The Scale of Time
Placing one's troubles in the vast context of cosmic time reveals their relative insignificance and restores proportion.
Marcus Aurelius repeatedly used temporal scale as a contemplative technique: how significant will this seem in a hundred years? A thousand? When viewed against the vast expanse of time, most everyday concerns shrink to their proper size. This perspective restores equanimity without diminishing genuine commitments.
How small a part of the boundless and unfathomable time is assigned to every man!
Marcus Aurelius repeatedly practices the view from above, widening his gaze to cosmic and historical scale until present troubles shrink.
Meditations
Written about in
- What Stoicism says about envy and comparison
Marcus's technique is to ask how large this will look in a hundred years, then a thousand, until the gap you are measuring shrinks to proportion. Note that it shrinks your own achievements by the identical factor — the method does not flatter you either.