Marcus Aurelius on naming what you owe to each person. From Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, about 175 AD.
The first book of the notebook ends with a short note: “Among the Quadi at the Granua.”
The Granua is today’s Hron, a river in Slovakia. The Quadi were a tribe Rome was at war with.
So the emperor wrote it in an army camp in enemy country, in the 170s. And what he wrote there was a thank-you list.
Marcus Aurelius opened his notebook with a list, written in an army camp among the Quadi on the Granua river. One by one he named what he owed each person: a calm temper from his grandfather, a simple life from his mother, a gentle way of correcting people from a grammar teacher, and pages of lessons from his adoptive father.
You are partly made of other people, and it is worth knowing whose. Practical advice: write one line for each person who shaped you, and send one of them theirs.
Well established · checked against 5 sourcesWrite one line about someone who shaped you, and send it to them.
“I rarely thank the people who shaped me. How do I tell an old teacher what they gave me?”
List Who Made You and the other 11 ideas of Meditations, a minute at a time.
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