Stop Wandering and Take Action
Marcus Aurelius on the need to focus on the present
In book 3 of the Meditations, Marcus Aurelius reminds himself of the dangers of looking too far ahead and getting lost in fantasies of the future.
“Do not wander from your path any longer,” he writes, “for you are not likely to read your note-books or your deeds of ancient Rome and Greece or your extracts from their writings, which you laid up against old age.”
Marcus is setting a reminder for himself about the dangers of daydreaming about what he will do in old age. Yes, it would be great to reach an old age and have the ability and time to read the histories of Greece and Rome, to dive into biographies of individuals, but this is far off, and it supplants our mind too far into the future.
“Hasten then,” he continues, “to the goal, lay idle hopes aside, and come to your own help, if you care at all for yourself, while still you may.”
The vision of the future is a guide-post we should aim for, but not at the expense of focusing on the current moment, the present. It is within the present, the here-and-now, that we have control and power. The future we are shooting for, while necessary for goals or desires of one’s life, cannot hold our attention. It should be like a lighthouse, providing guidance to what is off in the distance which we hope to arrive at.
But it is the here-and-now that matters, for the longer we dwell on a potential future, the further we get from our goals as we are not taking concrete action towards them.
As Seneca once remarked:
“No one will bring back the years; no one will restore you to yourself. Life will follow the path it began to take, and will neither reverse nor check its course.”
We must focus on the present and take steps to reach the goals we’ve set out to achieve. The future can be a guiding-post, but it can also be a distraction.
Take action now while there is still time.