“Each and every hour make up your mind…to accomplish the matter presently at hand with genuine seriousness, loving care, independence and justice. Allow your mind freedom from all other considerations. This you can do if you perform every action in your life as if it were your last, putting aside all your wayward impulses and emotional resistance to the choices of reason, and all pretense, selfishness and discontent with what has been allotted to you. See how few are the things which a person needs to master in order to live a tranquil and godly existence. The gods ask nothing more of us.”

I wonder whether Marcus Aurelius, who wrote these words two thousand years ago, had any thoughts about what their implications might be? I wonder if he thought his experience would change anything in all those years? What is intriguing to me is the fact that someone so clearly knew about and experienced what I discovered only twenty-nine years ago.

I have been driven by what Marcus Aurelius writes. If you know these things and choose to live out of loving kindness, it is impossible to damage others. I thought it was important for as many people to experience the preciousness of life and loving-kindness. I believed it would be clear that we could live without violence. What I have come to know is that it seems not to be a priority for the majority of people.

Deep down, at the core of who we are, it is a huge priority, because each of us wants to live a life of value and purpose. The problem is that we have been lulled to sleep by the nature of the din of our society. The noise is tremendous. Satisfaction comes from things. We are right about our beliefs. We listen to music about doing harm to people and expect not to be effected. We have to get to work. What is the purpose of work? What is the purpose of school?

“Each and every hour make up your mind…to accomplish the matter presently at hand with genuine seriousness, loving care, independence and justice.”

This is profoundly simple. Can we choose to remember to do it each hour of every day? Of course we can. Do we really think it will make any difference? Clearly not or we would be doing it.

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish, little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”

Man and Superman, 1903,

George Bernard Shaw

Are we ready to choose?

Are you and I ready to choose to be present?

Are you and I ready to choose to be loving?

This second is, actually, no matter what we think, the last one we have any guarantee of.