"If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment." ~ Marcus Aurelius from Meditations
The golden rule. Well, one of them, anyway. :)
NOTHING outside of ourselves has power over us. We ALWAYS (yes, always!) have the power to choose our response. So, we need to quit being victims, blaming a circumstance or a person for our ills. They're not the problem. We are. Let's choose to create a new response.
More from Aurelius on the subject:
"Take me and cast me where you will; I shall still be possessor of the divinity within me, serene and content."
"How ridiculous not to flee from one's own wickedness, which is possible, yet endeavor to flee from another's which is not."
"...Everything can be taken from a man but one thing; the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." ~ Viktor Frankl from Man's Search for Meaning
More Mojo from Meditations
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PhilosophersNotes on Meditations by Marcus Aurelius | |||||
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