Stop Fighting Yourself

Seek not for events to happen as you wish.

We just passed 137,000 readers in this community, and I want to start by saying thank you. Every single one of us is here for the same reason- to master the practical art of living well. With that shared mission in mind, I want to share a project I’ve been working on.

The most famous book in Stoic history, Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, was never meant to be published. It was an emperor’s private journal written in a military tent to keep his mind from crumbling under the weight of an empire.

For the past year, I’ve had to write my own. My battlefield is medicine. Every day, I face human beings at their worst- frightened, dying, and mischievous. The clinical chaos is crazy, and to keep myself sane, I began writing a pithy list of personal maxims to comport myself. They’ve been my saving grace.

While I initially intended to keep these notes to myself, having them collect dust on my desk drawer feels like a disservice. If they could hold me through the worst days in the clinic, they can he…