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February    16th

DON’T   MAKE    THINGS  HARDER  THAN    THEY    NEED    TO  BE

“If someone asks    you how to  write   your    name,   would   you bark    out each    letter? And if  they    get

angry,  would   you then    return  the anger?  Wouldn’t    you rather  gently  spell   out each    letter  for them?

So  then,   remember    in  life    that    your    duties  are the sum of  individual  acts.   Pay attention   to  each    of

these   as  you do  your    duty    .   .   .   just    methodically    complete    your    task.”

—MARCUS AURELIUS,   MEDITATIONS,    6.26

ere’s a common scenario. You’re working with a frustrating coworker or a difficult boss. They ask
you to do something and, because you dislike the messenger, you immediately object. There’s this
problem or that one, or their request is obnoxious and rude. So you tell them, “No, I’m not going to do it.”
Then they retaliate by not doing something that you had previously asked of them. And so the conflict
escalates.
Meanwhile, if you could step back and see it objectively, you’d probably see that not everything
they’re asking for is unreasonable. In fact, some of it is pretty easy to do or is, at least, agreeable. And if
you did it, it might make the rest of the tasks a bit more tolerable too. Pretty soon, you’ve done the entire
thing.
Life (and our job) is difficult enough. Let’s not make it harder by getting emotional about insignificant
matters or digging in for battles we don’t actually care about. Let’s not let emotion get in the way of
kathêkon, the simple, appropriate actions on the path to virtue.