Jottings on Marcus 5

Every moment think steadily, as a Roman and a man, to do what you have in hand with perfect and simple dignity, and feeling of affection, and freedom, and justice, and to give yourself relief from all other thoughts. . . . 

—from Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.5 

How odd that I fret over the things I can't control, while I neglect the things I can control. My worth is not in the arrangement of  the circumstances, but from the content of my character. 

I need only examine my own constitution to grasp this. No rocket science is required. 

Let the rest be as it must be. Whatever the conditions, can I say that I have acted with a purity of understanding and love? 

There is the excellence within my power. There is my happiness. The rest is just window dressing.