How Marcus Aurelius Taught me Gratitude and Moral Mindfulness

In the past, whenever I would crack open Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, I would instinctively skip Book 1 (“Debts and Lessons”). I would repeatedly dismiss it as a perfunctory foreword, listing that it does all the people that impacted him throughout his life. OK, good, nice, touching, let’s move on. It took an audiobook listening of the same to disabuse me of my ignorance. (It must have been Richard Armitage’s beguiling voice that did it. You have to get that version.) As I allowed the cadence of Aurelius’ gratitude to roll over me, I finally understood what that chapter was about:

1. Good people that come across our path are one the life’s greatest gifts. That ought to occasion unceasing gratitude.

2. Moral exemplars are essential in crafting our identity values and aspirations.

3. Not one person can embody all the potentials of human goodness transformed by grace.

4. Remembering and recollecting virtuous people might be more valuable than any ethical theory, including a theory of virtue.

5. Such recollecting needs to be frequent.

There is nothing here that a Christian needs to object to, including the lessons that Aurelius learned from Maximus:

Self-control and resistance to distractions. Optimism in adversity—especially illness. A personality in balance: dignity and grace together. Doing your job without whining. Other people’s certainty that what he said was what he thought, and what he did was done without malice. Never taken aback or apprehensive. Neither rash nor hesitant—or bewildered, or at a loss. Not obsequious—but not aggressive or paranoid either.

Right!

Here, then, is a good project for us, to be completed at some point in the near future. Our personal “Debt and Lessons” chapter to ground us in life, foster gratitude, and dispel any lingering existential rut.