“If someone asks you how to write your name, would you bark out each letter? And if they get angry, would you then return the anger? Wouldn’t you rather gently spell out each letter for them? So then, remember in life that your duties are the sum of individual acts. Pay attention to each of these as you do your duty… just methodically complete your task.”
MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 6.26
In The Daily Stoic book today, the author explains the quote above by using a metaphor about conflict in the workplace. I’ll let you read all about it in the book, but basically the point Ryan Holiday makes is that although life is very hard and twisting, you certainly can still adjust to your approach to many little things in life — small decisions, minor events, short moments — and it’s the sum of all those things that make up our whole life. Just do each little thing as best you can, because they add up to a lot.
I was talking with my best friend earlier. He was feeling overwhelmed with parenting a precocious child, and so we talked through strategies and ideas. One of the things I said to him was, “take it easy on yourself. One step at a time.”
You just take each thing as it comes.
Holiday calls the ancient Greek term kathekon “the simple, appropriate actions on the path to virtue.” These are everyday little things that you do, well… every day.
What can you do next? Well, you can remember to keep the small potatoes small — not let anything get out of proportion to its importance. And while keeping the end in sight, you must nevertheless complete each of the little things as they come, which altogether make up the whole of you.
