Lonely Cottage

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  “Among the few features of agricultural England which retain an appearance but little modified by the lapse of centuries, may be reckoned the high, grassy and furzy downs, coombs, or ewe-leases, as they are indifferently called, that fill a large area of certain counties in the south and south-west. If any mark of human occupation is met with hereon, it usually takes the form of the solitary cottage of some shepherd. Fifty years ago such a lonely cottage stood on such a down, and may possibly be standing there now. In spite of its loneliness, however, the spot, by actual measurement, was not more than five miles from a county-town. Yet that affected it little. Five miles of irregular upland, during the long inimical seasons, with their sleets, snows, rains, and mists, afford withdrawing space enough to isolate a Timon or a Nebuchadnezzar; much less, in fair weather, to please that less repellent tribe, the poets, philosophers, artists, and others who “conceive and meditate of ple...

You Don't Have One

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“We have the power to hold no opinion about a thing and to not let it upset our state of mind – for things have no natural power to shape our judgments.” (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.52)

Think for a moment about everything you don't know. 
Go ahead. I'll wait. 

What is your opinion about those things you don't know? How do you feel? 
You don't have an opinion because you don't know what you don't know--right? 

Ok, think for a moment about something that might upset you. Can you name it? Say what it is? 
  • Did someone say something behind your back? 
    • What did they say? 
    • Did you hear it? 
    • Do you even know for a fact that anyone said anything about you at all? 
    • Was it derogatory or nice? 
    • Still don't know? Then why upset? 
So why get upset about something we know nothing about? 
  • That guy that cut you off on the way to work this morning--why did he do it? 
    • To be rude because he saw YOU coming down the road and thought you needed a driving lesson? (That's selfish)
    • He woke up late and is still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes?
    • He was simply not paying attention? 
    • He had a bad night over a sick kid or a family fight and is not paying attention? 
    • He's hung over? 
    • His opinion was there was enough room to pull out? 
    • Still don't know? Then why upset? 
Here's another way to look at it: 
  • if something does not exist, what power does it have for one to create an opinion about it? 
  • if something is irrelevant, why does it bother us? 
Waste no more time and/or energy on things that don't matter.

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