| It's a dark world filled, sadly, with dark people. People who lie. People who cheat. People who steal. People who do all the things Marcus Aurelius opens that famous passage in Meditations with: "The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly," he writes, and he was right, as we all know. But it's important to understand that Marcus Aurelius didn't use this as an excuse…and most importantly, he didn't join them. As he says a few lines later, "No one can implicate me in ugliness." Elsewhere in Meditations (our favorite translation here), Marcus talks about not becoming like your enemies. It's the same idea. People are the way they are. They will always be this way. We don't control that. We do control who we are. We control whether we let them drag us down. We control whether we become like them. It's ugly out there…but we don't have to be ugly. We can be beautiful. We can be kind. We can be honest. We can be decent. We can be good. We have to be. P.S. And we can hope, in acting this way, that our positive behavior influences others—whether it's those in our family, at work, or in our circles of friends—and that it has a ripple effect. And, if we're parents, we especially hope to model this behavior for our children. If you are a parent, we share daily wisdom for all the challenges that go along with raising kids in our free Daily Dad email newsletter. Each day, you can get a parenting meditation delivered right to your inbox. Sign up here or share with a parent you think might benefit from it! *** | 
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