Member-only story
A Stoic Take On Gratitude
Count Your Blessings
Published in
4 min readMay 16, 2021
“Don’t set your mind on things you don’t possess as if they were yours, but count the blessings you actually possess and think how much you would desire them if they weren’t already yours. But watch yourself, that you don’t value these things to the point of being troubled if you should lose them.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.27
Questions We Need To Ask Ourselves
What sticks out to me the most from the quote above is this one sentence: “[…], but count the blessings you actually possess and think how much you would desire them if they weren’t already yours.”
Before we jump into this read, let’s take a moment to ask ourselves a few questions:
- How often do I wish for things I don’t already possess?
- How often do I state and feel gratitude for the things I possess?
- How often do I state and feel gratitude for the people in my life?
- Do I tend to count my blessings, or do I tend to count others’ blessings?
