Place it in the scale of the whole

Set your problem against the size of the universe and the brevity of all human time.

Why it works

Marcus constantly widens the frame — whole continents, all of recorded time, the people who will soon forget us all. Enlarging the spatial and temporal scale shrinks the apparent size of the immediate problem and interrupts the tunnel vision of stress, where the current trouble fills the entire field of view.

How to do it

1. Picture your situation from far above — the city, the continent, the planet.
2. Then set it in time: a century from now, who remembers this, and does it still rank?
3. Return and re-rate the problem’s real size — then pick one proportionate action.

Evidence

Maps onto construal-level and self-distancing research: a distanced, wider-scale perspective on a stressor reliably lowers emotional reactivity and reactive thinking. (observational)

Self-distancing is well studied; the specific "cosmic view" imagery is the Stoic delivery vehicle. Overused, distancing can become avoidance of a problem that needs action.

Common mistake

Sliding from proportion into "nothing matters" nihilism. The Stoic move ends in calmer, proportionate action — not in shrugging off things that genuinely require you.