{"id":3976,"date":"2019-03-29T18:53:46","date_gmt":"2019-03-29T18:53:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailystoic.com\/?p=3976"},"modified":"2019-04-29T16:27:32","modified_gmt":"2019-04-29T16:27:32","slug":"we-were-made-for-each-other","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailystoic.com\/we-were-made-for-each-other\/","title":{"rendered":"We Were Made For Each Other: 32 Reminders From One Of History\u2019s Most Powerful Figures"},"content":{"rendered":"

We should never forget the truly tremendous fact that <\/span>Meditations<\/span><\/i><\/a> carries the private thoughts of a man, Marcus Aurelius<\/a>, during his reign as a virtual god, as the emperor of Rome. If ever there were a man qualified to think himself the center of the universe, Marcus Aurelius was it. And yet, the most powerful man of his time reminded himself on a stunningly consistent basis\u2014almost like an incantation\u2014that he was no more or no less than the people over whom he ruled. In <\/span>Meditations<\/span><\/i><\/a>,<\/span><\/i> he refers to the <\/span>common good <\/b>more than 80 times, self-identifying not just as a citizen of Rome, but of the World. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Stoics have a word for this: <\/span>sympatheia<\/a>\u2014<\/b>\u201ca connectedness with the cosmos.\u201d It is one of the lesser known Stoic concepts, in part because it\u2019s so incredibly easy to focus on the self and lose sight of the whole in the process. It\u2019s easy to get caught up in our own little worlds\u2014to think our trials deserve the sympathy of the gods and our triumphs, their recognition. It\u2019s easy to forget the bigger picture.<\/span><\/p>\n