How to be invincible.

"If you work at that which is before you, following right reason seriously, vigorously, calmly, without allowing anything else to distract you, but keeping your divine part pure, as if you should be bound to give it back immediately; if you hold to this, expecting nothing, fearing nothing, but satisfied with your present activity according to nature, and with heroic truth in every word and sound which you utter, you will live happy. And there is no man who is able to prevent this."

--Marcus Aurelius, Meditations Book 3 (tr Long)

This has long been one of my favorite passages, a brief yet eloquent summation of Stoic philosophy, and one that I turn to time and time again when a dark mood comes over me.

I have long been afraid of effort, because I've been afraid that the outcome will be a failure and a disappointment. But if I follow the advice of Marcus Aurelius, I need have no such fear. The source of the fear is the expectation of some external reward that is ultimately outside of my power. A true reward, of course, isn't external at all. The one very thing that is the source of my happiness, being content with my own judgments, choices, and actions alone, is always completely within my power. It cannot be taken away, even as everything else can.

By all means, you may remove anything and everything from around me. You may even destroy me entirely. No matter, because I am the only one who chooses how I will act within those circumstances. When I rightly understand the conditions for happiness, I know I must never fail, unless I so choose.  Change the judgment of the conditions, and you change your awareness of true success.

I have a close association between this passage from the Meditations and the Bhagavad Gita, because I happened to be reading both closely at the same time a few years back. Both are from very different backgrounds, of course, but I have always noted their shared insistence on the road to inner peace.

Before the great battle, Arjuna loses his confidence. He wonders how he can fight his own friends and kin, and worries about the horrible results that will follow. Krishna reminds him that one must be detached from the external consequences of action and pay attention to simply doing what is right. That is the way to liberation. I must not be ruled by my passions, by my worries, by the thought of what will come tomorrow or the next day. I must rule myself, here and now.
 
Written on 4/19/1999