Marcus in the Morning

I used to wake each morning in an amphora pot of uncertainty. Where was rent coming from this week? This pot won't pay for itself. Where was food being sourced? My stomach can not consume itself. With the panic of a thousand splendid moons revolving round an orbit point I seemed to inhabit, I would embarrassingly cry my way to the bathroom and shower.

And that's when I looked at the tiles that surrounded my bath tub. They were sea shells, with a spherical kind of pattern. How odd, I thought, I had lived here for three years, and never noticed the cyclical structure of the shells. And in seeing the circular patterns, I realised- my psyche does not need to reflect the outside world. Time to make a change.

I tried the whole, start your morning with journaling, eat a health breakfast that included an abundance of avocado. And I do not denigrate from the integrity from such practices as a form of structure, but to be quite frank, they did not work in the slightest for my tangential mind and forever stimulated neuroticism. So, I came up with a slightly odd solution -

Start your morning routine at night.

After showering (the amphora pot will get you dirty), I listened to a stoic text and put the timer on. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations. I am weird, I grant you that, but aren't we all a bit odd? Meditations calms my mind in a way that no other activity could possibly achieve. And so, I went to sleep with a final point of stoic brilliance:

“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”

When I woke in the morning, I grabbed the avocado on toast, the shower, the gratitude journal (but in a very different order) and realised that the entire sunrise had been infused with that final point of wisdom, spoken by a Roman philosopher centuries ago. All of a sudden, I had the motivation to not only argue with myself about what I should be doing to inspire myself each morning, discussing quite fervently the importance of rent and food. But rather, I should go out, and actually just be a good person. Be the person who can easily buy overpriced food stuffs, touted on social media. Be the person in a world plagued by boredom and mundanity that actually enjoys breathing in the morning. My life of showering is not glamorous, but it is done with the a type of gratitude that Marcus would espouse with charm and grace.

The following night, the final lines that happily echoed through my room were ones of guidance:

"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."

And when I woke the next morning, once again, I was greeted with an indisputable desire to battle the dragons of a corporate workplace, knowing that my corporeal figure would be able to withstand anything if I remained true to my own nature. My own nature, while too agreeable and open at times, is actually quite nice, and generous. As I think most of us truly are. Aurelius had mentioned divinity, so I quickly google searched all the Roman gods and goddesses. Venus. She was sassy, beautiful, and I imagine, quite decisive. So maybe my nature, for that day at least, could be a gorgeous crucible, boiling the maternal aspects of my personality with the more, assertive attributes. This concoction of traits really did ensure that no one could hurt me that day.

So, in sum, the night routine, when contemplated in the morning, cleared a path for the day; a productive, lucrative and enjoyable day. And I have continued listening to this philosopher each night of the last two weeks, only to find that each morning, my mind has been detoxed from the slumberous horror we all too easily fall into when struck by the banality of everyday acts.

I am aware that this morning routine does not include cleansers, or creams, or ointments of youth. I am a woman, so I often feel my routines should include something that resembles an attempt to appear younger than I am. The beauty, true beauty, in listening to words at night, is that your mind is cleansed and inspired for the next morning - the Spirit of Venus remains with you. She actually makes you want to eat the avocado, complete the pilates class, and write in the gratitude journal, irrespective of how concerned you are about pay checks or phone bills.

Marcus Aurelius: https://www.audible.com.au/pd/Meditations-Audiobook/0241429668?qid=1594430327&sr=1-1&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&pf_rd_p=771c6463-05d7-4981-9b47-920dc34a70f1&pf_rd_r=7W9GZJPB1H5G5RWV6NEK