Gaining Perspective from a Higher Vantage Point

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The insight is that despite Marcus Aurelius never physically reaching the highest points, he gained humility and perspective by imagining the world from a bird's eye view. This exercise helped him realize the insignificance of human time and the smallness of enormous battles. In modern times, technology allows us to easily gain similar perspectives, which should humble us, provide crucial perspective and remind us of what really matters.

In the muck and mire of daily life, it’s easy to get frustrated with people. It’s easy to prioritize the wrong things, to lose perspective. It’s easy to get caught up in the moment or forget the actual magnitude of your problems.

Which is why the Stoics remind us to zoom out. At least twice in Meditations, Marcus Aurelius speaks of taking “Plato’s view” and by that he means getting up high and looking down on humanity. “To see them from above,” he writes, “the thousands of animal herds, the rituals, the voyages on calm or stormy seas, the different ways we come into the world, share it with one another and leave it.”

In today's Daily Stoic Journal excerpt, Ryan examines the power of a mantra through the Marcus Aurelius.

“Erase the false impressions from your mind by constantly saying to yourself, I have it in my soul to keep out any evil, desire or any kind of disturbance—instead, seeing the true nature of things, I will give them only their due. Always remember this power that nature gave you.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 8.29”

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