“When thou hast been compelled by circumstances to be disturbed in a manner, quickly return to thyself and do not continue out of tune longer than the compulsion lasts; for thou wilt have more mastery over the harmony by continually recurring to it. ” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

The Stoics teach us that all events and creatures of nature are connected. That although connected we do not have control over events only our reactions to them. So as in this picture where the perfectly calm and serene state of the glass like water was disturbed, not out of malice or an attempt to ruin the reflection, but just out of the natural way of things such as a fish eating bugs on the surface of the water. The reflection doesn’t stop and the scene, really, no less beautiful. No matter the attempts made to suppress the ripples they will still run their course. In fact attempting to stop the natural course of events could actually worsen the disruption in the peacefulness. So as a matter of our own lives we can learn from this. When our bliss, our calm is disturbed by what ever forces in nature or the world around us. The more we worry about setbacks and fight them, trying to stop every issue, trying to control every event, all we are doing is thrashing in the water and disrupting the entire scene. We have the choice to remain calm accept the disruption for what it is let the ripples of disturbance run their course and get back to calm eventually. In fact we could actually take this change and not look at it as a disruption but an unexpected beauty or challenge, not to fight with but to flow with.