내면의 비겁함 극복하기: 마르쿠스 아우렐리우스의 원칙

### 내면의 겁쟁이를 극복하고 용기를 내기 위한 마르쿠스 아우렐리우스의 '명상'에 담긴 5가지 원칙
* 🔍 "사람을 탓하지 말고 해결책을 찾아보세요." 남을 탓하는 것은 문제 해결을 위한 진전을 방해하는 경우가 많습니다. 대신 **마틴 루터 킹 주니어처럼 해결책에 집중**하고 변화를 주도하기 위해 책임을 다하세요.
* 🧠 "스스로 판단하지 마세요." 결정을 내린 후에는 **소신 있게 행동**하여 지나치게 고민하거나 소극적인 겁쟁이가 되지 않도록 하세요.
* 🌟 "실수에서 아름다움을 찾아보세요." 일본의 킨츠기 예술처럼 **실수를 배우고 성장할 수 있는 기회**로 받아들이세요.
* "자신을 낮추세요." 교만과 비겁은 밀접한 관련이 있으므로 **겸손은 실수나 자존심에 상처를 입는 것을 두려워하지 않음**으로써 더 용기를 낼 수 있게 해줍니다.
* 🌠 "최선을 다하고 모든 일이 뜻대로 풀릴 것이라는 믿음을 가지세요." 때때로 가장 강력한 용기는 **불확실성 속에서도 일이 예정대로 전개될 것이라는 믿음**을 갖는 데서 나옵니다.

마르쿠스 아우렐리우스의 '명상'에 나오는 다섯 가지 원칙을 따르면 내면의 비겁함을 극복하고 더욱 용감해질 수 있습니다.

During his reign as the emperor of Rome, Marcus Aurelius faced immense uncertainties that would strike fear into the hearts of most people, such as times of war, plague, internal conspiracies, the death of some of his children, and the death of his wife. Yet, he faced all of these problems with an unshakable courage. The secret to his unshakable courage lies within a collection of notes he wrote to himself roughly 2000 years ago, many of them written in the midst of war, with the gravity of imminent death on his mind. Today, this collection of notes is referred to as Meditations, and based on my readings of these notes, I've determined 5 principles that we can use, like Marcus, to overcome our inner cowards and become courageous. Along the way, you will hear many other stories and ideas that are not from Marcus, and they will help illuminate the emperor’s words in greater depth.

So without further ado, let’s begin our journey through the 5 principles. Look for solutions, not people to blame. Our inner cowards love to look for people to blame rather than solutions, because it passes off the difficult burden of making real change to someone else. And for many people, asking them not to blame others seems like too high of a demand. “Sometimes other people are responsible for the negative circumstances in our lives,” they say. And to that, I would agree, but looking for people to blame will often be counter-productive to finding a solution to your problems, because instead of arguing over the correct way to solve the problem at hand, you will begin arguing about who's really to blame for the situation. You will blame someone, and they in turn will blame someone, and then that person will blame someone, and so on back to the beginning of time. As Marcus Aurelius said, “Blame no one.

Set people straight, if you can. If not, just repair the damage. And suppose you can’t do that either. Then where does blaming people get you?” A courageous person, on the other hand, looks
for solutions, not people to blame. When trying to solve the problem of segregation
and racial inequality in the United States of America, Martin Luther King Jr. did not
blame all white people. He even said that we must realize so many
people are taught to hate us that they are not totally responsible for their hate. He demonstrated incredible empathy in a situation
where blame would have been so easy. He didn’t view the struggle in America as
being between blacks and whites, but rather, as he said in his own words, a conflict between
justice and injustice. Rather than looking for people to point the
finger at or waiting for someone else to come fix his problem, he took responsibility for
the situation at hand and helped develop a proactive movement around the tenets of nonviolence,
noncooperation with evil, unity, and love.

And along with the other citizens of Montgomery,
he set a revolution in motion, not through blame, but by setting an example, and by becoming
the change he wanted to see in the world. Don’t second guess yourself. Today, when we say, don't second guess yourself,
it doesn't mean to act without thinking deeply about the consequences of your actions, but
rather, once you have made a decision, act with conviction and strength. Don't let doubt, hyperplanning, and overthinking
turn you into a passive coward. There's a short poem called The Centipede's
Dilemma, often attributed to Katherine Craster, that shows the relationship between overthinking
and cowardice. In the poem, a centipede is walking along
without problems until, suddenly, a toad asks it how it coordinates all one hundred of its
legs to move forward. The centipede thinks about it and realizes
that it has no idea.

And now the centipede is no longer able to
walk, confused about how to coordinate its legs. Another phrase for this condition is paralysis
by analysis. When we overthink our actions, we become paralyzed
by confusion and are no longer able to act courageously like we once did. While we’ve obviously been gifted with mental
faculties that allow us to reflect and plan, these faculties only exist to enhance how
we act in the present. We were made to act, not just reflect and
plan. Spending too much time in the past or future
eventually makes cowards of us all, because it is thinking that gives rise to fear. But when our attention is brought fully to
the present moment, courage is inevitable, because there’s no longer time to dwell
on all of the things that could go wrong. In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius wrote, “[Concentrate
every minute on doing what’s in front of you] with precise and genuine seriousness…[free]
yourself from all other distractions…stop

letting your emotions override what your mind tells you…” Find the beauty in your mistakes. Making mistakes in life is inevitable, so if you fear making one, you will inevitably become a coward, afraid to act for fear of doing things the wrong way. The way to overcome your inner coward is by finding the beauty in making mistakes. The Japanese art of Kintsugi allows you to transform a broken item into something beautiful by repairing the cracks in it with a gold, silver, or platinum lacquer. The cracks in the item are not meant to be ignored or covered up, but rather, they become the central focus and the most beautiful parts of the item. The art of Kintsugi teaches us that every mistake contains a greater beauty in it, but you have to be willing to look for it. Every mistake is a lesson waiting to be discovered, and every lesson you learn only makes your soul more beautiful. In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius said, “If anyone can refute me—show me I’m making

a mistake or looking at things from the wrong
perspective—I’ll gladly change. It’s the truth I’m after, and the truth
never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit
and ignorance.” Humble yourself. Although it may seem odd at first, humility
and courage are intimately connected. In the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes,
two scammers visit an emperor and attempt to sell him a suit. They tell him that the suit is a special one
and that it’s invisible to those who are foolish or incompetent. Intrigued, the emperor, who enjoys spending
his kingdom’s money on luxuries for himself, puts an order in for the suit. Upon completion, the scammers show the emperor
his suit, which is actually non-existent. But the emperor, who is incredibly vain and
prideful, does not want to be thought of as foolish or incompetent, so he says that he
is happy with his suit and will wear it at

the next parade. And so, the emperor, strutting his new suit
in front of his subjects, gets called out by a little boy. “The emperor has no clothes on!” says
the boy, pointing and laughing. This little story illustrates the connection
between pride and cowardice. When you are too prideful, you also become
cowardly and avoid anything that might bruise your ego, like the emperor who would not admit
that he could not see the non-existent suit, for fear of looking foolish and incompetent. So humble yourself, and you will become more
courageous because you will not fear making mistakes, being wrong, or bruising your ego. Or, as Marcus Aurelius said, “Remember:
Matter. How tiny your share of it. Time. How brief and fleeting your allotment of it. Fate. How small a role you play in it.” Do your best and trust that things will work
out the way they’re meant to.

Sometimes the strongest courage comes out of the deepest faith. In 2008, in the midst of the global financial crisis, Starbucks faced the potential of complete collapse. They had scaled their business too quickly, lost the quality cafe experience that customers had come to love, and were facing formidable competition, such as McDonald’s new McCafe offerings. Their future was incredibly uncertain, and so their former CEO, Howard Schultz, decided to step up once more as head of the company. And in his book Onward, when speaking about what it took to bring the company back from the dead, Schultz said, “There are moments in our lives when we summon the courage to make choices that go against reason, against common sense and the wise counsel of people we trust. But we lean forward nonetheless because, despite all risks and rational argument, we believe that the path we are choosing is the right and best thing to do. We refuse to be bystanders, even if we do not know exactly where our actions will lead.”

In other words, he acknowledged the connection
between faith and courage. Before he could have the courage to act, he
needed to have faith that things would work out the way they were meant to. While Schultz did have somewhat of a strategy
of how he would try and resurrect Starbucks, it was his faith that things would work out
the way they were meant to that allowed him to have the courage to put together and implement
his strategy in the first place. Sometimes you just have to do your best and
have faith that things will work out the way they are meant to, even if that means things
don’t go the way you expect. Or, as Marcus Aurelius wrote about the true
stoic, “He does only what is his to do, and considers constantly what the world has
in store for him—doing his best, and trusting that all is for the best. For we carry our fate with us—and it carries
us.” Conclusion. So these are the five principles we went over
today based on Meditations by Marcus Aurelius:

Look for solutions, not people to blame. Don’t second guess yourself. Find the beauty in your mistakes. Humble yourself. Do your best, and trust that things will work
out the way they’re meant to. And by following these five principles, you
can overcome your inner coward and become more courageous. This was just my interpretation of Marcus
Aurelius’ work, and if you’re interested in hearing more of my interpretations on his
work, check out my last video called “Marcus Aurelius - How to Become Who You Are”.

Marcus Aurelius - Overcome Your Inner Coward

Freedom in Thought

내면의 비겁함 극복하기: 마르쿠스 아우렐리우스의 교훈

마르쿠스 아우렐리우스는 로마 황제로 재위하는 동안 용기를 가지고 수많은 도전에 직면했습니다.

명상록으로 알려진 그의 메모집에는 내면의 비겁함을 극복하기 위한 5가지 원칙이 담겨 있습니다.

이 원칙 중 하나는 인종 불평등에 맞서 싸우던 마틴 루터 킹 주니어가 보여준 것처럼 남을 탓하는 대신 해결책을 찾고 공감을 표하며 적극적으로 책임을 지는 것입니다.

지나친 생각 대신 행동을 취하는 것이 변화와 용기를 위한 촉매제로 강조됩니다.

'지네의 딜레마'라는 시를 통해 지나친 생각이 어떻게 분석에 의한 마비로 이어져 용기 있는 행동을 방해하는지를 설명합니다.

마르쿠스 아우렐리우스의 "명상록"에 나오는 인용구처럼 현재 순간에 집중하는 것이 두려움을 극복하고 용기를 가지고 행동하는 데 필수적임을 강조하고 있습니다.

실수에서 아름다움을 찾다: 킨츠기의 철학

실수에는 독특한 아름다움과 소중한 교훈이 담겨 있기 때문에 실수를 포용하는 것은 필수적입니다.

일본의 킨츠기 예술은 깨진 물건을 귀금속 옻칠로 수리하여 균열을 가장 아름다운 부분으로 만드는 것으로 이를 잘 보여줍니다.

교만과 자기기만은 해로울 뿐이므로 실수를 인정하고 변화에 열려 있는 겸손은 매우 중요합니다.

황제의 새 옷 이야기는 실수를 인정하는 것의 중요성을 강조하면서 겸손과 용기의 연관성을 보여줍니다.

자부심, 용기, 겸손의 연결고리

황제의 새 옷 이야기에서 볼 수 있듯이 교만은 비겁함과 틀릴지도 모른다는 두려움으로 이어질 수 있습니다.

마르쿠스 아우렐리우스의 조언처럼 겸손은 불확실성에 직면했을 때 더 큰 용기와 믿음으로 이어질 수 있습니다.

스타벅스 위기 당시 하워드 슐츠의 행동은 불확실한 결과에도 불구하고 역경 속에서도 과감한 선택을 할 수 있는 용기를 보여주었습니다.

하워드 슐츠가 스타벅스를 부활시킬 수 있었던 용기의 열쇠는 바로 믿음이었습니다.

그의 전략은 모든 일이 뜻대로 풀릴 것이라는 믿음에 바탕을 두고 있었습니다.

이는 마르쿠스 아우렐리우스가 주창한 것처럼 최선을 다하고 일이 뜻대로 펼쳐질 것이라는 믿음의 원칙을 반영한 것입니다.