W

July    27th

WHERE   IS  ANYTHING    BETTER?

“Indeed,    if  you find    anything    in  human   life    better  than    justice,    truth,  self-control,   courage—in

short,  anything    better  than    the sufficiency of  your    own mind,   which   keeps   you acting  according   to

the demands of  true    reason  and accepting   what    fate    gives   you outside of  your    own power   of

choice—I    tell    you,    if  you can see anything    better  than    this,   turn    to  it  heart   and soul    and take    full

advantage   of  this    greater good    you’ve  found.”

—MARCUS AURELIUS,   MEDITATIONS,    3.6.1

e’ve all chased things we thought would matter. At some point, we all thought that money would be
the answer, that success was the highest prize, that the undying love of a beautiful person would
finally make us feel warm inside. What do we find when we actually attain these sacred objects? Not that
they are empty or meaningless—only those who have never had them think that—but what we find is that
they are not enough.
Money creates problems. Climbing one mountain exposes another, higher peak. There is never enough
love.
There is something better out there: real virtue. It is its own reward. Virtue is the one good that reveals
itself to be more than we expect and something that one cannot have in degrees. We simply have it or we
don’t. And that is why virtue—made up as it is of justice, honesty, discipline, and courage—is the only
thing worth striving for.