Imagine walking through {{username}}, in a bustling city where the lights of luxury, the beautiful cars, the store fronts, the trendiest restaurants all attract the envious glances of those who covet endlessly. They want to live the life they don't have, which consists of beauty, glitter and the illusion of happiness.
In his wisdom, Marcus Aurelius compares us to dogs pouncing on a bone or fish wriggling for a piece of bread.
For Marcus Aurelius, all these things are superficial distractions, lures that distract us from the essentials.
~
“A procession's vain pomp,
plays on a stage,
flocks, herds,
sham fights,
a bone thrown to puppies,
a crumb into fishponds,
toiling and moiling of ants carrying their loads,
scurrying of startled mice, marionettes dancing to strings.
Well, then, you must stand up in all this, kindly and not carrying your head proudly; yet understand that every man is worth just so much as the worth of what he has set his heart upon.”