“He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe”

This quote from Marcus Aurelius should remind us that being able to fully grow into who we are will allow us to fully grow into the world that we live in. The battle within oneself is the biggest battle we face.

In life, we often think that outside forces and events that happen to us are the biggest impediment to our happiness and peace. And while outside forces can indeed have an outsized influence on this, they still rarely have a larger effect on you than your ability to deal with yourself.

As Marcus Aurelius has noted before, the happiness of your life largely depends on your own attitude, much more than things that happen to you. Why? Because you live with yourself and your thoughts every moment of your life. The time frame of things happening to you is minuscule in comparison.

Thus, if you can live in harmony with yourself, you will have the tools and experience to live in harmony with the larger world around you. Inability to live in harmony with yourself will have the same negative affect on your ability to deal with external forces.

Living in harmony with yourself doesn’t mean being happy with everything you do and every aspect of you. It means you understand who you are, understand your strengths and weaknesses, and know how to be the best version of yourself.

When you can do that, when you can let go of the things that prevent you from being content with yourself and able to improve, you can interact with the world in a way that will allow you to make the most out of your situation.

How do you learn to live in harmony with yourself? The answer is different for everyone. At the moment, I am on the journey to finding that out, as I suspect are most people.

No matter what life throws at us, lets strive to live in harmony with ourselves, so we can live our best lives in the world.