Marcus Aurelius on 'Dealing with Difficult People'
Dying Every Day
💀 Dying Every Day
The Dying Every Day series delivers guided Stoic meditations on the art of living. Each meditation provides a quote, a selected passage, and a journaling prompt to consider. These meditations are designed to help you (and me) reflect on what it means to live a ‘good’ life.
‘We were born to work together…’
When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil.
But I have seen the beauty of good and the ugliness of evil and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative or hate him.
We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone and turn your back on him: these are obstructions.
+Adapted from Meditations (2.1)
Reflection Exercise
What does it mean to be ‘made’ to work together? If this is true (or a wise approach to life), what might stand in the way of embodying it?
In dealing with ‘each moment,’ Marcus Aurelius advised himself,
Everywhere, at each moment, you have the option: (1) To accept this event with humility. (2) To treat this person as he should be treated. (3) To approach this thought carefully so that nothing irrational creeps in.
It’s essential to remember that kindness and compassion are within our control (and the behavior of others is not). As Marcus Aurelius said, “You don’t have to turn this into something. It doesn’t have to upset you. Things can’t shape our decisions by themselves.”
Journaling Prompt
Consider reflecting (or journaling) on these question(s):
“What advice would you give a friend dealing with ‘difficult’ people?”
Put another way, “In what ways are you ‘difficult’ to deal with?”
“How can you remember to ‘accept’ situations with humility, act with kindness, and use your ‘rational’ faculties to choose accordingly?”
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
J.W.
P.S. New here? Catch up on previous volumes in the archive!