Kayla L’s Reviews > Meditations > Status Update

“Whatever happens to you has been waiting to happen since the beginning of time. The twining strands of fate wove both of them together: your own existence and the things that happen to you” pg. 132

“To follow the logos in all things is to be relaxed and energetic, joyful and serious at once” pg. 136

“And now you’re astonished that he’s gone and done it. So when you call someone “untrustworthy” or “ungrateful”, turn the reproach on yourself. It was you who did wrong. By assuming that someone with those traits deserved your trust. Or by doing them a favor and expecting something in return, instead of looking to the action itself for your reward” pg. 128

“Don’t look down on death, but welcome it. It too is one of the things required by nature. Like youth and old age. Like growth and maturity. Like a new set of teeth, a beard, the first gray hair. Like sex and pregnancy and childbirth. Like all other physical changes at each stage of life, our dissolution is no different” pg. 118

“You could be good today. But instead you choose tomorrow” pg. 105

“To feel affection for people even when they make a mistake is uniquely human. You can do it, if you simply recognize: that they’re human too, that they act out of ignorance, against their will, and that you’ll both be dead before long. And, above all, that they haven’t really hurt you. They haven’t diminished your ability to choose” pg. 89

“It’s normal to feel pain in your hands and feet, if you’re using your feet and your hands. And for a human being to feel stress is normal - if he’s living a normal life. And if it’s normal, how can it be bad?” pg. 76

“You don’t have to turn this into something. It doesn’t have to upset you. Things can’t shape our decisions by themselves” pg. 81

“So there are two reasons to embrace what happens. One is that it’s happening to you. It was prescribed for you, and it pertains to you. The thread was spun long ago, by the oldest cause of all. The other reason is that what happens to an individual is a cause of well-being in what directs the world - of its wellbeing, its fulfillment of its very existence, even.”

“Your ability to control your thoughts - treat it with respect. It’s all that protects your mind from false perceptions - false to your nature, and that of all rational beings. It’s what makes thoughtfulness possible, and affection for other people, and submission to the divine” pg. 32

“Stop allowing your mind to be a slave, to be jerked about by selfish impulses, to kick against fate and the present, and to mistrust the future” pg. 17

*** “Everyone gets one life. Yours is almost used up, and instead of treating yourself with respect, you have entrusted your own happiness to the souls of others” pg. 18***

Book 1: Debts & Lessons

“That I was shown clearly and often what it would be like to live as nature requires. The gods did all they could - through their gifts, their help, their inspiration - to ensure that I could live as nature demands. And if I’ve failed, it’s no one’s fault but mine. Because I didn’t pay attention to what they told me, to what they taught me, practically step by step” (pg. 12)