Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.72

It is a ridiculous thing for a man not to fly from his own badness, which is indeed possible, but to fly from other men's badness, which is impossible.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7 (tr Long)

We may be very picky about keeping company with bad folks, because, of course, their badness may rub off on us.

Yet we may not be quite so picky about being bad to the bad folks, about harming them, demeaning them, and having quite a fine time slandering them.

Sometimes I’m not sure where the worst of the bad really is.

I think of the times I have felt hurt by people, and then I spent ten times more effort in trying to hurt them back. I assumed this was my way of running away from their evil, when all I was really doing was running headlong into my own evil.

I notice how I sometimes wish to express my anger at someone else, and I somehow think I am doing him a favor by putting him in his place. I should never deceive myself. It is not my place to be his judge, jury, and executioner. I perceive an action as wrong, so I then brilliantly do another wrong myself.

As a child, some friends of the family had a little sculpture on their bookshelf, rather kitschy, of three monkeys, one covering his ears, another his eyes, and the last his mouth. I was fascinated by it, and would go to look at it every time we were at their house.

Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.

Even back then, it made me think. How much of what is bad in me comes from the outside, and how much of it comes from the inside? Can I ever really shut myself off from evil out there, even as I should concern myself about avoiding evil in here?

All of this was already leading me to a rather Stoic conclusion: I cannot change what others will do, but I can always change what I will do.

Now why am I demanding that they change their ways to suit mine? How are my tantrums making anything better? Let me attend to myself. I should respect others enough to allow them their follies, but I should not make them my own.

Can I change what they say? No, but I shouldn’t be fooled by listening to it. Can I change what they do? No, but I shouldn’t be be misled into following it. Can I change what I say and do in response to what they say and do? Yes. There’s the trick.

It isn’t my place to fix them, even as it is my place to fix me. 

Written in 1/2008