Marcus Aurelius was an Emperor of Rome. 1,900 years ago. An adopted son, he was the last of the “Five Good Emperors.” He was also a Stoic philosopher. Reading him is like a journey through a personalized Proverbs.
He said that happiness is available through how we think.
We expect other people to make us happy.
Or, maybe God. Do we sometimes pray, “God, please help. I’d like to be happy.”
And we’re not.
Maybe we orient our entire life around things and people who make us unhappy. We obsess on them. We are not happy, even though we say we want to be.
Maybe we’re in a project that is not going well (that is one of the stages of every project we’ll ever do). We think about the obstacles. We are not happy.
But…
Maybe we pause. Take a deep breath. Change our focus.
Put those toxic people behind us. Change our thinking to look for positive people. Forget the toxic. Become happier.
Focus on the outcome of the project. Tackle the obstacles a piece at a time. We change our thinking, we change our attention. We move the project forward and become happier.
This is not a new insight with Marcus Aurelius. He articulates it well. So did the Proverbs written 3,000 years ago. So did Víktor Frankl who survived the Holocost and wrote “Mans Search for Meaning” (read that book if you haven’t already).
A famous old proverb goes “We become what we think about.” Become aware of where our thoughts are residing. Change as necessary.
Faith Venture 
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