Aurelio Meditation — Marco

Wake each day and tell yourself: today I will meet interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness. All of them come from others not knowing good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good and the ugliness of evil. No one can implicate me in what is degrading.

Marcus Aurelius reminds us that you have power over your mind—not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

The universe is change, life is opinion. To live well is not to live long, but to live according to nature and reason. Wipe out imagination. Stop being pulled by strings. Confine yourself to the present. Ask yourself at every moment: Is this necessary?

Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what is left and live it rightly. What stands in the way becomes the way. The impediment to action advances action. The obstacle is the way.