Massimo Pigliucci

I had to move across the country and I had to find a new house.

Now, any psychologist worth his salt would tell you that one or two of those things is pretty stressful.

Four or five of them simultaneously, that's a lot.

The book was The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, which is a Stoic book.

And that's interesting in itself because the first time that I came across Marcus Aurelius, I thought, Stoics is, ah, come on, who wants to live a life like a Stoic?

I mean, aren't these the kind of people that go around with a stiff upper lip and suppressing emotions, right?

So kind of like Mr. Spock from Star Trek.

So when I came across Marcus again, I thought, hmm, I don't know about this thing.

And then I opened the meditations.

And one of the first phrases, so the meditation is not the kind of book that you necessarily read cover to cover because it was a personal philosophical diary or journal of the emperor.

So it was not in fact meant for publication.

So when I opened it up at random, one of the first few sentences that I found is in one of the later books.

And it said something like, you don't like the cucumber because it's bitter, right?

Well, don't eat it.

Why do you have to go on and complain about the fact that there are bitter cucumbers in the world?

That struck me as very powerful and very insightful.

We tend to complain all the time about the fact that things don't go our way, that the world is not the way we would like it to be.

And those complaints don't do anything good.

practical.

They're not actionable.