"They do not come to you, the objects whose pursuit or avoidance causes you such disquiet, but in a certain sense you go to them; so if you will only let your judgement about them remain at rest, they too will remain unmoved, and you will be seen neither to pursue them nor to avoid them." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
In other words, things/people do not force us to think or feel a certain way, it is our own judgements and thoughts about them that cause our distress - we do it to ourselves. Marcus is telling himself that if he doesn't form, accept or fixate on such thoughts in the first place the distress will not come; so don't go to those thoughts in your mind.
No comments:
Post a Comment