When you first rise in the morning tell yourself

 When you first rise in the morning tell yourself: I will encounter busybodies, ingrates, egomaniacs, liars, envy-mongers, and cranks.” —Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 2.1

Sounds like Monday morning was as rough two thousand years ago as it is today. Marcus Aurelius was Emperor of Rome from 161 to 180. He was also a practitioner of stoicism.

Stoicism, in a nutshell, is dealing with hardship, pain or troubles without complaint.

We all know that guy or gal; The person who just seems to be able to deal with everything life throws at them with a calmness and peace that seems unworldly (and completely unlike us – well, me – who falls apart at the slightest hint of a problem, usually daily.)

And, not only can these stoics deal with the slings and arrows flying their way, they have another superpower: They “spin” the problem to their advantage and actually embrace the obstacle. They see the opportunity in the very disaster that sends us lesser mortals running in a panic.

So, what’s the secrete?  How do we achieve that peaceful state of mind?

One word: Perspective.

Ryan Holiday  is an author and media strategist. He also is a huge proponent of stoicism and has a blog called The Daily Stoic.

In his book, The Obstacle Is The Way, Holiday writes extensively about perspective. He says: “We choose how we look at things. We retain the ability to inject perspective into a situation. We can’t change the obstacles themselves – that part of the equation is set – but the power of perspective can change how the obstacles appear.”

In other words, WE decide how we feel about a situation. There is great power in that.

So. Let’s think good thoughts. Our troubles are what they are; but how we react  and deal with them is up to us. Because as William Shakespeare said: “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”

Thanks for reading so far. I really appreciate it. If you know anyone who might like these blog posts, just send me a note – Green link – and I will be delighted to add them to the list.

Have a great rest of the week!

Dr. Dave