Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.52

I am unhappy, because this has happened to me.

Not so, but I am happy, though this has happened to me, because I continue free from pain, neither crushed by the present nor fearing the future.

For such a thing as this might have happened to every man, but every man would not have continued free from pain on such an occasion. Why then is that rather a misfortune than this a good fortune? And do you in all cases call that a man's misfortune, which is not a deviation from man's nature? And does a thing seem to you to be a deviation from man's nature, when it is not contrary to the will of man's nature?

Well you know the will of Nature. Will then what has happened prevent you from being just, magnanimous, temperate, prudent, secure against inconsiderate opinions and falsehood? Will it prevent you from having modesty, freedom, and everything else, by the presence of which man's nature obtains all that is its own?

Remember too, on every occasion that leads you to vexation, to apply this principle: not that this is a misfortune, but that to bear it nobly is good fortune.

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

Even the most initial stages of making the Stoic turn can have profound effects. I would find myself concerned about completely different things than I had been before, and I would find myself stared at with confusion, and sometimes even disgust, by those who were still more tightly bound to circumstances. I began to see that a Stoic transformation could never be merely cosmetic. Either I am becoming a completely different sort of person, or it is of no use to me at all.

We have been told for so long how happiness or misery depend upon what happens, that we can hardly imagine it any other way. This passage summarizes the radical alternative. It isn’t what happens, but whether we bear what happens with nobility. It will only hurt me as much as I permit it to hurt me.

This claim is often met with jeers of derision. Surely the loss of property, or honor, or the health of the body is painful? Doesn’t it hurt to be hungry, sick, or rejected? Yes, such states will bring with them various feelings of pain, sometimes quite severe. The question is what I will make of it, whatever the feeling, whatever the fortune. I will only be able to understand this if I begin with the premise that a person is, by his very nature, a creature of thought, choice, and action, and cannot at all be hurt by what is outside of him.

Define a man by his circumstances, and he will suffer from pain quite often. Define a man by his character, and he does not need to suffer any pain within himself at all. Because he has rebuilt what he values, he can no longer consider the presence or absence of fortune as itself a gain or a loss.

What we usually think of as “good” or “bad” fortune can, and will, happen to anyone, and that is why fortune is not the distinguishing mark of someone who is good or bad, happy or unhappy. Give me this, or take away that, and I can be completely myself, with no obstacle or hindrance.

This needn’t be seen as some mysterious, mystical state. Observe that all the things that make my life worth living can be done in any state of fortune. Look only to all the noble actions, those at our human core, and how they can always remain unhindered.

I can be generous, practice self-control and conscience, and not have to worry about what others may think, or how much they may deceive. I can be humble, content with myself, and totally free to be my own master. No situation can halt me from being virtuous within myself.

I can be complete through myself at any given instant. Fulfillment does not proceed from events, but can subsist through any events.

Written in 2/2006

Ah, half measures!