Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.5

This is the chief thing: Be not perturbed, for all things are according to the Nature of the Universal; and in a little time you will be nobody and nowhere, like Hadrian and Augustus.

In the next place, having fixed your eyes steadily on your business, look at it, and at the same time remembering that it is your duty to be a good man, and what man's nature demands, do that without turning aside.

And speak as it seems to you most just, only let it be with a good disposition and with modesty and without hypocrisy.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 8 (tr Long)

I become frustrated with the world when my own estimation is out of proportion, when I make more of things or less of things than they actually are. If I magnify the weight of a circumstance or diminish the role of my responsibility, I am no longer working with the order of Nature, but rather against it.

No burden is ever so great as to be overwhelming, just as no opportunity is ever so small as to be insufficient. What has come to pass is as it is meant to be, and I can remember that whatever seems so powerful now will soon pass away with all other things.

Providence is the great equalizer, putting all things in their place, because while emperors like Hadrian and Augustus seemed mighty once, we will all come to our rest in exactly the same way.

Knowing this, nothing needs to be exaggerated or distorted, so I can rest content with pursuing a simple and steady path. Nature does not ask for anything too complex or disturbing; the demands of virtue will only appear impossible when my own thinking has gotten in the way.

A part of such a hindrance in my twisted judgment is when I confuse the mere act of doing what is good with all of the diversions and attachments I falsely assume must go along with it. I do not need to impose indignation or resentment on virtue. I do not need to be puffed up with my own vanity when I pursue virtue. I do not need to worry about how virtue may or may not appear to others. Any of those additions will, of course, make it cease to be virtue at all, much like over-salting a dish will always ruin it.

A good will, humility, and sincerity are essential to staying on that path of a good life, and malice, arrogance, and deception have no place in the order of Nature. If I only look rightly, I can see the difference between the virtuous man and the imposter. The fellow who is all about the saying becomes deficient in the doing, by shifting attention and focus from the purity of the deed to the profit of his circumstances. He exaggerates himself when he worries more about feeling good than doing good, and in doing so upsets his own relationship with the harmony of Nature.

All things are meant to be in their rightful place, in a proper proportion to one another. The confusion in my own mind will be the only hindrance. 

Written in 1/2008