Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.6

Your present opinion founded on understanding, and your present conduct directed to social good, and your present disposition of contentment with everything that happens—that is enough.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 9.6 (tr Long)

It only takes a little to be happy. The Stoics understand this, the Epicureans understand this, and all lovers of wisdom understand this. A “little” here is not meant in the sense of something insignificant or inferior, but in the sense of something simple and pure. A little may be small in quantity, even as it can be great in quality. Happiness does not require much, though it fulfills everything.

What is this little that I require? The world may suggest something very different, lengthy lists and complex formulas for finding contentment, which usually reduce to acquiring and retaining my hold over this or that set of circumstances. I must have wealth, security, luxury, influence, health, and long life. I must have friends who gratify me and children who make me proud. I must arrange the world in the best possible way, and then I will supposedly be happy.

It’s much simpler than all that. It comes only from the attitude within me, not from the lay of the land around me. It requires right thinking, right action, and right acceptance. Let me know what is true, do what is good, and gladly welcome whatever else the world will bring my way. No more is necessary, for any and all other benefits in life flow from holding to such principles.

Notice that Marcus Aurelius does not merely say that I should settle for any sort of opinion, or conduct, or disposition. That is the way of the lazy relativist, who affirms everything but commits to nothing. No, my judgments should be in conformity to Nature, my deeds should be in harmony with Nature, and my disposition should respect all aspects of Nature. I am called to rule myself well in what I think and do, and to receive well whatever else is done to me. Who I am is thereby complete within the whole.

Nor should my attention be directed toward what is obscure and distant, or what has been and what might be. I suspect this is why Marcus Aurelius speaks of what is present, to be done at this place and at this moment. Life is actual, not hypothetical. I ought to see myself as measured by my character, right here and now, looking to nothing else.

The medieval principle of Ockham’s Razor suggests that we should never make anything more complex than it has to be, that the simplest solution is usually the best. This can apply just as readily to the humble practice of daily living as it can to grand philosophical and scientific theories. The good life will cut away the fat, and shave away what is extraneous.

The Stoics disagree with the Epicureans on many points, but surely the Stoics can agree with these words of the Epicurean poet and philosopher Lucretius:

Man’s greatest wealth is to live on a little with contented mind; for a little is never lacking.

Written in 7/2008