In every case, they’ve got like this because of their ignorance of good and bad. But I have seen goodness and badness for what they are, and I know what is good is what is morally right, and what is bad is what is morally wrong, and I’ve seen the true nature of the wrongdoer himself and know that he’s related to me…

There is no debating the challenges of dealing with others; this was true two thousand years ago for Marcus Aurelius and is still true today. The option to respond with patience is always available.

Marcus Aurelius concluded the passage this way,

None of them can harm me, anyway, because none of them can infect me with immortality, nor can I become angry with someone who’s related to me, or hate him, because we were born to work together, like feet or hands or eyelids, like the rows of upper and lower teeth. To work against each other is therefore unnatural — and anger and rejection count as working against.

Similarly, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche advised, “In the end, we are always rewarded for our goodwill, patience, fair-mindedness, and gentleness with what is strange.”