On haters

 From Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

What their minds are like. What they work at. What evokes their love and admiration.

Imagine their souls stripped bare. And their vanity. To suppose that their disdain could harm anyone - or their praise help them.

There is just something so human about seeing someone who lived almost two thousand years ago struggling (recall that this is an entry in his personal journal) with dealing with toxic people in his life and reminding himself that their opinion doesn't matter.

He has another passage that compliments this one well: "It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinions than our own." 

Of course, he didn't mean that we shouldn't be considerate of other people, but that we should focus on what is in our control (or own opinions) and "[j]ust that you do the right thing. The rest doesn't matter."

Also: "The tranquility that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do."

I love that Marcus had to remind himself this more than once, in an earlier entry in the journal he tells himself to face whatever challenges life presents "not worrying too often, or with any selfish motive, about what other people say. Or do, or think." He goes on to write "that to care for all human beings is part of being human" but that "doesn't mean we have to share their opinions."