When you set about any action, remind yourself of what nature the action
is. If you are going to bathe, represent to yourself the incidents usual
in the bath—some persons pouring out, others pushing in, others scolding,
others pilfering. And thus you will more safely go about this action if
you say to yourself, “I will now go to bathe and keep my own will in
harmony with nature.” And so with regard to every other action. For thus,
if any impediment arises in bathing, you will be able to say, “It was not
only to bathe that I desired, but to keep my will in harmony with nature;
and I shall not keep it thus if I am out of humor at things that happen.”
V
Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of
things. Thus death is nothing terrible, else it would have appeared so to
Socrates. But the terror consists in our notion of death, that it is
terrible. When, therefore, we are hindered or disturbed, or grieved, let
us never impute it to others, but to ourselves—that is, to our own views.
It is the action of an uninstructed person to reproach others for his own
misfortunes; of one entering upon instruction, to reproach himself; and
one perfectly instructed, to reproach neither others nor himself.