Marcus Aurelius was a busy man.
Yet he always made time for meditation.
He considered the ordering of his mind an essential task. It was not only important for his own personal happiness—it’s no exaggeration to say the wellbeing of the entire empire depended on it.
If Marcus hadn’t taken the time to untangle his mind, it would have been all too easy for his personal confusion, lack of fulfillment, fear, and ego to inflict themselves on the empire at large.
That’s what happened with so many other Roman emperors.
Quothe our man:
“Those who do not observe the movements of their own minds must of necessity be unhappy.”
*
Self-awareness takes practice.
Paying attention to what’s going on in our minds doesn’t come naturally for most of us.
It’s more common to just be swept up in the moment, in a constant state of reaction without the ability to consciously choose a response. (A deliberate response is more considered than an instant reaction.)
That’s why we have psychologists and psychiatrists—people who can hold up a mirror to help us understand what’s going on in our skulls. And sort it out if necessary.
Meditation serves a similar function.
Marcus considered living in a state of instant reaction akin to being a puppet. You’re not able to control your own emotional reactions—or subsequent words and deeds. You’re just being pulled this way and that by things that happen.
This was like slavery to him.
And it damned a person to unhappiness.
If you’re not aware of what’s going on in your mind—of why your triggers have a hold over you, of the belief systems that shape your daily reality, of the unaddressed fears that limit you—then you’ll be unable to overcome these things in order to create a deep and lasting happiness in your life.
On this point, Marcus Aurelius and Apollo-his-own-damnself agree:
Know Thyself.*
Love,
L.
* This maxim was inscribed in stone at Apollo’s oracle at Delphi.