Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.9

Let no man any longer hear you finding fault with the court life, or with your own.

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

When I complain about the world around me, what disturbs me is beyond my power to control, and so I only frustrate myself. When I complain about myself, what disturbs me is completely within my power, and so I have no need to become frustrated. The blame is pointless in both cases. Let me correct what I can, and make the best of what I cannot.

Someone once told me that anger was a way of punishing myself for the mistakes of others. That helps me to put myself right, even when I can’t put others right.

Now once I began to make a conscious effort not to find fault, and instead simply to do good, I thought it would be harder for me to stop blaming others, and easier to stop blaming myself. After all, I usually go wrong by making too much of myself, and making too little of others.

To my surprise, I found the exact opposite to be the case. Understanding others, accepting others, forgiving others, even loving others, turned out to require less effort than understanding myself, accepting myself, forgiving myself, and especially loving myself. I was so used to casting resentment outwards, I wasn’t even aware how much more I was casting inwards.

The greatest obstacle in my own life, and the situation that most fed my Black Dog over many years, would give me an excuse to swing back and forth between being angry at someone else and being angry at myself. I have somehow managed to sufficiently tame the former hatred, but I continue to struggle with the latter. I am still catching my habits up to my thinking.

Perhaps I have come to rightly accept that another’s past actions are something I can’t change, but I am still somehow insisting that I can magically go back and change my own past actions. I can’t do that either, of course, even as I can certainly change myself right here and now. That doesn’t erase my past mistake, but it does break it down, rebuild it, and transform it into something better.

I squirm and despair about what I have done, and so I forget about what I can now do. Blame is not required, but improvement is required. When the fault is removed, regret can pass away.

Let it be, or make it right. Accept it, or change it. Knowing the difference between these two realms is really about knowing the difference between what isn’t mine and what is mine. I think it no accident that this is a form of the Serenity Prayer in action. It is about taking responsibility for the right things. 

Written in 2/2008