Meditations 2.1

1. When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions.

Excerpt From
Meditations: A New Translation
Marcus Aurelius, Hays

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I often read this quote and I'm pretty sure I know why Marcus began chapter two with such a thing. I think anyone who deals with the public on a day-to-day basis finds themselves frustrated with what mankind has become. So, when I read that Marcus Aurelius was struggling with the same "meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly" that I seem to encounter on a daily basis at my job, I find a bit of comfort in knowing that people have not changed. That even an Emperor a couple thousand years ago found people frustrating. 

Of course, like the great philosopher that he was, Marcus Aurelius takes things one step further and gives advice on how to relate to these people. To understand their daily plight is born of ignorance, not necessarily malice. And that we all too, all of us, have been ignorant in our lives. 

Every morning, when I arrive at work, I try to recall this quote. I try to rehearse it in my head, as a way to prepare myself for the day to come.