Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.57

No man will hinder you from living according to the reason of your own nature.

Nothing will happen to you contrary to the reason of the Universal Nature.

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

What more beautiful, and direct, expression of Stoic wisdom could we possibly find than this?

You are invincible, if only you understand what it means to live as a human being.

The world will never do you any harm, if only you understand the very purpose of the world.

Yet how this flies in the face of the usual conventions! The measure of a man, they tell us, is how much success he finds in the world, and depends upon the degree of wealth and esteem he receives from others. He excels when he wins at the game, he fails when he loses at the game.

But life isn’t a game, and it isn’t about winning or losing by the terms of others. Life is about only one thing, a choice, and a commitment in action to all of the things that follow from that choice. There are no odds, and there is no gamble. There is absolutely no risk, unless you decide to risk yourself on things other than yourself.

Who I am, right within my soul, is entirely up to me. Who you might be is entirely up to you. As regrettable as it might be, are we in conflict? I will respect how you may choose to think and live. But do not think, for one moment, that anything you say or do will force me to change how I choose to think and live. Use your reason to convince me, but never expect your power to coerce me.

You will never make me decide to be someone I refuse to be. Go ahead, take my money, my livelihood, my reputation, my liberty, or my life itself. There is no winning for you there, because the reason and choice of a single person, however isolated and alone he may be, can never be conquered.

Nor will a good person, committed to his character, yield to his circumstances. If I understand rightly that all conditions can serve my virtue, nothing that happens is ever a hindrance for me. It is an opportunity. That is the gift of Nature.

Sharing such simple thoughts with the biggest of bullies has revealed to me how completely powerless those bullies really are. They throw their weight around, but their weight is ineffective against the soul of another. They try to hurt even more, but they end up only giving others a chance to be better.

Others can never really hurt you, because you are yourself. Nature will never hurt you, because She made you to be yourself. She made you for Herself.

Written in 8/2007