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You need to avoid certain things in your train of thought—everything random, everything irrelevant, everything self-important or malicious. You need to get used to winnowing your thoughts, so that if someone asks, “What are you thinking about?” you can respond at once (and truthfully) that you are thinking this or thinking that. And from your answer it would be obvious that your thoughts are straightforward and considerate—the thoughts of an unselfish person, one unconcerned with pleasure and sensual indulgence, with squabbling, with slander and envy, or anything else you would be ashamed to be caught thinking.

Someone like that—someone who refuses to put off joining the elect—is a kind of priest, a servant of the gods, in touch with what is within him and what keeps a person undefiled by pleasures, invulnerable to pain, untouched by arrogance, unaffected by meanness, an athlete in the greatest of all contests: the struggle not to be overwhelmed by anything that happens.

Such a person is dyed indelibly with justice, welcoming wholeheartedly whatever comes—whatever he is assigned—not worrying too often, or with any selfish motive, about what other people say, or do, or think.

He does only what is his to do, and constantly considers what the world has in store for him—doing his best, and trusting that all is for the best. For we carry our fate with us—and it carries us.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 3.4

Focus on who you need to be now—not who you needed to be before.