What is your vocation? To be a good person.”
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 11.5
I’m sure in 2019 most of us have heard the phrase, “You had ONE job!” used somewhere in the overculture, right?
Well, according the Stoics, we do actually only have one job, and that’s to be a good person. The author of The Daily Stoic even goes so far as to name this job an obligation. Goodness, he must have NO idea the gargantuan volume of pagans who are utterly triggered by the very thought of being obligated to do anything beyond fulfilling their own desires. GASP!
Being a good person is a very long, continuous, and dedicated process of DOING… it’s not a singular moment. It’s not like, POOF! (Pouf! for the Witch Hazel fans out there. You know who you are.) Think smoldering fuse, and not the explosion.
The challenge is in remembering not to muddle up the process with ego’s insidious machinations of telling us our job is something other than being a good person.
“You had ONE job!”
Play that sound bite in your head the next time you think your job is inventing excuses for NOT doing your job.
(See y’all tomorrow - when we begin the month of Problem Solving)
Well, according the Stoics, we do actually only have one job, and that’s to be a good person. The author of The Daily Stoic even goes so far as to name this job an obligation. Goodness, he must have NO idea the gargantuan volume of pagans who are utterly triggered by the very thought of being obligated to do anything beyond fulfilling their own desires. GASP!
Being a good person is a very long, continuous, and dedicated process of DOING… it’s not a singular moment. It’s not like, POOF! (Pouf! for the Witch Hazel fans out there. You know who you are.) Think smoldering fuse, and not the explosion.
The challenge is in remembering not to muddle up the process with ego’s insidious machinations of telling us our job is something other than being a good person.
“You had ONE job!”
Play that sound bite in your head the next time you think your job is inventing excuses for NOT doing your job.
(See y’all tomorrow - when we begin the month of Problem Solving)
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