Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.19

Perceive at last that you have in you something better and more divine than the things that cause the various affects, and as it were pull you by the strings.

What is there now in my mind—is it fear, or suspicion, or desire, or anything of the kind?

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.19 (tr Long)

There was a time when the Stoic claim that my own thoughts and decisions were within my power seemed quite confusing, because my mind would seem to race here and there, following a pattern I could not seem to understand, influenced by a barrage of changing images.

Show me one thing, and I might feel desire, and then my very thinking would be occupied with how to find gratification. Show me another thing, and I might feel fear, and then my very thinking would be consumed by terror. My thoughts just seemed to go their own way, following after various appearances and associations.

It has only been slow practice, and the gradual building of habit, that has allowed me to gain more mastery of myself, much like the repeated exercise of a muscle builds its strength.

I am, unfortunately, very far from being as proficient as I need to be, and a lapse of attentiveness can easily find me giving in to anger, or lust, or despair. Yet the key, I have found, is in recognizing that I am the one who chooses to give in, to surrender, and to allow myself to be pushed and pulled by my impressions.

The only things that will “happen” to my thinking is whatever I allow to happen. Once I know that I have complete possession of my own judgments, I also know that I am the only obstacle to rightly exercising them.

Of course I will be confronted with many feelings, with extremes of pleasure and pain, but I am also able to leave them exactly where they are. Let them speak, as is in their nature, but let my mind decide what to make of them, as is in its nature. I am a creature of instinct and of passion, but I am also a creature of intellect and of will.

Watch people with their dogs in the park, and you will notice that some of them are walking their dogs, while others are being walked by their dogs. Don’t blame the poor dogs, but look to the owners, hardly masters at all, who haven’t learned to tame the beasts.

“I feel like I can’t keep my thoughts on a leash!” Yes, I can, but it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy if I already start by assuming that my mind is not inherently mine to direct.

Written in 9/2009