So much anguish and anxiety we experience is simply in our heads. Furthermore, people know this and depend on the fact that they can get into other peoples' heads! But the key here is that we have to let other people into our heads for them to have sway over us. And knowing that we can let other people into our heads, we also know we can just as quickly kick them out.
Our mind is a citadel and we have complete control over what we choose to assent to or not. Furthermore, we can judge those impressions that come to us - this power is up to us.
To have the discipline of assent, the first step is to simply break things down. Marcus does this over and over again in his Meditations.
What does breaking things down mean? Book 3, chapter 11 teaches us that it means making "a definition or sketch of what presents itself to your mind, so you can see its essential nature and identify it clearly, in whole and in all its parts, and can tell yourself its proper name and the names of those elements of which it is compounded and into which it will be dissolved."
You can immediately do this with the most alluring of objects in your life: seeking fame, consumerism, sex, money, power, perfect health. No matter the indifferent, you can break it down into something less alluring.
Breaking these things down is the process of taking the glamour and prestige and knocking it down. A diamond ring is just a piece of compressed carbon. Fame is just the clapping of hands and mouths. Money is just paper.
Break the allure.
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