Consultant's Prayer

I am a manager at a well-known consulting firm. I oversee training efforts that support large-scale software implementations, mostly for governmental agencies, and large, international companies. On some days, I feel I am trudging through a swamp of politics, us vs. them thinking, and resentment that a consulting firm was deemed necessary. Turns out Roman Emperor Marcus Aerelius (A.D. 121-180) felt the same way. His meditation below brings me some peace on the tough days. I hope it does the same for you.

When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I will deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions.

Marcus Aerelius’ Meditations, a New Translation by Gregory Hays