Introduction

Stoicism is a philosophical school which began in ancient Greece and later became dominant in ancient Rome. It teaches us about calm, resilience and emotional stability. The practice continues to have an impact in our present life. Great incredible people such as Theodore Roosevelt, General James Madison, Beatrice Webb and many others have been influenced even thousands of years later.

This book is one I revisit time and again. It gives an excellent viewpoint from Marcus Aurelius’ life, emotions and adversity. A roman emperor from 161 to 180, wrote this famous book Meditations as a way to remind himself how to live and as a guide in his own life. It was never intended to be made public or published, but instead was written by him as a way to remind himself of how to live his life, as a way to control his frustrations, his emotions underneath the stress of his responsibilities, and how to be a better person. What’s different about this book, it was written for the writer himself and not for an audience. Many translations have been made. Gregory Hays’ translation is the one I read. One must understand where Marcus Aurelius comes from and his life story to really grasp the importance of his philosophy and how when given his power, did not want the position. The book impacts even great people now, even though he never considered himself a philosopher.

3 takeaways:

• The stress or suffering you feel has more to do with how you react than the event itself. “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”
• Amor fati – Although words never exactly used by Marcus Aurelius. Meaning “love of one’s fate”. We must see suffering and loss neither as good or bad but as part of nature.
• Memento mori – Probablywhat most resonated with me. A reminder of the inevitability of death. Focus more on what truly matters and less of what doesn’t.

Suffering and adversities

Imagine this, your boss at work tells you upper management is giving out a promotion you didn’t even know about to your work colleague. Now imagine in a different scenario, you hear about a promotion with higher pay is going to be announced in the end of the week. Friday comes around and the announcement is given. Your colleague receives it and not you. The suffering and stress occurs due to it being unexpected but at the end, the outcome was the same. Why is it?

Another example. You’ve been waiting all week for the Champions Final and you finally arrive home from a terrible day at school. But your little brother decides he wants to use the only TV in your house to watch his cartoons and your parents are in his favour. How would that make you feel? Now imagine you can’t watch the game because your family didn’t pay the subscription fee to watch the channel it was being broadcasted in. It is the things we seem we have control of that makes us angry when things don’t result as we want but not when it is not in our control. And again, the outcome was the same.

This is explained clearly in just one of Marcus Aurelius’ quote. “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” It isn’t the event itself that causes our suffering, but how we react to it that ultimately affects us. A great example of this is how Thomas Edison reacted, when in 1914 a great fire in his lab complex destroyed almost his whole operation. The fire spread over 5 city blocks. This man at 67 years of age, watching how this great fire was engulfing and destroying his life’s work telling his son to get his mother. “Go get her! Tell her to get her friends! They’ll never see a fire like this again!” The following day he stated “We’ve just cleared out a bunch of old rubbish! We’ll build bigger and better on these ruins.”

There are bad things that happen in life, and that is just the reality. Death of loved ones, fights with closest friends, things not going the way we want, all this has been occurring since the beginning of humanity. Not to diminish our own suffering, but someone always does have it worse, the difference, some use these adversities, as challenges and result in better characters. Use these challenges as a sailboat uses the wind. Life is full of problems, it has to, it is normal. The solution to one problem just creates better problems. Think about this: you finally receive the promotion you’ve been working hard for. It comes with a pay raise, you’re finally able to pay off your mortgage, but now you have more responsibilities in your job and more stress. Life is supposed to be hard, it’s supposed to challenge you. How else would you improve? Just as a muscle is supposed to grow only when it is challenged with heavier weights. You are not special, and that is a good thing. Pain is not here to stay. You control your problems, not the other way around.

Quotes on this topic by Marcus Aurelius

• “If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
• “You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
• “Our inward power reacts to events by accommodating itself to what it faces… it turns obstacles into fuel.”
• “It’s fortunate that this has happened and I’ve remained unharmed by it. It could have happened to anyone. But not everyone could have remained unharmed by it.”
• “Nothing happens to anyone that he can’t endure.”
• “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
• “It’s normal to feel pain in your hands and feet, if you’re using your feet as feet and your hands as hands. And for a human being to feel stress is normal – how can it be bad?”

The value in other people’s opinions

Have you ever noticed the criticism from the people we least like makes us the angriest? We all know these people, the ones who we try to limit our time in their presence, the ones who you would not hang out with outside of work, the ones who you would least likely ask for a favour. So why is it we give them something so important such as value to their opinions? Do you really need to impress them?

No one who is truly successful will criticize you. Think about some of the most successful people in our present life. Elon Musk or Bill Gates. Do you imagine they would spend their time negatively criticizing someone? I believe they think these people would rather much benefit from their advice or guidance.

We must also watch ourselves when we are the ones criticizing. There are plenty of things we don’t like, plenty of things governments do we don’t like, but what are we doing to change any of that? I bet you’re not doing anything right if you’re living your life gossiping, complaining, or angry at what others are doing. Next time a co-worker makes you angry, doesn’t fulfill part of his obligation, or makes a mistake think about the last time you did the same. “We are born to work together.”

Other’s negative actions towards you speaks more about themselves than it does about you. “If the smoke makes me cough, I can leave.” Do not let others hold you back. If you were to look at humanity as a whole, you will see there are more good people than evil. Just look at how we help each other when there are world-wide or national catastrophes. Do not let the few bad cloud your view of the good. Do not let them control you. Anger is weakness. You can’t control other people’s emotions, do not let their emotions bother you, but treat them with respect anyway. Your emotions make you feel worse than the actual insult.

Quotes on this topic by Marcus Aurelius

• “It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.”
• “But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own.”
• “So other people hurt me? That’s their problem. Their character and actions are not mine.”
• “Generations To Come will be the same annoying people they know now. And just as mortal. What does it matter to you if they say x about you, or think y?”
• “To live a good life: We have the potential for it. If we can learn to be indifferent to what makes no difference.”
• “How much more anger and grief do than the things that cause them.”

Memento mori

The world ends each and every day. How? Every day people die, the whole world as they know it vanishes, it disappears completely. What is left? Nothing. They can’t argue, they can’t feel, they can’t see how everyone goes on with their lives as if nothing happened. Patients I see in the hospital who have no hope in improving their health and are dying want to know how long they have to live. Somehow knowing how many days, months, years they can live makes them feel better and in fact live their last few moments happier than before. Live each day as if it were your last and I don’t mean in the shock and disbelief, denial, pain, anger, bargaining, or depression stages. I mean in the acceptance stage and each day you wake up view it as a bonus.

When I personally feel overwhelmed, tired, burnt out, I say these two words to myself and it reminds me that this is just transitory, it does not matter in the end. Do not live to impress, not even to yourself. Yes, you will be remembered by your children, perhaps your grandchildren, but eventually there will be a generation who does not know your name. Can you name your grandfather’s grandfather? How many people have come before you and had great lives, where are they now? Dead, just like you will be. Compare the years you will live in Earth to how long humanity has been here. We are but a grain of sand in a desert. Why not enjoy what little we have here?

Live to be happy, to enjoy the moment. Remember, memento mori. You lose your job, your spouse cheats on you, you don’t get the promotion, someone lies to you, someone betrays you. Memento mori. You break your leg, your dog gets run over, your child is sick, you don’t receive that scholarship. Memento mori. You win the lottery, your first son is born, your team wins the final, you get a pay raise. Memento mori. This means you can’t let bad things weigh in on you and you can’t let the good things blind you, “indifference to superficial honors”. Your flight is delayed, your order at restaurant is wrong, that person in a plane next to you is breathing too loud, why take it seriously? Why do I let it get to me? This pales in comparison to where we all end up.

It is a reminder to accept the good things without arrogance and shrug off the bad things. We can’t control any of it. What we can control is our time, whether we let it ruin our day, let it waste our time, is this how you want to spend it? The time we have now is all we truly own. Do not waste it.

Memento mori. I am going to die. Our days are numbered, don’t wait to do what it is you want to do. You are not going to live for a thousand years. We will never be here again.

Quotes on this topic by Marcus Aurelius

• “Remember: you cannot lose another life than the one you’re living now, or live another one than the one you’re losing.”
• “For you can’t lose either the past or the future; how could you lose what you don’t have?”
• “Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest has been lived already, or is impossible to see. The span we live is small – small as the corner of the earth in which we live it.”

Conclusion

If I can summarize this book in one sentence it would be this: Be satisfied with what you have and you won’t need anything else, and don’t let external forces dictate your feelings. This satisfaction is different among many people. Some are satisfied watching television and eating a whole bag of chips. Others are not satisfied until they achieve the Nobel peace prize. But remember this: people will forget about you, and those who do remember you will soon die and be forgotten. This includes both people who love you and people who hate you. So, do everything for personal growth and happiness, not for fame or glory. Picture yourself with nothing, losing everything you have now. Then receiving it all again. Wouldn’t you value it more? Only then will you see how much it is you really have. The same with your life. Imagine yourself in your deathbed already having lived your life. What is it you wish you would have done? Would you even remember the bad things? Now take what is left of your life and live it well. “If you don’t have a consistent goal in life, you can’t live it in a consistent way.”