“You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this and you will find strength.” — Marcus Aurelius
Strength means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. To some it’s being able to withstand a lot of emotional pain. To others it simply means the ability to move a lot of weight. No matter what you think of strength as, you know it’s a requirement to persevere through life.
So how do we find strength? Well, like Marcus Aurelius says, by realizing you have power over your mind but not outside events.
We’ve discussed before why it’s important to make your mind a fortress that you feel safe in. A guarded mind is a mind that can’t be beat down by outside forces, but only it’s own inner forces. This is a concept we understand well.
What I haven’t discussed as much before is the second part of the first sentence of this quote. We know we have power over our mind, but we often forget we have no power over outside events.
This is an important thing to remember because it can remove a lot of stress from our minds.
If we don’t have to worry about outside events, we don’t have to waste time or headspace worrying about how to change those things. We can simply focus on our own thoughts… which is usually the only thing we try to do. If we can combine these forces however, focus on our own thoughts AND not worry about outside forces, that’s twice as much power dedicated to our goals.
Before you know it, your focus on your goals combined with your lack of stress dedicated to exterior forces results in a lot of progress in a short amount of time and a lot of happiness.
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Like what you read? Be sure to share this post with your friends and family, comment, and follow this page. It helps me out a lot, and you can always change your mind later. Be sure to stay tuned for future posts, and try to be the reason someone smiles today 🙂