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August  13th

TAKE    CHARGE  AND END YOUR    TROUBLES

“You’ve endured countless   troubles—all    from    not letting your    ruling  reason  do  the work    it  was

made    for—enough  already!”

—MARCUS AURELIUS,   MEDITATIONS,    9.26

ow many things you fear have actually come to pass? How many times has anxiety driven you to
behave in a way you later regret? How many times have you let jealousy or frustration or greed lead
you down a bad road?
Letting our reason rule the day might seem like more work, but it saves us quite a bit of trouble. As
Ben Franklin’s proverb put it: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
Your brain was designed to do this work. It was meant to separate what is important from what is
senseless, to keep things in perspective, to only become troubled by that which is worth becoming
troubled about. You only need to put it to use.