Let go of attachment to material things from "summary" of The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius by Marcus Aurelius (Emperor of Rome)
When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I 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.
Remember: Matter. How tiny your share of it. Time. How brief and fleeting your allotment of it. Fate. How small a role you play in it.
On the occasion of every act ask yourself, How is this helping me to fulfill my purpose? What ails you that you see so superfluity in the world?
Everything fades so quickly, turns into legend, and soon oblivion covers it. And those are the ones who shone. The rest, in a short time, have changed, are changed, and will change - not just their minds, but their very bodies as well. We cannot know for certain that our bodies and minds continue beyond the grave, nor can we be sure that this life is all there is. So let us put aside our attachment to material things, recognizing their impermanence and focusing instead on fulfilling our purpose and cultivating virtues that transcend both this life and the next.
