16. As to living in the best way, this power is in the soul, if it be
indifferent to things which are indifferent. And it will be indifferent,
if it looks on each of these things separately and all together, and if
it remembers that not one of them produces in us an opinion about itself,
nor comes to us; but these things remain immovable, and it is we
ourselves who produce the judgments about them, and, as we may say, write
them in ourselves, it being in our power not to write them, and it being
in our power, if perchance these judgments have imperceptibly got
admission to our minds, to wipe them out; and if we remember also that
such attention will only be for a short time, and then life will be at an
end. Besides, what trouble is there at all in doing this? For if these
things are according to nature, rejoice in them and they will be easy to
thee: but if contrary to nature, seek what is conformable to thy own
nature, and strive towards this, even if it bring no reputation; for
every man is allowed to seek his own good.

17. Consider whence each thing is come, and of what it consists, and into
what it changes, and what kind of a thing it will be when it has changed,
and that it will sustain no harm.

18. [If any have offended against thee, consider first]: What is my
relation to men, and that we are made for one another; and in another
respect I was made to be set over them, as a ram over the flock or a bull
over the herd. But examine the matter from first principles, from this:
If all things are not mere atoms, it is nature which orders all things:
if this is so, the inferior things exist for the sake of the superior,
and these for the sake of one another (II. 1; IX. 39; V. 16; III. 4).

Second, consider what kind of men they are at table, in bed, and so