“Does the light of a lamp shine and keep its glow until its fuel is spent? Why shouldn’t your truth, justice, and self-control shine until you are extinguished?”
MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 12.15
Your light is all that is good and right within you. Your kindness, your virtue, your fairness, your dedication to the truth. It’s the positive outlook and energy coming out of you.
In today’s entry of the Daily Stoic, Marcus Aurelius is simply saying that you should keep letting your light shine for as long as you live. From this point forward, let it never stop shining out the virtue that you carry within.
Your lamp has been lit, by your daily practice and by your efforts to seek the truth. There’s no going back now! May your lamp never be extinguished for the rest of your days.
(Side note: if you’re like me, you can’t help thinking of that Sunday school rhyme: “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine”. Wisdom from unlikely sources, indeed.)
