250114 What I learned in my studies this morning 5

Today's Meditation(s):

Mediations, XII.3 (Waterfield)

Hadot explains that this passage breaks down the circles surrounding the hegemonikon into three categories:

1. Other people
2. The past and the future
3. Automatic emotions

What other people do and are is not up to us. Beg, please, convince, threaten, whatever . . . they do what they do and we cannot control it.

The past is gone and unchangeable. The future is not here. Only in the present can we achieve anything.

Passions arise automatically in our minds. Maybe from outside stimulation, maybe from inner thoughts, maybe from Lucretius' swerve. Regardless, they appear without our calling and without our permission. Ours is to assent to such emotions or to temper or reject them. But we cannot make them not appear in our lives. 

So how does this relate to me? To my journey?

It's a reminder, a memory jogger that puts me back to the roots of this philosophy. It tells me where to focus, limiting me to those areas where I can make a difference and eliminating areas which, if I am not careful, will admit stress and errors into my life.

Let's not do that.