Marcus Aurelius

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Marcus Aurelius is one of the greatest Roman emperors whose reign marked the end of the Pax Romana, which was a period of roughly 200 years of peace and prosperity.  He is well known for his Meditations, a book he wrote about how to live one's life as a stoic.  Here, I analyzed one of his quotes:

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” Marcus Aurelius
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Marcus Aurelius argues that the mind or mindset can determine the happiness of one’s life.  I agree with this statement because it follows my doctrine that the mind can control almost anything.  For example, if one believes that he will fail a test, his mind will subconsciously make him want to fail.  This sort of pattern is similar to when one repeatedly says something in order to remember it.  I used that same tactic when I was studying for the midterms.  The mind can also control pain tolerance.  Doctors always say that in an emergency, it is important to remain calm or else the situation can get worse.  If one thinks that the injury is dramatically severe, then his mind will make him more panicked, get his adrenaline up, and you will feel worse in the process.  Also, the mind can also trick the body when it is in pain.  When there is pain, the mind can spread out the pain in the body.  For example, last week I hurt my arm when I fell down from exercising.  My arm hurt a lot, so what I did is I pretended through my mind that the great concentration of pain in my arm was slowly flowing from my arm to my chest to my head to my abdomen.  This way, my mind could imagine that instead of one major area of pain, the pain diffused into the other parts of my body in order to make everything less painful for my arm.  If the mind can imagine it, it is very possible that the body will respond to it.  It also works with emotions, which is what Marcus Aurelius was getting to.  It is already proven that the mind can control the body physically.   The mind should have the same power over emotions.  If one feels sad, then the mind will automatically look for ways to prove why he is sad.  This sort of way to prove why he is sad can be long-lasting, possibly a lifetime.  People can commit suicide because they stay in a state where they cannot find any reason to be happy due to their mind continually finding reasons why they are sad.  Contrastingly, one can lead a happy life by simply thinking positively, so that the mind can find many reasons to be happy.  Those people are usually more grateful, more appreciative, and more happy.  Aurelius is right about the way the idea of thinking can play a huge role in our lives.  We live in a world where good things and bad things happen to us.  It is up to us about how we are going to view the world, and our minds are responsible for those thoughts.  In this course, this proved to be especially true. If I did not have the right mindset about how to approach the work load, I would probably be failing this class.  In order to keep my motivation up, I kept thinking about how the workload was not so bad, and how I can definitely accomplish  the task.  My mindset kept me pushing forward.  This quote applies to my time at MEI because I really had to keep my thoughts in a positive form, to push myself to do what I thought I could not do, and persevere through tough times.