Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.28

Have you seen those things? Look also at these. Do not disturb yourself. Make yourself all simplicity.

Does any one do wrong? It is to himself that he does the wrong.

Has anything happened to you? Well, out of the Universe from the beginning everything that happens has been apportioned and spun out to you.

In a word, your life is short. You must turn to profit the present by the aid of reason and justice. Be sober in your relaxation.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 4 (tr Long)

The Stoic life is simple, because it asks me only for what is necessary, and it asks me not to worry myself about anything unnecessary. I have only the responsibility to care for my own character, and this is always within my reach. Anything good in how I live, or in what I achieve, or how I might improve the world, flows only from this. Other things will be as they may, and I should be content to ask myself only how I must change myself in relation to them.

I return quite regularly to the Platonic version of this rule, equally direct and straightforward. Justice is minding my own business. I will only get myself into trouble when I impose my preferences where they don’t really belong.

This distinction, between the things within my power and the things beyond my power, is indeed simple, and it would also seem to be easy to pursue, at least in and of itself. But not all simple things are necessarily easy things, and I suspect this is precisely because I can’t help but muddle up that very simplicity. Somehow my influences and habits want to add what is extraneous, thereby making it all the more complex, and so I also only make it harder for myself.

The Stoic life does not become difficult from what it asks of me, but because I am still drawn to all the things it doesn’t ask of me. What I shouldn’t be doing gets in the way of what I should be doing.

I may, for example, commit myself to keeping my thinking in harmony with Nature, and seeking to act only in such a way that it improves the virtue within me. Still, I am so used to being a busybody, to feeling important, and I see most all the other folks also rushing about, trying to become masters of their circumstances.

So I somehow know I need to be a good man, but I start adding all other sorts of goals, and I begin including all other sorts of schemes. Suddenly, I’m no longer just asking how to live well, but how to also become successful, rich, powerful, and esteemed. I no longer look at my neighbor and ask how I can show him justice, but I consider how I can gain leverage over him, and how to make him a means for getting me what I want.

I’ve now made it harder for myself, once I try to rule over things I have no place to rule. I have also made myself anxious, distracted, and frustrated by all these false idols. I am assuming I need more to be happy, but I have only made myself more miserable.

Has another tried to hurt me? I should only remove the judgment of being hurt. He has acted for his own reasons, and he has really only hurt himself through his vice. I can act for my own reasons, and benefit myself through my virtue.

Has the world gone in a way that disturbs me? I should only remove the judgment of being disturbed. It is what it is for its own reasons in the order of all things together. I am what I am for my own reasons within that same order.

Without a sense of sober relaxation in my living, I should recognize I am doing something wrong.

Written in 10/2005