Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.75

No man is tired of receiving what is useful. But it is useful to act according to Nature.

Do not then be tired of receiving what is useful by doing it to others.

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

Convinced that everything needs to be some sort of transaction, and assuming that life has to be confrontational, many of us will think that where one man has gained something, another man needs to lose something. It seems absurd to us that giving can be a form of receiving, and that simply acting well requires no other return.

I don’t need to look far to see people calculating their profits. I am given kindness when I offer an advantage, treated with respect when I have money to spend, or called a friend when I am pleasant and amusing. I often feel like quite a stranger when I insist that kindness has no conditions, respect requires no reward, and friendship is offered through thick and through thin. These qualities are hardly virtues anymore if we treat them like some commodity.

Stoic ethics, like any model of life built around the order of Nature, defines me by my actions themselves, not by any circumstances beyond those actions. My happiness is in what I do, not what is done to me, and so I can rightly say what I get out of life is itself what I give. Virtue doesn’t need to lead to any reward, because virtue is already the reward.

Every first-year business student will tell you that the purpose of a business is to make a profit, which involves spending as little as you can in order to make as much as you can. Yet I will still occasionally run across a business owner, a craftsman, or a professional who sincerely believes that the true goal of any trade should be to provide the best service. Now people may pay you to do a good job, but one shouldn’t do a good job simply to get paid. Most people will laugh at such a ridiculous idea, but the good man, the Stoic at heart, understands. He would choose to be honest and poor over being dishonest and rich.

I run around looking for what is useful or beneficial, and whatever else I may prefer in life, I forget that the most useful or beneficial thing I can ever do for myself is to act with justice, with concern, with commitment, and with integrity. The more that I give of myself, the more I receive, simply because nothing is morally superior to the dignity of action itself. No one else has to be parted from what is useful for me to acquire what is useful.  

I should never find the worth of my character to be insufficient for a good life, because as long as I have life and choice, there can be an unending supply of decency within me. 

Written in 1/2008