Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.47

When you wish to delight yourself, think of the virtues of those who live with you. For instance, the activity of one, and the modesty of another, and the liberality of a third, and some other good quality of a fourth.

For nothing delights so much as the examples of the virtues, when they are exhibited in the morals of those who live with us and present themselves in abundance, as far as is possible. Wherefore we must keep them before us.

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

Back when I was a young pup, I would probably have snorted and snickered at the claim that being moral was somehow pleasurable. I imagine many people think quite the same thing. There’s the right way, and then there’s the fun way. We’re somehow convinced that the two just don’t cross.

It’s a weakness we all share. We oppose the different aspects of our nature, that of our passions and that of our reason. We forget to find a balance within ourselves, and we perversely prefer to be at war with ourselves.

To keep myself from slipping back into that sort of an attitude, I need to constantly remind myself that what is good for me will be good for the whole, not for the part at the expense of the whole, and certainly not for the lesser part at the expense of the greater part.

The value of my feelings, and the depth of my pleasures, will be in direct proportion to the value of the actions from which they proceed. The value of my actions, in turn, follows from the right exercise of my reason, and my understanding of what is good, both for myself and for others.

It is only then that I see how the mere pursuit of pleasure, simply for the sake of gratification alone, was actually not so pleasing at all. Chasing after lusts becomes a sort of burden, even an enslavement, providing more misery than it does delight. The drunk struggles his way through another bottle, the adulterer gets tangled up in his lies, the grasping man lies awake worried about how he will hold on to his wealth. I end up chasing a contentment that never seems to come, always looking for more and more.

There is a perfectly good reason that the passions alone cannot satisfy me. My human nature is fulfilled by the dignity of my actions, not merely by the power of my feelings, and how I feel will depend upon how well I live. In this way, in an odd manner that I would hardly expect, virtue provides the deepest and most lasting pleasure, even in the face of all other sorts of suffering, because virtue is the very thing that makes me whole.

Whenever I have had the good sense to follow what is right first and foremost, I find myself slowly but surely discovering a habit of the deepest joy. Since I begin to be at peace with myself through my thoughts and deeds, I also come to be at peace in my feelings.

Then I will sometimes foolishly let myself be tempted by going straight for the gusto, assuming that such a path will be quicker or easier. After I see the wasteland I have made, I wonder what I possibly could have been thinking.

It is not only my own virtue that can delight me, but also surrounding myself with the virtue of others. It is not only a good example, but also a source of enjoyment to share life with friends who practice integrity, compassion, and justice. 

It is hardly an accident, therefore, that the most miserable times of my life were those where I attached myself to people consumed by vice, and the most joyful times of my life were those where I surrounded myself with people who inspired me with character.

So much of the true delight in life is indeed from the company we keep.

Written in 7/2007