The Emperor Marcus Aurelius opens his second book with this thought:
"Begin the morning by saying to yourself, 'I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial.' All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil. But I who have seen the nature of the good that it is beautiful, and of the bad that it is ugly, and the nature of him who does wrong, that it is akin to me, not only of the same blood or seed, but that it participates in the same intelligence and the same portion of the divinity, I can neither be injured by any of them, for no one can fix on me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him, For we are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one another then is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away."
Prepare yourself. There are people out there. And you are bound to cross paths with a few.
By preparing yourself for the day in this way, we can already have in our mind how we will respond to the people we meet. We should not think we are better than anyone by doing this for we are just the same as anyone else--but we don't have to be. If we meet someone who is arrogant (for example) we should know there's a reason for arrogance and it's rooted in the fact that this person is for some reason separated from what is good. Our response can help if it points them back to what is good.
The reason? Marcus Aurelius sounds much like the Apostle Paul who wrote that we are a body. Some folks are "hands", some folks are "feet", some are "eyes". Hands cannot perform the task of eyes but the eye and hand can work together as the body to perform as it was intended to do. You can't do what I can do, and I most certainly am not made to do what you can. But together, we compliment one another as men, women, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, friends, co-workers, etc. The body is not all hands, nor is the whole body an eye--we need one another.
So if someone comes along grating their teeth, there's no reason to grate yours along with them. Help them get realigned, that the entire jaw can work to benefit the body; that is, help a brother out so we can use our time more efficiently and get more out of life together.
