Can life be boiled down to this? Simple but powerful, and hard to achieve. Much of Meditations has passages like this one, which tip toward cliché, but I find them useful nonetheless. It’s easy for me to forget what I should have internalized long ago, especially when I’m stressed or tired.
Some examples from Book 4 that I should return to:
- 4.1: “Our inward power…pursues its own aims as circumstances allow; it turns obstacles into fuel.”
- 4.3: “Nowhere you can go is more peaceful—more free of interruptions—than your own soul.”
- 4.20: “The object of praise remains what it was—no better and no worse.”
- 4.22: “Not to be driven this way and that, but always to behave with justice and see things as they are.”
- 4.26: “Something happens to you. Good.” Go listen to Jocko on this one!
- 4.51: “Take the shortest route, the one that nature planned—to speak and act in the healthiest way.”
Use what life presents to me. Don’t be a victim. Use all life’s events as fuel to improve, do good and make things better.
Give myself peace; no one else will grant it. I have permission to put aside my anxiety. Look internally for a place of refuge.
The chaos around me does not define me. The chaos within me is what I can and must control.