We think we want to be rich – or famous – or powerful. We want to succeed. We want to achieve. We want more of this or less of that. These desires of ours are explicit; they define our goals and order our priorities. We salivate over them.
But, deep down, they don’t reflect what we actually want. They’re proxies, indirect ways of getting to what we are really looking for.
Ann Morrow Lindbergh writes in Gift from the Sea, “I want first of all – in fact, as an end to these other desires – to be at peace with myself.” Whether or not we’re conscious of it, we think that success will make us feel good. We think that proving people wrong will make us feel better. That externals will bring us internal harmony. But will it? Has it ever?
No. No, it hasn’t. It’s interesting that Lindbergh quotes Socrates, who prayed that “May the outward and inward man be at one.” Perhaps that’s the mistake we make. We think that perfecting the outward version of ourselves that the world sees will bring us the inner peace we desire. But Socrates and the Stoics knew it was the other way around. It’s the inner work that is more likely to bring us outward success. And more importantly, that the inner work was an end unto itself.
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
That’s what Marcus Aurelius was doing in Meditations, trying to focus inward on the inner word. Notice he speaks nowhere in those pages about how he will be remembered in history or how long his accomplishments will stand. On the contrary, he was reminding himself how little these things mattered if he did not bring his inner world into harmony with this philosophy.
The Apostle Peter put it this way:
“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.” (2 Peter 1:3-4, ESV)
Because no one is going to remember all the things we accomplished after we’re gone, but we will never forget how little joy they brought us while we were alive if they don’t come from the right place, in the right order.
What say you man of Valor?
Adapted from “Daily Stoic” Email, 2 January 2023