Marcus Aurelius isn't simply advising stoic acceptance—he's identifying surprise itself as the real problem. When you're astonished by life's difficulties, you're implicitly claiming the world should work differently than it actually does, which is a form of arrogance dressed as misfortune. Notice he calls surprise "ridiculous," not sad or unfair; he's pointing out the logical absurdity of expecting a world governed by chance and human weakness to behave like your imagined version. When your flight gets cancelled or a friend disappoints you, the sting often comes less from the event itself than from that split second of *how could this happen?*—and recognizing that thought as the unnecessary second wound changes everything.