A setback or failure
When it did not work
Something you tried did not come off, or was taken away. The bid lost, the plan fell through, the thing you had counted on has gone. There is the loss itself, and then there is what you have been saying to yourself about it since.
Marcus lost a great deal, and he wrote about failure without pretending it was not failure. What he refused was the second thing: the disgust with oneself that arrives after, and stays longer than the loss.
Marcus Aurelius
That which rules within, when it is according to nature, is so affected with respect to the events which happen, that it always easily adapts itself to that which is and is presented to it. For it requires no definite material, but it moves towards its purpose, under certain conditions however; and it makes a material for itself out of that which opposes it, as fire lays hold of what falls into it, by which a small light would have been extinguished: but when the fire is strong, it soon appropriates to itself the matter which is heaped on it, and consumes it, and rises higher by means of this very material.
His image for a mind in good order is a fire. A small flame is put out by what falls on it. A strong one takes the same material and burns higher. The setback is not chosen, but what the mind makes of it is, and a mind that is working turns what opposes it into what it works with.
Marcus Aurelius
It is thy duty to order thy life well in every single act; and if every act does its duty, as far as is possible, be content; and no one is able to hinder thee so that each act shall not do its duty.—But something external will stand in the way.—Nothing will stand in the way of thy acting justly and soberly and considerately.—But perhaps some other active power will be hindered.—Well, but by acquiescing in the hindrance and by being content to transfer thy efforts to that which is allowed, another opportunity of action is immediately put before thee in place of that which was hindered, and one which will adapt itself to this ordering of which we are speaking.
Here he argues with himself, and the objection is a real one: something outside will get in the way. His answer is not that it will not. It is that when one line of action is blocked, another is put in front of you at once, and the duty was never to a particular outcome but to acting well in whatever is allowed.
Marcus Aurelius
Be not disgusted, nor discouraged, nor dissatisfied, if thou dost not succeed in doing everything according to right principles; but when thou hast failed, return back again, and be content if the greater part of what thou doest is consistent with man’s nature, and love this to which thou returnest; and do not return to philosophy as if she were a master, but act like those who have sore eyes and apply a bit of sponge and egg, or as another applies a plaster, or drenching with water. For thus thou wilt not fail to obey reason, and thou wilt repose in it. And remember that philosophy requires only the things which thy nature requires; but thou wouldst have something else which is not according to nature.—It may be objected, Why what is more agreeable than this which I am doing?—But is not this the very reason why pleasure deceives us? And consider if magnanimity, freedom, simplicity, equanimity, piety, are not more agreeable. For what is more agreeable than wisdom itself, when thou thinkest of the security and the happy course of all things which depend on the faculty of understanding and knowledge?
The longest of the three, and the kindest. Do not be disgusted or discouraged when you fall short. Go back, and be content if most of what you do is right. He compares returning to your principles with a person treating sore eyes, something done gently and often, not a master to be answered to.
One question
Now that this way is closed, what is the next thing you are able to do well?
Meditations is quoted from George Long's translation of 1862, which is in the public domain. The passages are chosen by hand, shown as written, and never paraphrased.