Marcus Aurelius Meditations
Marcus Aurelius: Some things hasten to be, and others to…
Some things hasten to be, and others to be no more. And even whatsoever now is, some part thereof hath already perished. Perpetual fluxes and alterations renew the world, as the perpetual course of time doth make the age of the world (of itself infinite) to appear always fresh and new.
The passage follows a public-domain translation of Meditations. The reading beside it is ours.
The world stays new because it never stays still. Something is beginning, something is ending, and something in every person is already changing as you read this. That can sound unsettling, especially when we are trying to preserve a happy season or recover a familiar version of ourselves. But flux is also why recovery is possible. Grief changes. Bad habits change. A difficult workplace changes. The person who made a mistake last year is not frozen in that moment. Marcus asks us to see time not as a thief alone, but as a constant renewal. Do not demand permanence from a moving world. Meet the season you are in, and trust that it will not be the only season. Today, notice one change you have been resisting. Instead of asking how to make the past return, ask what this new reality now makes possible.
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