Marcus Aurelius Meditations
Marcus Aurelius: To find out, and set to thyself some…
To find out, and set to thyself some certain way and method of contemplation, whereby thou mayest clearly discern and represent unto thyself, the mutual change of all things, the one into the other. Bear it in thy mind evermore, and see that thou be throughly well exercised in this particular. For there is not anything more effectual to beget true magnanimity.
The passage follows a public-domain translation of Meditations. The reading beside it is ours.
Everything is moving. The company you worry about, the body you judge, the trend everyone is chasing, the conflict that seems permanent—none will stay exactly as it is. Seeing this is not a reason to detach from life. It is a way to put life in proportion. We become small when we demand that a good season never end or that a bad one define us forever. Marcus treated the constant exchange of things as training for greatness of spirit. If you regularly remember that conditions change, you can enjoy what is here without clutching it and endure what is hard without declaring it final. Think of a river: it is real, powerful, and never the same water twice. Today, when you feel either overly attached or overly discouraged, widen the frame. This moment is a chapter, not the whole book.
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