Meditations #14

 When you are outraged by somebody's impudence, ask yourself at once, 'Can the world exist without impudent people?' It cannot; so do not ask for impossibilities. That man is simply one of the impudent whose existence is necessary for the world. Keep the same thought present, whenever you come across roguery, double-dealing or any other form of obliquity. You have only to remind yourself that the type is indispensable, and at once you will feel kindlier towards the individual. It is also helpful if you promptly recall what special quality Nature has given us to counter such particular faults. For there are antidotes with which she has provided us: gentleness to meet brutality, for example, and other correctives for other ills. Generally speaking, too, you have the opportunity of showing the culprit his blunder - for everyone who does wrong is failing of his proper objective, and is thereby a blunderer. Besides, what harm have yo suffered? Nothing has been done by any of these victims of your irritation that could hurtfully affect your own mind; and it is in the mind alone that anything evil or damaging to the self can have reality.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Nine

When people ask why I'm not angrier, or even angry, about some of the things that have happened to me I usually reply that I am not by personality, philosophical training, nor religious inclination a person who holds grudges. Of course, on one level, this is complete bullshit because they're not seeing me sad or frustrated or depressed or mad on my own time. At the same time, I suspect that as compared to most folks I don't wallow in self-pity or impotent rage over bad things that have occurred - and certainly I know folks who simply can't get past something, and some who hold grudges that seemingly span generations. One of the reasons why I've always told folks that the Meditations is a foundational book for me, and one of the few books that actually made me a better person - and a book that everyone should read - is that it taught me a ton of lessons early on. One of the biggest is that, as MA reminds us, "it is in the mind alone that anything evil of damaging to the self can have reality." In reality the vast majority of these events actually lasted a minute, but they achieve timelessness because we foster them in our minds; we feed them and keep them present, and they plague us, but only because we allow them to do so.