Hello Steemit World
I've recently recorded Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, and wanted to share it.
Meditations (Ta eis heauton, literally "things to one's self") was written by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (161 to 180 AD). It's a series of bullet point reads notes to himself, reminders of how to behave, how to frame situations, his thoughts on stoicism and things to remain grateful for. It was never really intended for publication and consequently is not written in prose. I have chosen this translation because it remains more faithful to the bullet point nature of the original work, rather than filling in the blanks to make it read better.
Took about 50 hours in total once audio & video editing was included, but I feel my reading has improved a fair bit since beginning so I'm happy.
I would say the single biggest theme in Meditations is summed up in the lines:
- "Choose not to feel harmed and you won't feel harmed,
don't feel harmed and you haven't been"
Basically you control how you react to a situation, and how you react determines how you feel. So it's within your power to choose how you feel.
Some other key themes I like that run through the book are:
- Control what's in your power, accept what's not.
- Frequently feelings of anger can cause more pain than the actual act that triggered the anger in the first place.
- Be well disposed to your fellow citizens, don't let their bad actions cause you to hate them.
- Don't spend time worrying about other people. Also, avoid caring about the opinions - good or bad - of people you don't respect.
- Life is brief. Be ready for death, do not fear it.
This is by no means an exhaustive list and perhaps I'll get around to summarising the whole book someday. In the mean time, please enjoy the audiobook and comment below what your favourite points are!
Note: This is my first post on Steemit, I'm not overly familiar with the platform so don't know if this is the right sort of content for it, but thought I'd put it on here and see what happened. If it's well received I may shift a bit away from Youtube and introduce my subs to Steemit. I really like the idea behind it and would prefer Youtube not to have such a monopoly