Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.29

Pain is either an evil to the body—then let the body say what it thinks of it—or to the soul; but it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility, and not to think that pain is an evil.

 For every judgment and movement and desire and aversion is within, and no evil ascends so high.

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

We all feel pain, thought in very different ways, and quite often to very different degrees. I have known others to go through worse suffering than myself, and I have pitied them. I have known others to go through far less suffering than myself, and I have envied them.

Yet whatever the kind, or the degree, it is part of our lives to suffer, to feel pain. This is not itself an evil, because hurt serves a purpose according to Nature. It tells us that something is wrong, and we should do something to make it right.

Now what must be done right?

I will assume that I must confront the cause of the pain, and then master it. That is quite correct, but I am usually looking in all the wrong places for the cause.

Does my body hurt? Yes, find a solution for the pain, if it is at all possible. Sometimes I can do so, and at other times I cannot do so. An illness may or may not have a cure, and I may or may not be able to overpower or evade a torturer.

Does my soul hurt? Yes, find a solution for the pain, but now we are in an entirely different realm. What hurts me on the outside is often beyond my power, but what hurts me on the inside is always, without exception, completely within my power. I may well feel pain, but I am the one who decides what that means to me, and only I will be the one to determine that.

Are you trying to hurt me? You have lied, you have cheated, and you have stolen. I give you credit for being clever, and I shame myself for being foolish. Yes, I feel deeply hurt, sometimes to the point that I feel I would rather die than bear any more of it.

And then I recognize an important thing: the pain matters only in a way that follows from my judgment. Of course it hurts. Now I will either wallow in it, or I will transform it, and I will use it as a means to make myself into someone better. 

That’s exclusively my call. It will matter only in the way I allow it to matter. It is up to me whether I am at peace or at war.

Now what must be done right? I must live well for myself, and accept that others will live as they choose. I am the only one big enough to take myself down. 

Written in 4/2008