Stoicism: You Are What You Think
“Your soul takes on the colour of your thoughts” — Marcus Aurelius
Doctors and nutritionists often say to us: “you are what you eat”. It’s the best nutritional advice you can get because it’s pretty much true.
There are 50–70 million cells in your body and every one of them is replaced. If we don’t consume enough nourishing food our skin changes colour, our gums bleed, our bones soften, we lose hair, we feel fatigued and become more susceptible to disease. If you eat junk, you’ll feel like junk.
The same could be said of our minds. If we preoccupy ourselves with junk thoughts, our character will become sick. Just as in the case with food, the information we consume determines what and how we think.
One of the most memorable philosophical phrases to me is from Marcus Aurelius:
“The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the colour of your thoughts.”
I love this quote because it’s both a self-admonishment and a description of the mind. The mind is not just an empty container that is filled with information, it is the generator of character (what Marcus calls the “soul”).
