Turning the gaze around. Ordinary desire lives in the future tense: the absent (τὰ ἀπόντα) is imagined "as already ours" — and boredom owns the present while longing owns the absent. Marcus reverses the optics: pick out "the choicest" (τὰ δεξιώτατα) of TERMwhat is present and "remind yourself how it would be sought, were it not here" (πῶς ἂν ἐπεζητεῖτο, εἰ μὴ παρῆν). This is a EXERCISEpraemeditatio in reverse: not a rehearsal of future evils but an imagined removal of present goods — a thought-experiment that restores the taste of things. Health, eyesight, a friend, a quiet morning — picture the hunt for them from the vantage of their absence, and the present flares up as a prize rather than a backdrop.

The safety-catch. And immediately the second beat, without which the first is dangerous: φυλάσσου — "beware" lest by such savouring (ἀσμενίζειν) you train yourself to overvalue (ἐθίσῃς ἐκτιμᾶν) these things — "so that, should they ever not be here, you will be shaken" (ταραχθήσεσθαι). Gratitude must heighten the relish of preferred indifferents without raising their axiological rank: to enjoy — yes; to depend — no. It is the same "reservation in affection" as in Epictetus (Ench. 3: kissing your child, say to yourself "I kiss a mortal"). The passage's precision lies in balancing two errors: craving for the absent and bondage to the present are one disease of desire in two phases. The discipline is desire.