Sit down. calmly take a few breaths and count to 10.  Now, are you relaxed?  Good!  This is indeed a great meditation.  It is Marcus Aurelius to himself from his “Meditations” Book 4 (I tried to make it less “Roman” while still preserving the beauty with some edits.  Let me know how I did, please):

“Do not waste the remainder of your life in thoughts about others, when you do not refer your thoughts to some object of common utility. For then, you lose the opportunity of doing something else more productive when you have these thoughts. “What is such a person doing and why?  What is he saying, and what is he thinking of, and what is he contriving?”  And whatever else of the kind makes us wander away from the observation of our own rational behavior.

We ought then to check our thoughts for everything that is without a purpose, but most of all the over-curious feeling malignant thoughts; and a man should use himself to think of those things only about which if one should suddenly ask, “What are you thinking about?”  With perfect openness you could, immediately answer, This or That; so that from your words it should be plain that everything in you is simple and benevolent, and such as befits a virtuous social being, and one that cares not for thoughts about pleasure or sensual enjoyments at all, nor has any rivalry or envy and suspicion, or anything else for which you would blush if you should say that you had it in your mind.

For the man who is such and no longer delays being among the number of the best, is like a priest and minister of the gods, using too the deity which is planted within him, which makes the man uncontaminated by pleasure, unharmed by any pain, untouched by any insult, feeling no wrong, a fighter in the noblest fight, one who cannot be overpowered by any passion, dyed deep with justice, accepting with all his soul everything which happens and is assigned to him as his portion; and not often, nor yet without great necessity and for the general interest, imagining what another says, or does, or thinks. For it is only what belongs to himself that he makes the matter for his activity; and he constantly thinks of that which is allotted to himself out of the sum total of things, and he makes his own acts fair, and he is persuaded that his own portion is good. For the lot which is assigned to each man is carried along with him and carries him along with it.

And he remembers also that every rational animal is his kinsman, and that to care for all men is according to man’s nature; and a man should hold on to the opinion not of all, but of those only who confessedly live according to nature. But as to those who do not live this way, he always bears in mind what kind of men they are both at home and from home, both by night and by day, and what they are, and with what men they live an impure life. Accordingly, he does not value at all the praise which comes from such men, since they are not even satisfied with themselves.”

As with all great passages, reading it again will reveal EVEN MORE.