Troubled Times: Marcus Aurelius to the rescue
Never, ever have I seen my fellow Americans in need of a tranquilizer. Make it a bottle with three refills. Valium, 10 mg. Just don’t mix them with alcohol, or you may not be here come November.
In the RGV, it used to be almost 100 percent Democrats. Now, times have changed, and there are MAGA hats to be seen, Trump yard signs, bumper stickers — Vote Trump/Vance.
Across the same street, “Vote Kamala Harris” yard signs.
This election is like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and no doubt, you feel the same, no matter which candidate you favor.
With Biden out of the race, and you have to give him some credit for pulling out, the election now is really up for grabs. It wasn’t age that got him, but the condition of his cognitive process.
No matter who wins, though, America will survive. Unlike Rome, its pending collapse is overstated.
If you feel strongly for or against either Trump or Harris, there’s no reason to stay awake at night worrying over who might win. Why add to the worry lines already making your face look older than it already is, despite Botox injections?
Don’t Feel Anxious
However, if you’re feeling anxious, and you think that the state of the nation really does hang in the balance based on the outcome of the November presidential election, please hearken back to the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, one of the great stoics who wrote the classic book “Meditations,” which can still be bought at most book stores. In the public domain, it’s also available free online.
Granted, Aurelius never intended for his writings to be printed, wanting them destroyed after his death, but lucky for us, they survived his passing.
Stoicism really is a great philosophy, whose main point, one among many, is, don’t fret over things over which you have no control. The election outcome being one.
Here are some of the best quotes, courtesy of the great stoic, Marcus Aurelius, the emperor of Rome from 161 to 180 A.D.
Read them, and you’ll feel better about yourself and life in general, even if your candidate loses come November.
Where you read the word “man,” you can simply substitute “woman,” and it still works:
# “You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
# “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”
# “When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...”
# “It is not death that a man (woman) should fear, but he (she) should fear never beginning to live.”
# “Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.”
# “Our life is what our thoughts make it.”
# “The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”
# “Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking.”
# “The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.”
# “Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
# “How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.”
# “Do every act of your life as though it were the very last act of your life.”
# “Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours.”
# “For it is in your power to retire into yourself whenever you choose.”
# “Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it.”
# “Don't go on discussing what a good person should be. Just be one.”
# “A person's worth is measured by the worth of what he values.”
# “Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live, and it is in your power.”
# “Death smiles at us all; all we can do is smile back.”
# “Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.
Last, but certainly not least of Aurelius’s great stoic quotes, lessons, is this gem of wisdom:
# “Confine yourself to the present.”