I’m pretty sure I’ll never forget buying Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. The boys and I were in the San Francisco airport on our way out to Australia and I was in the mood for a good book for our long flight. We were passing time waiting for our flight and we popped into the bookstore. I knew what I was looking for and highly doubted I’d find it in the tiny airport bookstore with a very limited selection. The book I was looking for was almost 2,000 years old and wasn’t on the bestseller list. As luck would have it I found one lone copy buried off to the side of a shelf. Next thing I knew I had invested $11.96 in myself.
Fast forward to two plus years later and here I am spending time re-reading it for the umpteenth time. I am continually amazed at how often I find a new nugget of information that I somehow missed before. Sometimes there was an idea that made sense but I didn’t have the right experiences to provide context. Maybe I just wans’t ready for it the first few reads. Whatever the reason, I am continuing to learn each time I pick it up.
Over the past couple of years I’ve brought it along with me anytime I’ve travelled and am sure to pick it up at least a few times. It’s possibly my most prized travel possession. I’ve learned from it, lived life better due to it, found joy in it, created joy from lessons learned from it, and so many more things to learn from it. All that for less than $12.00; that’s a pretty solid investment!
Quick side note, what really caught my brain yesterday and today was the beginning of the book. To start Marcus shares what he learned from the most important people in his life and points out what he has learned from each of them. This process in of itself has had the gears in my head turning ever since. If I were to write this who would I write about? What would I credit them for? What an excellent thought experiment!
Thanks!!!
Thankful for Forty 
I’ve just started to listen to the daily stoic podcast which refers to this book a lot, I’m really enjoying it!
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Right on! Have you checked out Ryan Holiday’s book The Obstacle is the Way? I’d highly recommend it if you’re enjoying the podcast. It’s much easier to consume than Meditations and it gave me a solid base before diving into it. Thanks for reading the blog!
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I’ve heard of it but haven’t gotten around to reading it yet – my list of books keeps getting longer!! Maybe it’s time to read it though
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LOL – there’s never enough time for all the wonderful books there are, is there? Glad to hear I’m not the only one with a list. Any awesome recent reads you’d recommend? Thx!
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I read a lot of health books for work and while I’m in Scotland a lot of books on Scotland which I dip in and out of. As far as novels though I have just finished ‘All our Wrong Todays’ which is a really interesting one it’s about a guy who time travel’s to his alternate life, but it’s not sci-fi – here’s a good reads link https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27405006-all-our-wrong-todays I also really love ‘Becoming Supernatural’ by Dr Joe Dispenza which is mostly about meditation and the changes it can make to your health and the way you preceive the world around you – also sounds a bit far out!!
‘The Blackhouse’ by Peter May is a good murder mystery and describes the stark landscape of Scotlands remote islands of the Outer Hebrides well.
Alexander McCall Smiths ‘Scotland Street’ series are hillarious and paint a remarkably funny but accurate view of living in Edinburgh. He is probably better known for his ‘Ladies Detective Agency’ series set in Botswana – same humor, different continent!
For lighter reading I like some of Jenny Colgan’s books, the ones set in Scotland, they are like an easy summer read but again her descriptions of the Scottish landscape in the summer (probably a bit optimistic) are sublime – the kind of book that is like eating a box of chocolates. ‘The Little Bookshop of Happily Ever After’ is a nice one.
You don’t have to live in Scotland to enjoy any of them. Hope you find some gems there 🙂
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Lovely blog yyou have here
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Thank you so much Sasha$
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