Simple Stoic Advice
Nothing is unusual
Nothing is unusual
The beautiful thing about Stoic philosophy is the advice contained within it is just as applicable today as it was when it was first written all those many years ago. We can learn a great deal from interpreting the advice provided and using it to our advantage as we go throughout our own lives.
Today’s quote comes to us courtesy of Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.46:
Quote
“What humans experience is part of human experience. The experience of the ox is part of the experience of oxen, as the vine’s is of the vine, and the stone’s what is proper to stones. Nothing that can happen is unusual or unnatural, and there’s no sense in complaining.”
Advice
We are all rational creatures. We were born with the ability to use reason, to use our mind, to use logic to solve problems. This is our human nature.
As with all things In life, abilities can be used for good or they can be used for bad. We suffer more when we ignore the truths of reality which is why reason and logic are so important. To believe no one will hurt you or use you for their own advantage is to be ignorant to the reality of human beings.
Marcus reminds himself that he will experience these people every day of his life and in Meditations 2.1 states:
“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own — not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions.”
To deny human action is to deny reality. As Marcus writes to remind himself, these people, their actions, it is all inevitable. There will always be people who are out for themselves, who will throw you under the buss, backstab you, pretend to be your friend when they’re not. This is not new and it is not unique to any one individual. It is a commonality amongst human beings.
But that doesn’t mean we have to be like them. Our job is to do our job, the rest doesn’t matter. As long as we are working for the common good amongst civilization, we are fulfilling our part.
“In a sense, people are our proper occupation. Our job is to do them good and put up with them. But when they obstruct our proper tasks, they become irrelevant to us — like sun, wind, animals. Our actions may be impeded by them, but there can be no impeding our intentions or our dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
People are our occupation. They will at times be our obstacles. But that does not mean that we must give in. We do not need to be them. It does not mean that we deny reality of who they are and what they do. It means we look at them for what and who they are, and adapt.
As Marcus says, what stands in the way becomes the way.
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