Daily Stoic 07.18 | Each the Master of their Own Domain
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.561
With the assumption that you live within a free country, you are free to do whatever you please with your life until it negatively impacts someone elses. Just as that other person is free to do what they want as long as it doesn’t cause you any harm. This can be a powerful personal philosophy, so long as you are content with letting others do as they please, even if you heavily disagree. Besides don’t you have enough to deal with in your own life?
“My reasoned choice is as indifferent to the reasoned choice of my neighbor, as to his breath and body. However much we’ve been made for cooperation, the ruling reason in each of us is master of its own affairs. If this weren’t the case, the evil in someone else could become my harm, and God didn’t mean for someone else to control my misfortune.”↩