Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.1

The substance of the Universe is obedient and compliant. And the Reason that governs it has in itself no cause for doing evil, for it has no malice, nor does it do evil to anything, nor is anything harmed by it. But all things are made and perfected according to this Reason.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 6 (tr Long)

Whenever we face suffering, we are inclined to think that the world is somehow unfair, broken, or simply messed up. We might speculate that God has made some terrible mistake, or that He takes pleasure in our pain. This may, in turn, lead us to reject the very idea of meaning, purpose, and order in life.

To say, however, that the world has gone bad rests on a certain understanding of good and evil, that some circumstances are beneficial for us, while others are harmful for us. Stoicism suggests a different measure. Things are as they are for a reason, even as we do not always fathom the specifics of the reason. They are, in turn, good or bad for us only insofar as we succeed or fail in making use of them to nurture our own virtue.

If benefit and harm for us are not in what happens, but in what we do with what happens, the world has hardly gone bad. We have rather chosen to take the world badly.

I should not determine my life by what I passively receive, but in what I actively do. There is something deeply liberating, though perhaps also frightening, about recognizing that only I am responsible for what is good or bad in my life, because the value of my life is in my own thoughts and deeds.

With all effects admitting of causes, all causality admitting of order, and all order admitting of design, I can rest assured that everything that is given, however it may at first appear, is an opportunity granted by Providence. That I, and every other rational being, can choose well or choose poorly is also a part of that Providence.

Divine Reason, however I may understand it or speak of it, does not admit of imperfection, because it is itself the source of all expressions of existence, of all modifications of substance, that from which all change proceeds, and that to which all change returns. Ignorance, or indifference, or error, or injustice, or malice, all of which are incomplete, have no place in what is perfectly complete.

I think of how often I have blamed others, or blamed the world, or blamed God for something having gone wrong. I need to rid myself, however, even of the very concept of things going wrong at all. Only I am accountable for what is right or wrong in my life, for that which is within my power.

“She doesn’t love me, so life is unfair.” “It didn’t go my way, so the world is crooked.” I have suffered great pain, so God must hate me.” None of these statements are true for me, because I am falsely presuming that what I receive, my preference, and my pleasure or pain are in any way a standard of good.

Everything that Nature provides, through presence or absence, can be used well.

Written in 9/2006