People aren’t in awe of your sharp mind? So be it. But you have many other qualities you can’t claim to have been deprived of at birth. Display then those qualities in your own power: honesty, dignity, endurance, chastity, contentment, frugality, kindness, freedom, persistence, avoiding gossip, and magnanimity.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.5
When things don’t go our way, it’s easy to engage in blaming our circumstances, longing for what others have, wishing we were something we were not. Why weren’t we born taller, smaller, broader, thinner, etc, etc, etc… Why weren’t we born in a different state, time, country, etc, etc, etc…
What’s the point of that behavior? Does it make us feel better? If so, so what. What “you” are we “making” feel one way or another? When we’re making choices that make *you* “feel” better, unless otherwise engaged in self-care, is doing nothing but strengthening our egos.
If we change the focus to things that we DO have in our strengths-bag, we can choose to enter with our strengths and not our perceived deficits, we can choose to be happy, chaste, thrifty, persistent, courageous, virtuous… we can choose to be however we wish to be.
We’re made for these things, we’re made for virtue… why not choose virtue?
It takes work to continually choose virtue, so why not show off the qualities that have taken us a great amount of work to build?
(See y’all tomorrow)
What’s the point of that behavior? Does it make us feel better? If so, so what. What “you” are we “making” feel one way or another? When we’re making choices that make *you* “feel” better, unless otherwise engaged in self-care, is doing nothing but strengthening our egos.
If we change the focus to things that we DO have in our strengths-bag, we can choose to enter with our strengths and not our perceived deficits, we can choose to be happy, chaste, thrifty, persistent, courageous, virtuous… we can choose to be however we wish to be.
We’re made for these things, we’re made for virtue… why not choose virtue?
It takes work to continually choose virtue, so why not show off the qualities that have taken us a great amount of work to build?
(See y’all tomorrow)
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