I love reading Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic philosopher and Roman Emperor (he was played by Richard Harris in Gladiator). His Meditations overflow with wise precepts.

But these 12 words are my most favorite:

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.

Like Buddha’s ‘With our thoughts we make the world’, they’re a pithy nutshell reminding us of the power of our minds over the matter of our lives.

If simply using old-related words makes you walk more slowly, then just imagine the effect of that non-stop mental tirade on how you live, and how you feel.

I certainly notice a cause-and-effect relationship between my thoughts and my happiness.

• If I feel sorry for myself, it’s because I’ve been thinking ‘poor me’
• If I’m angry, it’s because I’ve been focusing on who’s to blame
• If I’m sad, it’s because I’ve been dwelling on something negative
• If I’m worried, it’s because I’ve been ruminating on what might happen, and how awful it would be.

Of course different emotions are part of life, but here I’m talking about the overall quality of our lives, the main palette of our feelings. A preponderance of grays might point to some cloudy thinking.

I love those 12 words of Marcus Aurelius’. But the three words that follow turn the quote into a warning.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly…

Are you guarding the quality of your thoughts?

[Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexsemenzato/ / CC BY-ND 2.0]