Being a Parent: Marcus Aurelius Gives Advice

“Men seek retreats for themselves – in the country, by the sea, in the hills – and you yourself are particularly prone to this yearning.  But all this is quite unphilosophic, when it is open to you, at any time you want, to retreat into yourself.  No retreat offers someone more quiet and relaxation than that into his own mind, especially if he can dip into thoughts there which put him at immediate and complete ease:  and by ease I simply mean a well-ordered life.  So constantly give yourself this retreat, and renew yourself.  The doctrines you will visit there should be few and fundamental, sufficient at one meeting to wash away all your pain and send you back free of resentment at what you must rejoin.”  – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations.       

When Marcus Aurelius wrote that to himself, in the second century AD, he was in the midst of his German campaigns.  He wasn’t sitting in some plush chair being fanned by slaves back in Rome.  He was on the front lines, on the verge of death trying to subdue an enemy that Rome had been fighting for centuries without much success.  It’s safe to say he was feeling a little stress.  And if he can say a thing like that during one of the most important moments of human history, shouldn’t we be able to find that same quiet place to relax as well?  There’s no war; you’re not going to die of plague or from an arrow to the eyeball.  The fate of the civilized world doesn’t rest on your shoulders.  Finding some peace should be a goal for all of us.  If a Roman Emperor at a major turning point in History can do it, so can we.      

Take a Mental Vacation:            

Marcus was a stoic.  When he refers to a “well ordered life” he’s talking about taking responsibility for his own thoughts and actions.  All he can do about the unhappiness around him is accept it calmly, and he thinks he should be capable of influencing his own sense of peace despite the turmoil around him.  Happiness comes from within, and how we treat the world around us is determined by the order and tranquility of our own minds.  Marcus did what we should all do.  He controlled his impulse to be irrational in the face of pressure and instead retreated inside his head to take a breather (his writings were for himself, not publication).  We would all like to go to Hawaii when life gets us down — to sit peacefully on a beach.  I’d like to wash away my troubles by going on a long vacation to some far flung corner of the world where the girls are pretty and responsibilities are few.  In truth we don’t need material things, and we don’t need to go anywhere or dress any particular way to find peace and tranquility.  It’s always available for the taking inside our own minds.  All we need to do is train ourselves to see it.  The stoics believed it, and so do I.  Of course, even the great Marcus Aurelius admits it’s easier said than done.       

How Can you Find Peace in Chaos?          

Both the Yogis of India and the Zen masters of Japan train their minds through mild pain.  That’s what the poses in yoga are meant to do.  It’s also one of the uses for martial arts and why Zen masters kneel on hard floors or tatami to meditate.  I think they’re onto something, but we regular folks don’t need to go to the same extremes.  The one thing the Stoics, the Yogis, and the Zen masters have in common is they all know that calmness comes through the conscious effort to find it.  Thus, if you’re looking for a mental vacation, you’ll need to find it among the clutter that has built up in your head over the years.  Wash away the garbage and focus on just one thing for a while.  Take up knitting or try juggling or even just shoot free throws in your driveway.  Do something where your mind is forced to focus on one thing.  If you can do it with tools like basketballs, juggling balls, and needles, you should eventually be able to do it without them when the time comes that you need to regulate your thoughts. When your kids are screaming at you or spilling orange juice on the carpet, contemplate what Marcus says for a moment, take a break and react to the stress with deliberate calmness of mind.