Stoicism for a Better Life – Weekly exercise (July 12, 2020)
Hello there,
For this week’s exercise, let us look at some words from Marcus Aurelius. This is from his Meditations XII 1:
“You could enjoy this very moment all the things you are praying to reach by taking the long way around – if you’d stop depriving yourself of them.”
If you found a genie and got to make three wishes right now…what would they be? What would you wish for? I don’t know you and I can’t hear you, but I can guess with a high level of certainty that your three wishes would all be some type of external gift.
We pray, hope and wish for things. We fret, worry about and harbor anxiety over losing what we have and don’t want to lose. Yet when we meditate (on paper or in our thoughts in silence) we would probably be able to clearly admit and recognize all these things we ask for, wish for, or hope for (to gain or not to lose) are all things that are illogical, out of our control and (most importantly) not related in any way to whether we are being good people, or living a good life worthy of living.
And that is all Marcus Aurelius is reminding himself (and us) here with this quote. We may wish for more money, someone to regain their health, winning the next promotion, having “things” work out the way we hope they will, etc. However, none of these are guaranteed to work out our way, none of them are owed to us by the universe, and none of them make us good people or our lives virtuous. Moreover, none of them are an end to them selves, as in, if any of these work out, then immediately we will wish for the next thing. Then the next thing. Because externals never end, since they are not in our control. We can wish for these for perpetuity, because new external wishes are infinite.
What is in our control? Our judgments. And since a judgment is made in the moment, and immediately ends in the moment before we move on to the next moment to make a new judgment, they are ends to themselves. More simply put, all that we have 100% control over is our judgments right here and right now. And you can do this right now in this moment, then again you can do the same thing in the next moment, then the next moment, etc. But at the core of this patter, we always have the one and same job: Make the best, most rational judgment you can with the information you have.
Since our judgments in the here and now are the only way to find happiness/ virtue/ moral good, and in each moment making the most rational decision is an end to itself, all we have to do to find eternal happiness in our eternal sequence of “Here and Nows” is to focus on this and only this: Make the best most rational decision you can right now. So as a practical exercise this week, when you feel like things aren’t going your way, stop and ask yourself this question: What am I wishing for? After you recognize you are wishing for an external, remind yourself that the only thing you should be wishing for is the capacity to make rational judgments and decisions…which you always have…and so you are always capable of finding virtue and happiness.
I wish you a tranquil and productive week. Let’s keep the conversation going between now and next week’s exercise.
Anderson Silver
(Author of “Your User’s Manual” and “Vol 2: Your Duality Within”)