“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.” – Marcus Aurelius
While Marcus Aurelius is probably best known as the kindly old emperor offed by Commodus in Gladiator, the real man behind the fictional character was the last of Rome’s “Five Good Emperors” and was also an insightful philosopher.
I came across this quote of his the other day, and I was struck by the note of truth it sounded. It reminded me of a passage from one of my favorite books, Mere Christianity.
“Every time you make a choice, you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And, taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a Heaven creature or into a hellish creature — either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is Heaven: that is, it is joy, and peace, and knowledge, and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.” – C.S. Lewis
How true – and what a potent reminder that every day we are presented with choices, and the choices we make shape who we are in eternity.
To steal from Gladiator, since I mentioned it: “What we do in life… echoes in eternity.”
