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July    16th

PROGRESS    OF  THE SOUL

“To what    service is  my  soul    committed?  Constantly  ask yourself    this    and thoroughly  examine

yourself    by  seeing  how you relate  to  that    part    called  the ruling  principle.  Whose   soul    do  I   have

now?    Do  I   have    that    of  a   child,  a   youth   .   .   .   a   tyrant, a   pet,    or  a   wild    animal?”

—MARCUS AURELIUS,   MEDITATIONS,    5.11

o what are you committed? What cause, what mission, what purpose? What are you doing? And more
important, why are you doing it? How does what you do every day reflect, in some way, the values
you claim to care about? Are you acting in a way that’s consistent with something you value, or are you
wandering, unmoored to anything other than your own ambition?
When you examine these questions, you might be uncomfortable with the answers. That’s good. That
means you’ve taken the first step to correcting your behavior—to being better than those wild creatures
Marcus mentions. It also means you’re closer to discovering what your duty calls you to do in life. And
once you discover it, you’ve moved a little bit closer to fulfilling it.