@njp1013 , I have read Meditations, and it is an excellent collection of recollections and of advice. I loved it. Also, I have done some study of Stoicism, but I don't share their beliefs on Fate, in the end. I do sympathize with their ideas that my character and my virtue can be separated from the pain that occurs from without. I'm still sorting out my philosophical tenets from those I have held in the past, and I don't believe that I have absolute free will but am circumscribed by my own weaknesses or distance from the ideal.