Michael Prather’s Reviews > Meditations: A New Translation > Status Update

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.

Grapes.

Unripe … ripened … then raisins.

Constant transitions.

Not the “not” but the “not yet.”

Why all this guesswork? You can see what needs to be done. If you can see the road, follow it. Cheerfully, without turning back. If not, hold up and get the best advice you can. If anything gets in the way, forge on ahead, making good use of what you have on hand, sticking to what seems right. (The best goal to achieve, and the one we fall short of when we fail.)

Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions—not outside.

Frightened of change? But what can exist without it? What’s closer to nature’s heart? Can you take a hot bath and leave the firewood as it was? Eat food without transforming it? Can any vital process take place without something being changed?

Can’t you see? It’s just the same with you—and just as vital to nature.

Not to assume it’s impossible because you find it hard. But to recognize that if it’s humanly possible, you can do it too.

No one could ever accuse you of being quick-witted.

All right, but there are plenty of other things you can’t claim you “haven’t got in you.” Practice the virtues you can show: honesty, gravity, endurance, austerity, resignation, abstinence, patience, sincerity, moderation, seriousness, high-mindedness. Don’t you see how much you have to offer—beyond excuses like “can’t”? And yet you still settle for less.

Friends, I apologize if this is spamming your feed! I'm using Goodreads as a notebook of impactful quotes from this book so I can refer back to them later. (Can others see this?) Anyway, the last one for the day!

"Take the shortest route, the one that nature planned—to speak and act in the healthiest way. Do that, and be free of pain and stress, free of all calculation and pretension."

"It’s unfortunate that this has happened.

No. It’s fortunate that this has happened and I’ve remained unharmed by it—not shattered by the present or frightened of the future. It could have happened to anyone. But not everyone could have remained unharmed by it."

"Suppose that a god announced that you were going to die tomorrow “or the day after.” Unless you were a complete coward you wouldn’t kick up a fuss about which day it was—what difference could it make? Now recognize that the difference between years from now and tomorrow is just as small."