Run straight along the line

Look back at the week. The promotion that went sideways. The two columns — what it cost, what you added. The small slights you declined to sign for. The corner you didn't cut and the opening you didn't take. The dig at home you finally dropped. One thread runs through all of it: when you're wronged, almost all your energy wants to go toward them — what they did, what they deserve, how they'll be exposed. And almost none of that is yours to control.

Marcus found the exit: "How much trouble he avoids who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks, but only to what he does himself, that it may be just and pure... run straight along the line without deviating from it" (Meditations 4.18, Long). The wrongdoer is a distraction the wrong installs in your head. The only line you actually steer is your own.

Being wronged and not retaliating is one thing. What you do with the heat that's left — that's next week, when we turn to anger at work. For now: someone wronged you, and you stayed yourself. That's the win that doesn't depend on them.