pain · you regret losing a thing · relationships · wife
what you just named
You came in pain, not joy: that you regret losing a thing, in your relationships — specifically with wife — and you reached for the Stoic voice first. That's what you've named. Listen now to what it answers.
- Stoic
Spirit
mind
The years at work are not coming back. Marcus's instruction is not consolation; it is dissolution of the structure that is still gripping you. Take away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, 'I have been harmed.' Take away the complaint, 'I have been harmed,' and the harm is taken away. The harm to yourself in the present comes from the opinion that the lost years constitute the verdict on you as a husband. Take that opinion away and what is left is the question of what you will do with this evening. The years did what they did. The evening is still asking.
heart
The verdict on the lost years is not yet rendered. Tonight is the next vote.
connection
You stand in the line of all who could not give back the years and used the evening they had instead — the late-coming father who became the present grandfather, the husband who spent the last decade in the kitchen for the first time.
Action
Tonight, be home in a way the previous years did not allow. Don't apologize for them. Just be present in this one.
Reference
Take away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, 'I have been harmed.' Take away the complaint, 'I have been harmed,' and the harm is taken away.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.7
practice
Releasing the opinion that the years are the verdict; spending this evening as the next vote
principle
The years did what they did; this evening is the only one you can still spend
value
Present hours instead of past accounting