Just as we commonly hear people say the doctor prescribed someone particular riding exercises, or ice baths, or walking without shoes, we should in the same way say that nature prescribed someone to be diseased, or disabled, or to suffer any kind of impairment. In the case of the doctor, prescribed means something ordered to help aid someone’s healing. But in the case of nature, it means that what happens to each of us is ordered to help aid our destiny.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.8
The Stoics were masters at analogies and used them as a tool to help strengthen their reasoning.
Here, Marcus observes how willingly we will put up with unpleasantness if commanded to by the magic words “doctor’s order.” The doctor says you’ve got to take this nasty medicine, and you’ll do it. The doctor tells you you have to start sleeping hanging upside down like a bat. You’ll feel silly, but soon enough you’ll get to dangling because you think it will make you better.
On the other hand, when it comes to external events, we fight like hell if anything happens contrary to our plans. But what if, Marcus asks, a doctor had prescribed this exact thing as a part of our treatment? What if this was as good for us as medicine?
Well, what if?
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman