“In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present—I am rising to the work of a human being.”

📕 Meditations, book 5, section 1, in George Long's translation of 1862. I kept it because it is about getting up, not about greatness. The most powerful man in the Roman world is arguing with his own blanket, and the argument he uses is modest: this is simply what a person is for.

It is the line I say, not always kindly, on the stairs before 🔹 Walk before screens. The longer passage is worked through in 📖 Marcus Aurelius on the morning.