There's a version of Stoicism that seems to promise stability: “Master your mind and you'll find an unshakeable calm” or, “Build your inner fortress and nothing will touch you.”

Marcus didn't see Stoicism this way. Instead, he looked at the world and saw constant and relentless change. Empires rose and fell, people came and went, and the “wax” of the universe was endlessly melted down and reshaped into new forms.

“The nature of the universe," he wrote, "hath now perhaps formed a horse; and then, destroying that figure, hath new tempered and fashioned the matter of it into the form of a tree: then that again into the form of a man."

Nothing stays forever… be it good or bad.

This can sound bleak if we're attached to the idea that the world should hold still and forever be as it is now, the way we (may) like it. But Marcus didn't think it was bleak. He thought it was honest, and he thought understanding it (really understanding it) was the foundation of (at least) a less anxious life.

Because most of our anxiety is about change, isn't it?

We worry that things will get worse, or that things won't stay as good as they are right now, or that something we love will be taken away suddenly (or at all).

Yes, maybe, but that's what things do!

Can’t we learn to hold what we have with open hands, enjoying it without clutching onto it?

The weekend is ahead. Something good will probably happen in it. Something annoying probably will too. Both will pass. What remains is how you choose to meet them.

Enjoy your weekend. And don’t forget to register for the workshop, I’m serious!