Meditations 12:1

Everything you're trying to reach—by taking the long way round—you could have right now, this moment. If you'd only stop thwarting your own attempts. If you'd only let go of the past, entrust the future to Providence, and guide the present toward reverence and justice.

Reverence: so you'll accept what you're allotted. Nature intended it for you, and you for it.

Justice: so that you'll speak the truth, frankly and without evasions, and act as you should—and as other people deserve.

Don't let anything deter you: other people's misbehavior, your own misperceptions, What People Will Say, or the feelings of the body that covers you (let the affected part take care of those). And if, when it's time to depart, you shunt everything aside except your mind and the divinity within . . .

if it isn't ceasing to live that you're afraid of but never beginning to live properly . . . then you'll be worthy of the world that made you.

No longer an alien in your own land.

No longer shocked by everyday events—as if they were unheard—of aberrations.

No longer at the mercy of this, or that.