Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.23

Attend to the matter which is before you, whether it is an opinion or an act, or a word.

You suffer this justly, for you choose rather to become good tomorrow than to be good today.

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

Stoicism challenges our usual sense of balance, and is asking us not to put our weight on all the circumstances around us, but rather to put our weight on our own two feet. The sense of self-reliance can be a bit frightening at first, and once we try to put it into practice, it can be disconcerting to see how radical a transformation and liberation Stoicism really seeks to bring about.

I was first drawn to Stoic thinking not just as a theoretical interest, but also from an urgent need to come to terms with pain and loss. Looking within myself humbly and honestly, I began to see how much of what I thought was important depended entirely on situations beyond my control. It was going to take quite a bit of rebuilding myself to make any of that better.

As I slowly began to see at least some changes in the way my thinking could improve my living, I was in awe at the power that had always been there within me. I had neglected it, of course, because I had reduced most everything to the affection of others, the pursuit of gratification from things outside of me, and demanding to be given instead of choosing to give. If I could bring myself to decide that any condition can be used to live well, then there would really be nothing to stand in the way of my being happy.

To experience that directly, even in the smallest way, can be quite a shock. Whatever may be happening, let me not fight with it, or complain, or hold a grudge; let me instead discover how it gives me an opportunity to act with virtue. Let me attend to it rightly, and though I will hardly master the world, I will have mastered myself.

There can be no half-measures here, so that means that whenever I am still disturbed or distraught, whenever I still dwell on painful feelings instead of making sense of them, the responsibility is my own. I can’t blame the world, because it isn’t the world that is harming me; I am harming myself. There are all sorts of obstacles to my body out there, even as I am the only obstacle to my soul in here.

And this doesn’t require feeling sorry for myself, or beating myself up. It requires not putting the choice off for any longer. If I can choose to be a good man today, I should do so. Then I have fixed the problem, as simply as that.

It only seems difficult or complex when I am flagging in my own commitment. Sometimes I will defer until tomorrow, and at other times I will actually hope that I can defer forever and ever. It isn’t working, since I haven’t yet chosen to make it work.

I deserve exactly what I choose to give myself, not in the breadth of my possessions and honors, but in the depth of my own character. 

Written in 3/2008