Marcus Aurelius
The morning rehearsal
Go through the people you will meet today
Meditations, Book 2
Book Two opens with a preparation, not a reflection. The claim is that offence you expected does about half the damage.
What actually happened?
The first line of Book Two is a script to be said on waking: today I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, the arrogant, the deceitful, the envious, the unsocial. Then the reasoning. They are like this because they cannot tell good from harm; I can, so they cannot injure me and I will not be angry with them, since we were made to work together, like hands, like feet, like the two rows of teeth. It is a daily rehearsal, not a one-off complaint.
Expected offence lands at half strength
Most of the force in anger comes from surprise rather than from the event. Walk through the difficult turns the day may take, and when one arrives you are in of course rather than in how dare they. That gap is where a choice about the response fits.
Before the negotiation, write the three hardest things they could raise. Then you are answering, not reeling.
Rehearse your own move, not their behaviour
You cannot make the other person easier. The whole preparation lands on your side of the table: how I intend to answer, when I do not answer at all, where the line is. Turned into a list of grievances about them, it does the opposite of its job.
He will dodge the blame again is useless. When he does, I state the facts and do not defend is usable.
Assume they do not know, not that they are bad
His attribution is ignorance, not malice. The practical value is that ignorance and conflicting interests are both things you can work on, whereas once you decide the other person is bad the only move left is to fight him.
If a colleague keeps crossing a line, assume he cannot see it and say where it is. Then judge.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: there is a meeting today that you already expect to go badly.
Ask first: what is he most likely to do, and what exactly do I intend to do at that moment?
Where it goes wrong: writing the rehearsal as a list of complaints about them; or starting from malice, which leaves only one move available.
Lines to keep
We were made to work together, like the two rows of teeth.
Same situation, other people are asking
Do I fight the way he fights?They hold every card and reasoning with them changes nothing.They came at me hard. Is the thing that set them off even true?He's attacking me and I want to answer with facts.Someone is being unreasonable · all 6 questions →If this one named what you are going through,
send it to someone who needs it, or keep it somewhere you will find it again.