Reading: Marcus Aurelius #Meditations

Receive without pride, let go without attachment  

You cannot lose another life than the one you’re living now, or live another one than the one you’re losing

Most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?

It’s silly to try to escape other people’s faults. They are inescapable. Just try to escape your own.  

Consider that as the heaps of sand piled on one another hide the former sands, so in life the events which go before are soon covered by those which come after. 

When you’ve done well and another has benefited by it, why like a fool do you look for a third thing on top - credit for the good deed or a favor in return?

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Not to live as if you had endless years ahead of you. Death overshadows you. While you’re alive and able - be good

Our actions may be impeded . . . but there can be no impeding our intentions or dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting.

The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. 

When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me

You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength

Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one. 

Every event is the right one. Look closely and you’ll see.

Your mind will take the shape of what you frequently hold in thought, for the human spirit is colored by such impressions. 

Treat what you don’t have as non-existent. 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

We all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own

Discard your misperceptions. Stop being jerked like a puppet. Limit yourself to the present

 

If you seek tranquility, do less 

 It can ruin your life only if it ruins your character. Otherwise, it cannot harm you - inside or out.

Objective judgement, 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.

In your actions, don’t procrastinate. In your conversations, don’t confuse. In your thoughts, don’t wander. In your soul, don’t be passive or aggressive. In your life, don’t be all about business.

The happiness of those who want to be popular depends on others; the happiness of those who seek pleasure fluctuates with moods outside their control; but the happiness of the wise grows out of their own free acts.

Do external things distract you?  Then make time for yourself to learn something worthwhile; stop letting yourself be pulled in all directions.  But make sure you guard against the other kind of confusion.  People who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse toward are wasting their time — even when hard at work.

You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.

Never regard something as doing you good if it makes you betray a trust, or lose your sense of shame, or makes you show hatred, suspicion, ill will, or hypocrisy, or a desire for things best done behind closed doors.

True good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions, and good actions

The despicable phoniness of people who say, “Listen, I’m going to level with you here.”  What does that mean?  It shouldn’t even need to be said.  It should be obvious — written in block letters on your forehead.  It should be audible in your voice, visible in your eyes, like a lover who looks into your face and takes in the whole story at a glance.  A straightforward, honest person should be like someone who stinks:  when you’re in the same room with him, you should know it.  But false straightforwardness is like a knife in the back.  

At some point you have to recognize what world it is that you belong to; what power rules it and from what source you spring; that there is a limit to the time assigned you, and if you don’t use it to free yourself it will be gone and will never return 

Don’t ever forget these things: The nature of the world. My nature. How I relate to the world. What proportion of it I make up. That you are part of nature, and no one can prevent you from speaking and acting in harmony with it, always