Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.9

Do not be disgusted, or discouraged, or dissatisfied, if you do not succeed in doing everything according to right principles; but when you have failed, return back again, and be content if the greater part of what you do is consistent with man's nature, and love this to which you return.

And do not return to philosophy as if she were a master, but act like those who have sore eyes and apply a bit of sponge and egg, or as another applies a plaster, or drenching with water. For thus you will not fail to obey reason, and you will repose in it.

And remember that philosophy requires only the things that your nature requires, but you would have something else that is not according to Nature.

It may be objected, why something is more agreeable than this that I am doing? But is not this the very reason why pleasure deceives us? And consider if magnanimity, freedom, simplicity, equanimity, piety, are not more agreeable. For what is more agreeable than wisdom itself, when you think of the security and the happy course of all things that depend on the faculty of understanding and knowledge?

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

We will often grow resentful when we feel that others have done us wrong, and we will often turn that same instinct inwards, growing resentful of ourselves when we feel that we have failed.

As with any situation I may face, I can choose to dwell upon what is wrong with it, or I can choose to build upon what is right with it. A step taken in the wrong direction need never be the end of it, but can be a reminder to go back the way I came, and a mistake can simply serve to highlight the distinction between what is given by Nature and what is extraneous through my vanity.

I don’t need to assume that a correction must be harsh and demeaning. Rightly understood, a correction is like a relief, a much-needed cure and comfort from what ails me. I was never, for example, able to understand people in authority who thought that insult and injury would make others work harder or better. I always found myself more encouraged when I was told how well it could be done, instead of how poorly it had been done. Why should I be angry with others, when I could nurture them? Why be angry with myself, when I could nurture myself?

I will fear failure because I assume success is something beyond me, something I simply can’t do. Now that may well be true when it comes to the success of honors and careers, of winning a football game or making millions in high finance. It is, however, most certainly not true when it comes to being successful at humanity. No skill, no strength, no tool is required that has not already been given by Nature. I may not be good enough for everything, but I am more than good enough for that. I get myself in trouble when I seek more than I really need.

No matter. Dispose of the unnecessary, and let my awareness that it is unnecessary serve as a marker for what is necessary.

A perfect instance of this is whenever I start thinking that it is necessary to first seek pleasure. I am impressed by its immediacy, but then sorely disappointed by the fact that it is never complete. It does not fulfill who I am as a person, and it requires a dependence upon the feelings that proceed from other things, indicating precisely how I am neglecting essential aspects of what is already within my nature, and also adding other things to my nature that are not required.

When I am tempted by gratification alone, I only need to ask myself what it is that truly comes from me, and what it is that has very little to do with me at all. This is how I can get myself back on track, by relying upon my actions, not becoming enslaved to my passions. Virtue is always more agreeable, because it proceeds from a mastery of self, while pleasure is less agreeable, because it so easily causes me to lose myself. 

Written in 4/2006