Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.5

Every moment think steadily, as a Roman, and as a man, to do what you have in hand with a perfect and simple dignity, and with feelings of affection, and freedom, and justice, and to give yourself relief from all other thoughts.

And you will give yourself relief, if you do every act of your life as if it were the last, laying aside all carelessness and passionate aversion from the commands of reason, and all hypocrisy, and all self-love, and any discontent with the portion which has been given to you.

You see how few those things are, which if a man lays hold of them, he is able to live with a life that flows in peace, and is like the existence of the gods. For the gods on their part will require nothing more from him who observes these things.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 2 (tr Long)

The happy life is simple, not in the sense that it is always easy to learn, but in the sense that I need little to live it. Perhaps that is what can make it seem so difficult, because it means becoming accustomed to seeking less, when I am constantly being told that I must have more.

Happiness never demands that the world give me anything, or that I must always scramble to maintain any power over my circumstances. It asks only for action that proceeds from a certain disposition of character, perfect because it requires nothing beyond itself, simple because it is not divided but one, and dignified because it rises above what is base.

Beyond all the glitter and all the chatter, each person is made simply to live with integrity and charity. This may be easy to say, especially for the man who loves words but shrinks from tasks, and an attempt to practice it will often reveal the many diversions that lead us astray.

Can I think this equally of myself and of others, of friends and of enemies, of the strong and of the weak, of those who attract me and of those who repel me? Can I remove all the trappings and accessories of life and consider every person only as a vessel for truth and as an agent for good? The very relief I need demands that I do so, and that I put aside other thoughts.

I cringe at the many hours I have wasted lying awake with worry, wondering why the people I love choose not to love me, or fretting about how I could have played the game differently. Better yet, I should stop with the cringing entirely, because the relief I seek will only come about when I stop caring about all the unnecessary things. The act of being responsible for myself is more than sufficient.

I no longer see any morbidity at all in living each moment as if it were the last, since this is just another expression of being freed from the burden of extraneous concerns. The past and future will not change with worry, just as none of my circumstances will change with worry.

The more I vainly try to manipulate all the conditions around me, whether I become rich or poor, or if I have a long or a short life, or if I am esteemed or ignored, the less attention I am giving to the only thing that matters, the dignity of my living.  Yes, relief is that simple. 

Written in 6/2004

Image: Henry David Thoreau's cabin, Walden Pond