Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.11

If the things do not come to you, the pursuits and avoidances of which disturb you, still in a manner you go to them.

Let then your judgment about them be at rest, and they will remain quiet, and you will not be seen either pursuing or avoiding.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.11 (tr Long)

“I do my best to avoid seeking the wrong things in my life, and I do my best to stay clear of all the bad influences around me. Still, they frustrate me, and they make me angry, and they make me sad.”

When I say something like that to myself, I am still very much in the sway of such powers. I may have insisted that I will not choose to do evil, and I may be firm that I will not allow evil to lead me astray. Nevertheless, I allow them to have quite a hold on me. I am perhaps managing the outside, even as I am eating myself away on the inside.

The younger me was quite ready to desire many of the wrong things, and to run from many of the right things. Only hard experience, years of the same old mistakes over and over again, began to help me get it into my thick skull that I had to radically change the way I lived.

The discipline of the doing, however, ran ahead of the discipline of the thinking. The older me began, in small ways, to control how I reacted to certain circumstances, but I would still find myself full of resentment and despair about it all. I knew I had to do things differently, all the while forgetting that this meant nothing if I didn’t change my own standards of judgment.

“Stop running after achievements that provide only money, power, or fame!” That’s a wonderful rule of life. It becomes meaningless if I still want those things within me.

“Stop asking to be accepted by just anyone at all, following all the wrong friends, and falling hopelessly in love with questionable women just because they give you the time of day!” That’s a good piece of advice. It becomes meaningless if I continue to bemoan their loss within me.

“Stop numbing your senses to life because something hurts, and begin to make something of yourself, and for yourself, regardless of what may happen!” That’s quite a healthy approach. It becomes meaningless if I only grit my teeth at the hurt, and don’t transform it into something else within me.

I will only find rest when my soul is at peace, and my soul will only be at peace through a rebuilding of how I distinguish good from bad, right from wrong. Only then will I actually stop caring about possessions, or status, or gratification.

I will not be frustrated, or angry, or sad if I stop allowing such impressions to be important in my very values, at the root of my conscience. The actions must follow from the estimation. Then there is rest, and then there is peace.

Written in 4/2009