I set off on the four-mile walk to our forge; pondering, as I went along, on all I had seen, and deeply revolving that I was a common labouring-boy; that my hands were coarse, that my boots were thick; that I had fallen into the despicable habit of calling knaves Jacks; that I was much more ignorant than I had considered myself last night, and generally that I was in a low-lived bad way.
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Oxford University Press: Oxford World's Classics, 2008, 59.
That's Pip as he returns home from his first meeting with Miss Havisham and her daughter, Estella. Pip is broken and hurt because he is of the opinion that their belittling him is bad. What would Marcus Aurelius say about that? As it happens, we know exactly what he'd say. He'd say to Pip:
Take away your opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, "I have been harmed." Take away the complaint, "I have been harmed," then the harm is taken away.
Aurelius, Marcus. Meditations. New York: Dover Thrift Edition, 1997, 14.
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