Marcus Aurelius' Advice For Better Days

At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself, "I have to go to work as a human being. What do I have to complain of if I'm going to do what I was born for? The things I was brought into this world to do."

Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm? But it's nicer here, so you were born to feel nice instead of doing things and experiencing them.

Do you see the plan? The birds, the ants, and spiders, and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order as best they can. And you're not willing to do your job as a human being. Why aren't you running to do what your nature demands?

But we have to sleep sometime, agreed. But nature set a limit on that, as it did on eating and drinking. And you're over the limit. You've had more than enough of that. But not of working—there you're still below your quota.

You don't love yourself enough, or you'd love your nature too, and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it; they even forget to wash or eat.

Do you have less respect for your own nature than the engraver does for engraving, the dancer for the dance? When they're really possessed by what they do, they'd rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts.

Is helping others less valuable to you, not worth your effort?

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