The world is a big messy project – what’s your role?

This is a complete copy / paste from the Daily Stoic. I try not to do that copy / paste, but sometimes other people say things just right… My only add is “we each need to put heart, soul and all we got into playing our specific part – no half-ass efforts.”

Everyone is playing a role in life, everyone is playing a part. In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius reminds himself that everyone is working on the same project, even if they don’t realize it. In fact, we sometimes don’t even realize it. Sure, we want to believe that a world without selfish or shameless or dishonest people is possible, but it isn’t.

Even the people who obstruct us, who fight against progress are playing a role. Certainly every historical period has had those people, so why should our moment be any different? That’s the role the play of life picked out for them, that’s who their character happens to be.

When we understand that everyone is playing a part, that we’re all involved in the same big, messy project that is the world, we can be more understanding. We can be more patient. At the very least, we can be more tolerant and accepting and stop expecting the impossible.

It also a reminder to be grateful for the role we seem to have been assigned. The fact that you’re reading this, the fact that you’re thinking about these things means you dodged a bullet. You aren’t an idiot. You aren’t an evil villain. You aren’t a fool. At least right now…

As Marcus Aurelius points out, yes, we all have a job, but we should make sure that “it’s not the job Chrysippus speaks of: the bad line in the play, put there for laughs.”

​We all have a role, as we said recently. Let’s just make sure it’s a good one.

The Daily Stoic https://dailystoic.com