ourselves to and what we will regard as important, honorable, and
admirable. The choices we make in that regard determine whether
we will experience peace or not.
Which is why each of us needs to sit down and examine ourselves.
What do we stand for? What do we believe to be essential and
important? What are we really living for? Deep in the marrow of our
bones, in the chambers of our heart, we know the answer. The
problem is that the busyness of life, the realities of pursuing a career
and surviving in the world, come between us and that self-
knowledge.
Confucius said that virtue is a kind of polestar. It not only
provides guidance to the navigator, but it attracts fellow travelers
too. Epicurus, who has been unfairly branded by history as a
hedonist, knew that virtue was the way to tranquility and happiness.
In fact, he believed that virtue and pleasure were two sides of the
same coin. As he said:
It is impossible to live the pleasant life without also living
sensibly, nobly, and justly, and conversely it is impossible
to live sensibly, nobly, and justly without living pleasantly.
A person who does not have a pleasant life is not living
sensibly, nobly, and justly, and conversely the person who
does not have these virtues cannot live pleasantly.Where virtue is, so too are happiness and beauty.
Confucius wrote that the “gentleman is self-possessed and
relaxed, while the petty man is perpetually full of worry.” It’s worth a
look at Seneca, another Stoic philosopher, who, like Marcus, made
his living in politics. Like us, Seneca was full of contradictions. On
the one hand, his writings contain some of the most beautiful
meditations on morality and self-discipline ever written, and they are
obviously the result of incredible concentration and mental clarity.
On the other, Seneca was a striver—an ambitious writer-politician
who aspired to be remembered as much for his prose as for his
policies.