Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.25

Does another do me wrong? Let him look to it. He has his own disposition, his own activity.

I now have what the Universal Nature wills me to have, and I do what my nature now wills me to do.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 5 (tr Long)

How many of my problems, how much of my frustration and disappointment, would cease immediately if I only learned to rule myself, to let others rule themselves, and to let Nature play herself out as she intends?

This is a game changer. It frees me from so much of what burdens me, and frees me for so much of what I was made to be. So what’s stopping me?

When I first read this passage, I pondered all the possibilities, but it took me a while to wonder why I seemed afraid of the actualities.  Old habits are hard to break, and the Stoic Turn, in any of its aspects, is hardly just cosmetic. It is a fundamental change of priorities, and therefore a completely new way of living.

Responsibility is liberating, but it can also seem quite frightening. Marcus Aurelius is telling me that what I think and do is my concern. What the people around me think and do is their concern. Nature gives us everything we need to do all of these things rightly. It is liberating, because nothing is hindering me from living well, but it is frightening, because there are no longer any excuses for living poorly.

I think of how often I have run for cover, to make my own weakness seem to be the weakness of someone or something else. They don’t respect you, so it’s all their fault. She lied to you, so it’s all her fault. I got sick, so it’s all the world’s fault.

Now everyone and everything around me will indeed act upon me, but the only thing that defines my own happiness or misery is how I act for myself. There is no getting around the profound power of that realization.

I will further need to redefine my very sense of success, of what is really mine and what isn’t, of my social standing, of what makes someone a friend. In a world where most of us will let our circumstances determine us, the Stoic may at best seem eccentric, at worst downright dangerous and insane. These are not easy steps to take.

All the hesitation should surely disappear when I observe the sense of peace that such thinking will bring. I can care for others, I can act for their good, and I can give them my respect, but I do not need to make my own dignity dependent on whether they care for me, act for my good, or give me any respect.

Let me be accountable for myself, and as for all the rest, I can learn to simply let it be.

Written in 7/2006