Simple Stoic Advice
Our chief task
Our chief task
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 7.15:
Quote
“No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good.”
Advice
We are easily pulled in directions by our friends, colleagues, and family when it comes our emotions. Naturally, we want to feel accepted by our group or family and thus care about what their opinion of us is.
But here, Marcus reminds himself of what it means to follow the Stoic philosophy and understand what is and is not within his control.
Elsewhere in Meditations, he expands upon the idea of what he has control over and the value-judgments he places on things, writing:
“Nothing that goes on in anyone else’s mind can harm you. Nor can the shifts and changes in the world around you.
-Then where is harm to be found?
In your capacity to see it. Stop doing that and everything will be fine. Let the part of you that makes that judgment keep quiet even if the body it’s attached to is stabbed or burnt, or stinking with pus, or consumed by cancer.”
Marcus here is reminding himself that we can only control what Epictetus stated was within our power, namely, “our faculties of judgment — motivation, desire, and aversion — in short, everything that is our own doing.”
We only have command over our own actions and the judgments we make of the world.
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