situations than one.

A great source actually, I love this thought. Marries best of Stoicism with best of Taleb

Alexander and Caesar and Pompey. Compared with Diogenes, Heraclitus, Socrates? The philosophers knew the what, the why, the how. Their minds were their own. The others? Nothing but anxiety and enslavement.

And yet it is Alexander called The Great. What history gets wrong

Concentrate on what you have to do. Fix your eyes on it. Remind yourself that your task is to be a good human being; remind yourself what nature demands of people. Then do it, without hesitation, and speak the truth as you see it. But with kindness. With humility. Without hypocrisy.

No time for reading. For controlling your arrogance, yes. For overcoming pain and pleasure, yes. For outgrowing ambition, yes. For not feeling anger at stupid and unpleasant people—even for caring about them—for that, yes.

When you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, remember that your defining characteristic—what defines a human being—is to work with others. Even animals know how to sleep.

Apply them constantly, to everything that happens: Physics. Ethics. Logic.

And why were you born? For pleasure? See if that answer will stand up to questioning.

And the whole earth a mere point in space.

This is what you deserve. You could be good today. But instead you choose tomorrow.

To speak to the Senate—or anyone—in the right tone, without being overbearing. To choose the right words.

You have to assemble your life yourself—action by action. And be satisfied if each one achieves its goal, as far as it can. No one can keep that from happening. —But there are external obstacles.… Not to behaving with justice, self-control, and good sense. —Well, but perhaps to some more concrete action. But if you accept the obstacle and work with what you’re given, an alternative will present itself—another piece of what you’re trying to assemble. Action by action.

Stick with the situation at hand, and ask, “Why is this so unbearable? Why can’t I endure it?” You’ll be embarrassed to answer.

People find pleasure in different ways. I find it in keeping my mind clear.

Give yourself a gift: the present moment.

People out for posthumous fame forget that the Generations To Come will be the same annoying people they know now. And just as mortal. What does it matter to you if they say x about you, or think y?

Think about this. Marcus has no idea that almost 2000 years later, millions of people still say his name every day. How many people does this apply for? They have no idea. What good then did it do them to worry in their life? Simply do the good work. Let the rest run its course

External things are not the problem. It’s your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now. If the problem is something in your own character, who’s stopping you from setting your mind straight? And if it’s that you’re not doing something you think you should be, why not just do it? —But there are insuperable obstacles. Then it’s not a problem. The cause of your inaction lies outside you. —But how can I go on living with that undone? Then depart, with a good conscience, as if you’d done it, embracing the obstacles too.

The mind without passions is a fortress. No place is more secure. Once we take refuge there we are safe forever. Not to see this is ignorance. To see it and not seek safety means misery.

No carelessness in your actions. No confusion in your words. No imprecision in your thoughts. No retreating into your own soul, or trying to escape it. No overactivity.

(Is it a sign of self-respect to regret nearly everything you do?)

That’s what the outpouring—the diffusion—of thought should be like: not emptied out, but extended. And not striking at obstacles with fury and violence, or falling away before them, but holding its ground and illuminating what receives it. What doesn’t transmit light creates its own darkness.

Love this analogy

People exist for one another. You can instruct or endure them.

Or are you determined to lie down with evil? Hasn’t experience even taught you that—to avoid it like the plague? Because it is a plague—a mental cancer—worse than anything caused by tainted air or an unhealthy climate. Diseases like that can only threaten your life; this one attacks your humanity.

The last line

Objective judgment, now, at this very moment. Unselfish action, now, at this very moment. Willing acceptance—now, at this very moment—of all external events. That’s all you need.

Work: Not to rouse pity, not to win sympathy or admiration. Only this: Activity. Stillness.

The world’s cycles never change—up and down, from age to age. Either the world’s intelligence wills each thing (if so, accept its will), or it exercised that will once—once and for all—and all else follows as a consequence (and if so, why worry?). One way or another: atoms or unity. If it’s God, all is well. If it’s arbitrary, don’t imitate it.

—Well, then what? Do what nature demands. Get a move on—if you have it in you—and don’t worry whether anyone will give you credit for it. And don’t go expecting Plato’s Republic; be satisfied with even the smallest progress, and treat the outcome of it all as unimportant.

The task of philosophy is modest and straightforward. Don’t tempt me to presumption.

Consider the lives led once by others, long ago, the lives to be led by others after you, the lives led even now, in foreign lands. How many people don’t even know your name. How many will soon have forgotten it. How many offer you praise now—and tomorrow, perhaps, contempt. That to be remembered is worthless. Like fame. Like everything.

Indifference to external events. And a commitment to justice in your own acts. Which means: thought and action resulting in the common good. What you were born to do.

You can discard most of the junk that clutters your mind—things that exist only there—and clear out space for yourself:

Imagine their souls stripped bare. And their vanity. To suppose that their disdain could harm anyone—or their praise help them.

Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life. What’s the matter? Is any of this new? What is it you find surprising? The purpose? Look at it. The material? Look at that. That’s all there is.

Then isn’t it better to do what’s up to you—like a free man—than to be passively controlled by what isn’t, like a slave or beggar? And what makes you think the gods don’t care about what’s up to us? Start praying like this and you’ll see. Not “some way to sleep with her”—but a way to stop wanting to. Not “some way to get rid of him”—but a way to stop trying. Not “some way to save my child”—but a way to lose your fear. Redirect your prayers like that, and watch what happens.

Whereas humans were made to help others. And when we do help others—or help them to do something—we’re doing what we were designed for. We perform our function.

Just remember: you can endure anything your mind can make endurable, by treating it as in your interest to do so.

If they’ve made a mistake, correct them gently and show them where they went wrong. If you can’t do that, then the blame lies with you. Or no one.