The Daily Stoic

In Marcus Aurelius’s time, Roman religion was a hodgepodge of different rituals and ideas, which were evident in Marcus’s own behavior. For instance, he deified his wife and his stepfather Antoninius, but at the same time spoke repeatedly about how this life we are living is all there is. It goes without saying that he also rejected the teachings of the Christians, who he thought of—as a product of his time—as threats to the authority of the empire, but it also turns out that the Stoics and the Christians held beliefs that were much closer than Marcus understood. Particularly as it related to hell.As far as we know, the Stoics didn’t believe in hell. Their writings make only a few vague allusions to the idea of an afterlife. Similarly, the idea of “hell” is not as clear in Christianity as conventional wisdom might dictate. Nowhere in the Bible is there anything close to the hell that believers talk about today—a place where bad people and nonbelievers go after they die to be tortured and punished for their sins for all eternity. Even the word “hell,” which varies from translation to translation, appears only a few times, with different contextual meanings in each case. One of the most frequent occurrences is as the word “Gehenna,” which was an actual, literal place—though admittedly not a good one (there is some thought that it was Jerusalem’s trash dump).What might Jesus and the Christians have been speaking of when they spoke of hell? Perhaps it was the same thing the Stoics spoke of—not a place that we go after we die, but a place far too many people are in right now, based on how they’ve chosen to live. Marcus Aurelius didn’t warn against indulging and cheating and lying and stealing because he thought you’d be punished for it later. He knew these “pleasures” would produce tortures in the here and now. As Rob Bell, the pastor and author, writes in his beautiful book Love Wins:“People choose to live in their own hells all the time. We do it every time we isolate ourselves, give the cold shoulder to someone who has slighted us, every time we hide knives in our words, every time we harden our hearts in defiance of what we know to be the loving, good, and right thing to do.” Whatever you believe—whether you’re closer to Marcus Aurelius or a follower of Jesus—there is something to learn from where these two schools converge. It’s a matter of faith whether hell exists after death. It is a fact that it exists here on earth—in Gehenna and in our souls. If there is hell in the after life, whether or not you go there will be God’s decision. The hell that exists for certain right here and now, you can choose to take up residence in or move as far away from as you possibly can.So what’s it going to be?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There was a Stoic named Diotimus who messed up. Like really messed up. Sometime around the turn of the first century BC, he committed what can only be described as an unjustifiable crime. He forged dozens and dozens of letters that framed the rival philosopher Epicurus as a sinful glutton and depraved maniac. It was an act of despicable philosophical slander, and Diotimus was quickly brought up on charges.Some accounts say he was executed for this crime, but that seems unlikely. Chances are he was exiled or fined, which is actually more interesting: What does a Stoic do after they really screw up? What can they do?Perhaps we can take a cue from the name of the podcast hosted by Lance Armstrong, another guy who has made big mistakes. What does Lance call his podcast? He calls it The Forward. Because that’s really the only thing you can do in life: go forward. That’s what Lance is trying to do with his life now. Move on and move forward, as best he can. When you do something wrong, you can’t go back and undo it. When you hurt someone, you can apologize, you can say you didn’t mean to, but you can’t undo the harm, you can’t unring the bell. Ultimately, you can only move forward—and try to make it right by learning from it and not doing it again. The same principle applies when you fall short of your own standards, and you let yourself down. Big or small, crimes and mistakes exist only in the past. They can no longer be touched. All you can do is decide what happens next. All you can decide is how you will write the rest of the story. You can move forward, building on the lessons of your mistake; or you can stay rooted in place, trying futilely to reach back into the past to erase what has been done. This is how cover-ups happen. This is how mistakes get compounded. Lance can tell you about those too—which were probably his biggest mistakes when it was all said and done.We don’t know what Diotimus did next, unfortunately, or how his story ended. Hopefully, he moved forward and never did anything like it again. All we can do is try to learn from his failings, and to improve ourselves accordingly.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s easy to whitewash history, to look back at a group of people who did an incredible thing and assume they were all on the same page when it happened. We forget the egos and the personality flaws. We forget their struggles and infighting.The Founding Fathers of America are a great example of this. They can seem like a unified group of wise superhumans—beyond the passions or tempers that rule our lives—but, of course, they were anything but. According to Thomas Jefferson, John Adams was the kind of guy who “always governed by the feeling of the moment,” and given his fragile, insecure personality, this did not serve him well. Think of Jefferson himself, whose lust and hypocrisy not only tolerated slavery, but allowed him to justify owning a human being, Sally Jennings, he claimed to love. He was also a bit of a coward, and an ungrateful political intriguer. Hamilton was so ruled by his passions he not only cheated on his wife, but got himself killed in a duel that a wiser, more self-controlled man would have been able to avoid.The list goes on and on. Although George Washington was by no means a perfect human being—he too owned slaves—he found a way to rise above these other men, not just on the battlefield but in everyday life. He lived by a system. By a personal code. He put duty above all else. He would have rather died than betray his sense of honor. It was through this that he managed to achieve greatness far beyond what Adams or Jefferson or Hamilton could even approach. It’s why he is probably the greatest American, if not the greatest statesman, to ever live.That’s what Stoicism is about and what it helps us do. We are all flawed people. We have tempers. We have egos. We have selfish desires. What we need is a system, a code that helps us triumph over them. It gives us a Cato—to quote Seneca’s line and to mention Washington’s hero—to model ourselves after. Something to check our behavior against, to guide us in the moments where emotion or temptation would lead us astray.All of the Founders were great in their own way, all of them contributed to the founding of a nation. But Washington got further, did more—he conquered the British as well as himself. He was in his own power, and would have been even had his army faltered and he had been captured. Which founder will you be? Whose example will you follow? Will you be great, or can you aspire to be more like the greatest?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s a fitting warning about man’s nature that in the Old Testament, God would command his followers, “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil,” and to resist the pull of the multitude when they persecute someone on false charges, only to find thousands of years later that this would be the fate of the man who claimed to be his sonThis idea that the judgements of the mob were dangerous and must be avoided is a timeless theme in the ancient world—and one that appears both in the Bible and in the writings of the Stoics. Only a few generations before Jesus, the Stoic Rutilius Rufus was brought up on and convicted of obviously false charges by corrupt political enemies. Around the same time, in one of the first signs that the norms of the Roman Republic were collapsing, a mob gathered and stoned to death a man named Saturninus. Marius, the consul who encouraged Rufus’s demise, was powerless to stop the mob justice he had ridden to power on. By Jesus’s time, the mob was a political force in the Roman empire. It could be pandered to. Riled up. Used to do one’s dirty work. It was a feared and ominous presence. Just a few decades after the mob killed Jesus, Seneca would write that “consort with the crowd is harmful; there is no person who does not make some vice attractive to us, or stamp it upon us, or taint us unconsciously therewith. Certainly, the greater the mob with which we mingle, the greater the danger.” Marcus Aurelius's Meditations is filled with admonishments to ignore the jeers and the cheers of the mob, to think for himself, to avoid the violent spectacles they demanded in the form of gladiatorial games, to do the right thing even if everyone else is insisting (or getting away with) the wrong thing.If only this advice was not relevant today. Unfortunately it is. We have a mob which sways our culture—online and in real life. These are people who attend speeches on college campuses with the intent of disrupting and shutting them down. These are people who march with tiki torches and chant slurs and epithets. These are people who use social media to bully and intimidate. These are people who shout for violence and demand retribution. These are people who are incapable of mercy or empathy or forgiveness. It would be nice if their numbers were few—but they are not. They are legion, and they exist on both sides of the political spectrum (indeed, they often hold contradictory views on various issues and share the same nihilism whether they are extreme left or right). In some cases, they are often the majority view and their pressure costs people their jobs, forces them into hiding, or convinces them to keep silent. They claim to be protecting our way of life...as they destroy it before our eyes. Which is why today and every day we should heed these Stoic (and Biblical) reminders to avoid the mob, to think for ourselves and to stand up for what’s right, especially when the mob is doing evil. When you find yourself on the side of the mob, pause and reflect. Ignore their venom. Speak out.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Roman elite were constantly living beyond their means. Leaders like Cicero lived lavishly—he owned something like nine different villas at the same time. Other Romans believed the path to political power lay in essentially bribing the public with extravagant games and public spectacles. Julius Caesar was constantly spending money he didn’t have to impress people he didn’t respect. Even the Roman empire itself was constantly overspending, leaving it to more austere emperors like Marcus Aurelius to pay down the country’s debts by selling off palace furnishings. Seneca, for his part, wrote eloquently about the meaningless of wealth and the importance of the simple life. And yet, money is partly what attracted him to Nero’s service. In 13 years working for a man who was clearly deranged and evil, Seneca became one of Rome’s richest men. This afforded him an incredible lifestyle. He threw enormous parties. He accumulated huge land holdings and impressive estates. But his taste for the finer things meant swallowing a bitter moral pill...and eventually, this association cost him his reputation and his life. If only Seneca and these other spendthrift Romans could have listened to the simple advice in Cato the Elder’s On Agriculture, one of the oldest works in the entire Latin language. There, Cato—the great grandfather of the Stoic Cato the Younger—talks about the importance of managing your money and your tastes. “A farm is like a man,” he wrote, “however great the income, if there is extravagance but little is left.” His advice to the aspiring farmer is to build a house within their means—to put your money into your farm, into something that generates returns, not something that impresses your neighbors or assuages your ego. It was better, he said, to cultivate the selling habit, not the buying habit. Selling meant you were making, buying meant you were consuming. How does a business succeed? By things going out the door, not in the door. It’s easy to acquire. It’s hard to say no. It’s tough to develop limits and to figure out what enough is. But like Cato said and Seneca’s fate painfully illustrates, if you can’t do that, eventually there will be nothing left and nowhere to go.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Imagine, one day you’re king and the next day you’re not. Literally. That's the story of Joseph Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon, who was made King of Naples and Spain, only to be forced to flee in exile after the reversal of his family’s destiny. Napoleon was sent to an island prison, but Joseph had to move to New Jersey, where suddenly he was just another regular person—rich, sure, but far from royalty. The same went for Achille Murat, the son of Napoleon’s brother-in-law. Once the heir-in-waiting for the kingdom of Napoli, he ended up living in the swampland of Florida, lording only over some property he called Lipona, an anagram of the kingdom he had lost. He dreamed of leading armies in Italy, but ended up, as one legend has it, the postmaster of Tallahassee. Banished to New Jersey and Florida. Someone in the 19th century knew how to levy punishment. All kidding aside, these stories are almost real-life versions of the lyrics to the Coldplay hit, Viva La Vida:I used to rule the worldSeas would rise when I gave the wordNow in the morning, I sleep aloneSweep the streets I used to ownAnd in turn, all of this is probably the most persistent theme in Stoicism, both philosophically and biographically. Zeno was a wealthy merchant from a prominent family with a fleet of ships, until a storm dashed them all to pieces. He ended up in Athens with nothing in his pockets. Cato was a towering Roman Senator, only to suddenly find himself on the wrong side of a vicious civil war. He was powerful one day, disemboweled the next. The same was true of his rival cum ally Pompey, the general who loved the lectures of the Stoic philosopher Posidonius. A lifetime of victories evaporated in a single hour at the Battle of Pharsalus. Shortly thereafter, he was decapitated by pirates as he tried to go into exile. Seneca was the man behind the throne with Nero...until Nero turned on him. All of our fates and fortunes rest on pillars of sand. Today we are on high, tomorrow can bring us down low...and the day after, lower than we even believed possible. That’s life. It humbles us. It surprises us. It is not inclined to show mercy—or care about our precious dreams.That’s why we must be prepared: premeditatio malorum (an anticipation of the twists and turns of fate) and amor fati (ready to love whatever that fate is) are not just principles to abide, they are tools to deploy in the forging of our inner citadel, in the smithing of an iron spine. They allow us to endure and survive anything. The vagaries of life are why we must be careful of ego (it is the enemy, after all); careful of anything that makes us think what we have right now is actually ours, or that it says anything about us as people. Because if we allow the presence of the things we have and hold dear to define us, their untimely aSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Yes, the Stoics talk a lot about death. How it’s inevitable. How life is fragile. How it can be taken from us at any moment. It’s in our power to live well, Seneca said, but not in our power to live long.It’s easy to take from these commentaries that the Stoics were completely fatalistic about their health, and that’s a mistake—one easily disproved by the evidence. Seneca talked about death, but he also talked about the life-giving powers of taking a cold plunge. He experimented with vegetarianism. He exercised. He ate moderately not only because it was part of his philosophy, but because he knew that gluttons rarely live to see old age. Marcus Aurelius was treated by the famous doctor Galen, and one presumes that he did so because he asked Galen to improve his health, not worsen it.The key exercise in Stoicism, according to Epictetus, was distinguishing what’s in our control and what isn’t. Our genetics are not in our control. But we are not prisoners of them. They are not an oracle. We control our diet and our exercise. We can control how our genetics express themselves and impact our liveDeath can be random and cruel—as it was for the millions who died of the plague in Marcus’s time. Nobody controls that. But we do control whether we drive a motorcycle and decline to wear a helmet. You don’t control whether you get drafted and sent to fight in a war, but you do control whether you go around picking fights in bars or walk through the wrong neighborhood at the wrong time of day. We control whether we make smart decisions or dumb ones, whether we take good care of ourselves or not. We are all mortal. Life is fragile. But that doesn’t mean you kiss all the control up to God or to Fate. You decide whether you’re going to be healthy or not. You decide whether to be stupid or not. You decide the path you walk.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Keanon Lowe grew up in a family struggling to make ends meet. His father left when he was nine. When money was tight or when things were hard, his mother would try to encourage him by saying that it was alright. “You’re just where you’re supposed to be,” she said. This would be hard to accept over the years. It was hard to accept his college career at Oregon ended when the team lost in the playoffs to Ohio State in 2015. It was hard to accept when the NFL career he dreamed of ended by getting cut from the Arizona Cardinals after four days, with no more than a pair of gym shorts for his trouble. Then his first year as an NFL assistant ended when the coach who hired him got fired, and his second year ended the same way. Shortly thereafter, one of his best friends from his playing days died of an overdose. This is where he was supposed to be? This is how things were supposed to go? These are the kind of twists and turns of fate the Stoics tell us we’re supposed to love? How could that possibly be right?Well, as Greg Bishop (himself a fellow Stoic traveler) writes in his beautiful Sports Illustrated profile of Keanon, it is right. Because it is all leading somewhere, whether we know it or not. After all those losses and setbacks, Keanon ended up taking a job coaching at Parkrose High School...and working as the school security guard to make money on the side. On May 17th, Keanon was sent to Mr. Melzer’s Government class to grab a student who had been requested by a counselor. It just so happens that the very student he was looking for was working his way toward the classroom with a loaded shotgun. In a moment, they met. Keanon was exactly where he was supposed to be. Instead of running away, he ran towards it. He fought the young man and stopped an active shooter from doing god knows what. Keanon’s mother had been right. The Stoics were right. We have no idea what life has in store for us or what it is saving us for—even as it kicks our ass and breaks our hearts. Whatever we are going through, whatever is happening to us, we must know that: we are where we are supposed to be right now. How’s that?Because we can make it be where we are supposed to be. By the actions we take and the choices we make.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Here’s a humbling thought: Even if your life is amazing and successful, even if you mind your own business and are kind to everyone you meet, somebody, somewhere is going to be happy when you’re dead. Somebody who wants to buy your house, somebody who you pissed off in high school, an up and comer looking to enter the job market, some hater who doesn’t like your work—they’re going to smile when they hear the news that you’ve passed. At the very least, there are some worms who are going to be glad to get to work on your corpse. It’s true for you and it’s true for everyone. It was as true for Gandhi and Mother Teresa as it is true for Anthony Bourdain and David Bowie and Kate Spade and the countless others who we say have left us too soon. Marcus Aurelius knew it would be true for himself, even though he was one of history’s few examples of a good king. As he wrote:It doesn’t matter how good a life you’ve led. There’ll still be people standing around the bed who will welcome the sad event. Even with the intelligent and good. Won’t there be someone thinking “Finally! To be through with that old schoolteacher. Even though he never said anything, you could always feel him judging you.” And that’s for a good man. How many traits do you have that would make a lot of people glad to be rid of you? Remember that, when the time comes.Really though, that’s something to remember now—hopefully long before your time comes. Because it helps prevent ego from creeping in. It prevents you from getting too caught up in trying to please everyone all the time. In a way, it’s a relief to accept that not everyone is rooting for us, and that no matter how successful we are, we can’t win over the whole world. Be true to who you are, Marcus said. Be kind and caring to the people who matter to you. And don’t be too attached to life or your reputation, because, at the end of the day, we all get knocked down to the same level when we die. Whether we’re Alexander the Great or Mr. Rogers or a mule driver, we get buried in the ground and chewed up by bugs until there’s nothing left. And some people are glad to hear of it. It’s a humbling thought.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Many “smart” people aren’t actually smart. They just know a lot of trivia. Sure, they can tell you all sorts of facts, they have a library of big thick books filled with enormous words, or they can give you the up-to-the-minute news about a political race. But can they tell you what any of this means? Do they do anything important with this information? Of course not.And these types have always existed. Seneca spoke critically of literary snobs who could speculate for hours about whether The Iliad or The Odyssey was written first, or who the real author was (a debate that rages on today). He disliked hearing people chatter about which Roman general did this or that first, or which received this or that honor. “Far too many good brains,” he said, “have been afflicted by the pointless enthusiasm for useless knowledge.Harry Truman famously said that not all all readers are leaders but all leader are readers—they have to be. And they certainly aren’t reading to impress people or for the mental gymnastics. It’s to get better! It’s to find things they can use. Not at the dinner table or on Twitter, but in their real lives. The same must be true to us. We have to learn how to read to be better leaders, better people, better citizens. We must learn how to read for our own benefit—and so that we might have aid to offer to a friend in pain, or a soul in crisis. Seneca’s point was that only knowledge that does us good is worth knowing. Everything else is trivia. If you’re looking to be a better reader—to build a real reading practice—the Stoics can help. We built out some of their best insights into our Daily Stoic: Read-to-Lead Reading Challenge. It’s going to walk you through more than a dozen actionable challenges that will help you elevate your game as a reader, learn how to think more critically and discover important books that will change your life. We’ve got videos and worksheets and all sorts of recommendations and strategies for you. If you’ve liked any of our other courses, you’ll love this one—it’s awesome, it’s actionable and it will help you get a better ROI out of one of the most important ways we spend our time and enrich our minds. Give it a shot. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 1961, Walker Percy published his great Stoic-inspired novel The Moviegoer. Like all classics, the book's success was by no means guaranteed. In fact, it became the subject of one of the strangest controversies in publishing history. You see, even though the novel was brilliant, its publisher, Alfred Knopf, was no fan. He even fired the editor who acquired it and had been so instrumental in shaping it into the masterpiece it became. When it came time to nominate one of his titles for the National Book Awards that year, Knopf submitted The Château by William Maxwell, a now mostly forgotten book. It was only a bit of random luck for Percy that followed—the husband of a woman on the committee happened to have read a review of Percy’s book in the paper, read the book, loved it, gave it to his wife, who gave it to the other committee members a few days before the final decision needed to be made. Out of nowhere, Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer—the first novel of a doctor, not a trained writer—ended up winning the National Book Award. Again, you’d think that Knopf would have been ecstatic. One of his writers won book of the year! But he wasn’t. Even as the book started selling like crazy. He was too jealous. He thought it reflected badly on his judgement that he missed this, that he was obviously wrong. So he began to spread the rumor that the prize had somehow been fixed that year—that the husband (someone Knopf didn’t like) had forced his wife to vote for the book just to show him up. It was an ugly mess for everyone involved.Everyone, that is, except Walker Percy. Because, like a true Stoic, he just laughed at the whole thing. He accepted the award with gratitude, marvelling at all the good and bad fortune that had occurred beyond his control with this book. And then—as we should do today, whether we’re the recipient of a huge honor or an utterly unfair controversy—he got back to work on his next project.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Seneca wrote about our natural, involuntary physiological responses. Someone pours cold water on you, and you shiver. They jump out of nowhere to scare you, and you let out a scream. Someone drives rudely, cuts you off, prevents you from passing, and you get upset. These are natural and understandable reactions to external events. Who we are, Seneca said, is not revealed in how we react in those moments. It’s revealed in what happens next. It’s in that space between stimulus and response, psychologist Viktor Frankl liked to say, that shows who we are. Do we speed up and follow dangerously close behind the person that pissed us off? Do we shout and scream and carry rage with us all day? Tara Swart, neuroscientist and author of The Source: The Secrets of the Universe, the Science of the Brain, gave us a better technique in our interview with her for DailyStoic.com:Learn how to STOPI used this exercise when I was working as a child psychiatrist. It’s a technique that is often used by family therapists with children who get into uncontrollable rages. I used it again, more recently with executive clients. Close your eyes and allow yourself to feel what it’s like when you’re overwhelmed with fear/anger/shame etc. Remember something that makes you feel like this and allow it to fill your whole body. Feel the emotion on your skin, in your chest, your mouth, your muscles, and your mind. Once you feel full of it, imagine holding up a big, red STOP sign in your mind and allowing the feeling to dissipate completely, relax your muscles and let the angry feeling leave you. Practice this until you feel you can use it in real life scenarios to stay calm.Seneca’s other line was that, “It is precisely in times of immunity from care that the soul should toughen itself beforehand for occasions of greater stress, and it is while Fortune is kind that it should fortify itself against her violence.” That’s exactly what Tara is advising. We put in the work now. We stock the pantry before the storm comes. So when the rude or distracted driver does cut us off, we don’t respond by having a frothing-at-the-mouth shouting match with a car moving 65 mph. We STOP, and let the angry feelings leave us, rather than let them ruin our day.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Although the ancient world was filled with injustices and cruelty, we moderns flatter ourselves when we give ourselves (too much) credit for our enlightened notions of fairness and empathy, because the speeches and the arguments of the ancient Greeks and Romans sound strikingly familiar when quoted back to us now. Take this line: “I am convinced that people are much better off when their whole city is flourishing than when certain citizens prosper but the community has gone off course. When a man is doing well for himself but his country is falling to pieces he goes to pieces along with it, but a struggling individual has much better hopes if his country is thriving.”Is that Bernie Sanders giving another speech about income inequality? No, it’s Pericles in Athens in 431 BC. Marcus Aurelius’s line that “what’s bad for the hive is bad for the bee,” could just as easily be a quip in an upcoming political debate as it could be a New York Times headline. And most impressively, it’s still true and has never stopped being true in the two thousand years since it was first uttered. Yes, the Greeks and Romans tolerated some truly abominable ideas. Slavery. Rape. Pillaging. Pederasty. Conquest and colonialism. Things that we have vowed to never allow again. But they also nourished a strong sense of community and connection that we struggle to hold onto today. The Stoics believed we were put on this planet for each other. That we each had a role to play in the larger whole, that we must constantly meditate on our sympatheia—on our mutual interdependence. What good is our success if it comes at the expense of others? What good are we if we can’t help others? We are all bound up in this thing called life together. If we forget that, we’re not only not as advanced or evolved as we think we are, but we are turning our backs on an ancient truth as well.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s unlikely, given his feelings about the Christians, that Marcus Aurelius ever read any of the books in the Old Testament, but if he had read Ecclesiates he might have liked what he saw. Because like the Stoic observations that fill Meditations, over and over again, this book of the Bible comments on the timeless repetition of history. “The thing that hath been,” we read in one part, “it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” In another: “The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.” In another: “That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past."Whatever happens has always happened,” Marcus Aurelius wrote, “and always will, and is happening at this very moment, everywhere. Just like this." So maybe he did read Ecclesiates? Or maybe that’s actually the point? Which is that we are constantly discovering the things we forgot and thus independently coming to the same conclusions over and over again. Marcus wanted to remind himself that his reign was not any different than the reign of Vespasian. It was filled with people doing the same things: eating, drinking, fighting, dying, worrying, and craving. And the future, even with its magnificent technological advancements, would be much the same. Forever and ever. "Time is a flat circle,” Rustin Cohle says in the first season of True Detective. “Everything we have done or will do we will do over and over and over again forever." And so it was that another generation found out about Nietzche's idea of "eternal recurrence," which is itself that same idea we find in Marcus Aurelius, which is the same idea in the Bible, which probably, and humblingly, goes back even further than that. But that’s life, the same thing happening again and again, always and forever.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Seneca wrote eloquently about how absurd the need to “get even” is. No one would think to return a bite to a dog or a kick to a mule, he writes, but when someone hurts us or pisses us off, that’s exactly what we do. We smile and laugh at this clever analogy. He’s right, we think, no one would bite a dog.Except anger actually does do stuff that dumb to us all the time—or worse! Who hasn’t thrown a television remote that wasn’t working or smacked a vending machine that took your money? Who hasn’t banged on their keyboard when it froze or kicked a child’s toy across the room after painfully stepping on it in the middle of the night? Who hasn’t shouted obscenities at their headphones when your hand gets caught in the cord and you accidentally rip them off your head while walking through an airport or getting into a car? Who hasn’t had to resist the urge to throw their smartphone in the ocean or their golf club into a lake when these objects refuse to do what you have directed them to?If there weren’t plenty of reasons to be suspicious of anger already, the fact that it compels you to try to physically punish inanimate objects is a pretty good one. The fact that, in anger, we often break or damage our own property—essentially punishing ourselves to send a message to something that by definition cannot receive it—tells us everything we need to know about anger. Mainly, that it’s blinding, that it’s hard to control, and that it’s shamefully stupid. So avoid it as much as you can.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

“Where are all the Stoic women? Surely this is not a philosophy only for and by men.” It is a common and reasonable criticism of this philosophy, one that Daily Stoic seeks to understand and ameliorate whenever possible.Recently, we had the opportunity to interview Lauryn Evarts Bosstick, a wellness influencer who reaches millions of people—mostly adoring young women—through her blog, social media, and podcast. Lauryn is a vocal advocate of Stoicism, so we asked her about why the philosophy can seem so male-centric and and what might be done about it:I WANT TO CHANGE THIS. It’s so interesting to me how it’s seen as a male dominated philosophy. It has nothing to do with gender, it has to do with just being a better person and being the best version of yourself. My brand ‘The Skinny Confidential’ is all about being the best version of you. It’s not about being someone else, it’s about taking what you have and creating your own strategic future. Anyone can benefit from stoicism because it teaches invaluable lessons like perseverance, serenity, and resilience.The Stoics believed that philosophy transcended any individual human being or society. It’s not rooted in any one gender, but in the universal principles of life, the human experience. Musonius Rufus—Epictetus’s teacher—was one of the pioneers of gender equality, at least in philosophy. “It is not men alone who possess eagerness and a natural inclination towards virtue,” he said, “but women also. Women are pleased no less than men by noble and just deeds, and reject the opposite of such actions. Since that is so, why is it appropriate for men to seek out and examine how they might live well, that is, to practise philosophy, but not women?”Stoicism isn’t male or female. It’s human. It’s for anyone trying to get better. It’s for all of us—since everyone needs more perseverance, serenity and resilience. It’s even for you. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Cynic philosopher Diogenes was once criticized by a passerby for not taking care of himself in his old age, for being too active when he should have been taking it easy and resting. As per usual, Diogenes had the perfect rejoinder: "What, if I were running in the stadium, ought I to slacken my pace when approaching the goal?" His point was that we should never stop getting better, never stop the work that philosophy demands of us. Right up until the end Diogenes was questioning convention, reducing his wants, challenging power, and insisting on truth. The Stoics agreed with his view, that old age was no excuse for coasting. In fact, we get the sense that many of the strongest passages in Meditations are written by an older Marcus Aurelius, one who is still frustrated with himself for his anxiety, for his passions, for his less than flawless record when it comes to upholding his positions. In one passage he says it more or less outright: How much longer are you going to keep doing this? You’re old and you still can’t get it right. But he wasn’t just kicking himself to feel better. He was trying to get himself to be better. He refused to take his foot off the gas. He was going to keep going right on through the finish line, and so should we. No matter how old we are, no matter how long we’ve been at this, it’s far too early to stop now, to say “close enough.” No, we are going to give our best effort. We’re going to give everything we have, with every day that is given to us...See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Life is full of suffering, acute and benign. We come down with the flu. We are hit with a costly expense. Someone with power over us abuses their responsibility. Someone we love lies or hurts us. People die. People commit crimes. Natural disasters strike.All of this is commonplace and inevitable. It happens. Everyday. To us and to everyone else. That would be bad enough, yet we choose to make this pain worse. How? By pretending we are immune from it. By assuming we will be exempted. Or that only those who have somehow deserved it will find themselves in the crosshairs of Fortune. Then we are surprised when our number comes up, and so we add to our troubles a sense of unfairness and a stumbling lack of preparedness. Our denial deprives us even of the ability to tense up before the blow lands. “You should assume that there are many things ahead you will have to suffer,” Seneca reminds us. “Is anyone surprised at getting a chill in winter? Or getting seasick while on the sea? Or that they get bumped walking a city street? The mind is strong against things it has prepared for.” This is premeditatio malorum. What is likely to happen? What can possibly happen? What are the tortures that life inflicts on human beings? And then, more importantly, am I ready for them? Have I strengthened my weak points? Do I have what it takes to endure this suffering?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

According to the philosopher Blaise Pascal, at the root of most human activity is a desire to escape boredom and self-awareness. We go to elaborate measures, he said, to avoid even a few minutes of quiet. It was true even of the people you think had all the reasons to be happy and content. "A king is surrounded by people,” Pascal wrote, “whose only thought is to divert him and stop him thinking about himself, because, king though he is, he becomes unhappy as soon as he thinks about himself."It’s an observation that puts Marcus Aurelius in an even more impressive light. Think about it: Marcus Aurelius was surrounded by servants and sycophants, people who wanted favors and people who feared him. He had unlimited wealth but endless responsibility. And what did he do with this? Did he throw himself endlessly into the diversion and distraction these blessings and curses offered?No. Instead, he made sure to carve out time to sit quietly by himself with his journals. He probed his own mind on a regular basis. He thought of himself--not egotistically--but with an eye towards noticing his own failings. He questioned himself. He questioned the world around him. He refused to be distracted. He refused to give into temptation. People in his own time probably thought he was a bit dour. They wondered why he did not enjoy all the trappings of wealth and power like his predecessors. What they missed, what’s so easy to miss today in our own blessed lives, is that the true path to happiness is not through externals. It’s found within. It’s found in the stillness. In the quiet. With yourself.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

“What would you do if tomorrow you were diagnosed with terminal cancer?” We’ve all had a hypothetical question like that thrust in front of us at one point or another. It’s supposed to make us consider how different life might be, how drastic a change we might make if we were suddenly told there was a limit to our time here and that limit was no longer over the horizon but within sight.It’s a ridiculous thought exercise, not only because every human being already has a terminal diagnosis, but also because living with cancer does not have to ruin your life or even necessarily upend it.Jonathan Church has brain cancer. He wrote about it in an incredibly powerful article on Quillette about how his study of Stoicism had long prepared him to cope with his mortality—be it a brain cancer diagnosis or otherwise. In a follow-up interview with Jonathan for DailyStoic.com, we wondered if there were any specific practices or daily exercises that help Jonathan continue to live a happy and productive life and not succumb to anxiety and depression:No lessons, practices, or rituals. No magic trick. No device to be employed in a duel to the death with death itself. Just continuing to read, think, write, and put things into perspective…I long ago acquiesced to the inevitability of death. I have been thinking about mortality for a long time, not out of morbid interest, but as an outgrowth of philosophical curiosity. That said, I would be remiss not to acknowledge that there is no preparation for the moment when the grip of death is upon you. It will be terrible. No avoiding that. But it’s beyond my control. Best to focus only on optimizing the time I have, rather than wasting it worrying about how to avoid the inevitable, or how to assuage the terror of the moment when it’s upon you. Put off depression and anxiety until that one brief instant when death is upon you, not the life you have to live between now and then. No seismic revelation, no life-altering changes then, no grand gestures needed. Just the kind of reading and thinking and hard work on one’s self that we should all be doing, whether we’ve staggered out of a doctor’s office with terrible news or not. Marcus Aurelius said, "Not to live as if you had endless years ahead of you. Death overshadows you. While you're alive and able, be good." That’s it. Today and every day.It’s hard to do, but we have to try.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There’s a great lyric in the bridge of the new Bruce Springsteen song, Tucson Train: We fought hard over nothin'We fought till nothin' remainedI've carried that nothin' for a long timeDoesn’t that just perfectly capture—in such a sad and telling way—many of our relationships and grudges? We turn nothing into something and then hold onto it like it’s everything until there’s nothing left. Then we wonder why we’re unhappy. We wonder why we’re lonely. We wonder where people we used to love have gone. We wonder where the good times went. The answer: We drove them away. We ground them into dust. Marcus Aurelius struggled with this, too. He had a problem like we all do with anger and taking offense and getting into arguments and needing to prove people wrong. If he hadn’t, he would have never had to write this little reminder in Meditations.“Run down the list of those who felt intense anger at something: the most famous, the most unfortunate, the most hated, the most whatever: Where is all that now? Smoke, dust, legend…or not even a legend. Think of all the examples. And how trivial the things we want so passionately are.”It’s heartbreaking. It’s true. And all of us are guilty of it in our own way. What are we fighting about? Why do we so passionately need to be right? Why can’t we just let things go?If only we could change… See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Here’s a way to feel good every single day, no matter what happens. A way to appreciate even a day stuck in the airport or putting out fires. It’s an exercise from Seneca. He said that a person who wraps up each day as if it was the end of their life, who meditates on their mortality in the evening, has a super power when they wake up. “When a man has said, ‘I have lived!’,” Seneca wrote, then “every morning he arises is a bonus.” And you know how it feels when you’re playing with house money or when your vacation is extended. In a word? Better. You feel lighter. Nicer. You appreciate everything. You are present. All the trivial concerns and short term anxieties go away—because for a second, you realize how little they matter. Well, that’s how you ought to live. Go to bed, having lived a full day, appreciating that you may not get the privilege of waking up tomorrow. And if you do wake up—which we hope for all of you—it will be impossible not to see every second of the next twenty four hours as a bonus. Because they are.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The philosopher and writer Nassim Taleb once said that, “Hard work will get you a professorship or a BMW. You need both work and luck for a Booker, a Nobel, or a private jet.” His point was that certain accomplishments are within the reasonable grasp of someone making incremental gains each day. Outsized success and outlier accomplishments require that and extreme luck or timing. This is worth considering for all of us who grew up being told the world was a meritocracy. Of course, it isn’t. Plenty of brilliant people fail to succeed for all sorts of reasons, and plenty of not-so-brilliant people find themselves successful beyond their wildest dreams. The world is a random, even cruel, place that does not always reward merit or hard work or skill. Sometimes it does, but not always. Still, perhaps a more usable and practical distinction to make is not between hard work and luck, but between what is up to us and what is not up to us. This is the distinction that the Stoics tried to make and to think about always. Pioneering new research in science—that’s up to us. Being recognized for that work (e.g. winning a Nobel) is not. A committee decides that. The media decides that. Becoming an expert in a field, that’s up to us. We do that by reading, by studying, by going out and experiencing things. Being hired as a professor at Harvard to teach that expertise is not (think of all the people who weren’t hired there over the years because they were female, or Jewish, or Black). Writing a prize-worthy piece of literature—up to us. That’s time in front of the keyboard. That’s up to our genius. Being named as a finalist for the Booker Prize is not.It’s not that luck, exactly, decides these things, but it is very clearly other people that make the decision. Marcus Aurelius said that the key to life was to tie our sanity—our sense of satisfaction—to our own actions. To tie it to what other people say or do (that was his definition of ambition) was to set ourselves up to be hurt and disappointed. It’s insanity. And it misses the point.Do the work. Be happy with that. Everything else is irrelevant.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In one of his letters, Seneca tells us of an old Roman pleasantry that friends would exchange when greeting each other: “If you are well,” one would say after inquiring how someone was doing, “it is well and I am also well.” It’s a nice little custom, isn’t it? If you’re good, I’m good, and everything is good. Nothing else matters. But of course, because this is Seneca, he couldn’t just leave it there. In fact, telling us about this old expression was just a device to make a point. A better way to say it, he writes, is “‘If you are studying philosophy, it is well.’ For this is just what ‘being well’ means. Without philosophy the mind is sickly, and the body, too, though it may be very powerful, is strong only as that of a madman or a lunatic is strong.”The point is that to the Stoics, the practice and study of philosophy was the only way to make sure all was well, no matter what was happening in the world. At war like Marcus Aurelius? Study philosophy in your tent at night. Unable to submit to Caesar’s tyranny like Cato? Read a little Socrates before your dramatic suicide. Shot down over Vietnam like James Stockdale? Say to yourself, as he did, “I am leaving the world of technology and entering the world of Epictetus.” As in…even in a POW camp, I can still practice and pursue philosophy…and be well for it!Nobody knows what the day or the week has in store for us. As much as we take care of ourselves and eat well, so much of our health is outside of our control. But the one way we can make sure that we are always well, that we are always getting better (mentally, spiritually, if not physically) is by the books we read, the questions we ponder, and the conversations we have. Now get studying!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Why did Marcus Aurelius study philosophy? What were Seneca or Confucius or Buddha trying to achieve as they pored over their books or sat deeply in thought? What have archery masters and Olympic boxing instructors and generals tried to instill in their students and soldiers?Their aim was, and always has been, stillness. These thinkers and doers and leaders and achievers, they all needed peace and clarity. They need their charges to be centered. They needed them to be in control of themselves. Because what they were doing was really hard! Just as what you do is really hard! It’s not easy to hit a target or wage a battle or lead a country or write a play. Stillness is the way you get there—internally, mostly—because the world in which we attempt to do these things is often incredibly un-still.Nearly all the schools and disciplines of the ancient world had their own word for stillness. The Buddhists called it upekkha. The Stoics called it apatheia. The Muslims spoke of aslama. The Hebrews, hishtavut. The second book of the Bhagavad Gita, the epic poem of the warrior Arjuna, speaks of samatvam, an “evenness of mind—a peace that is ever the same.” The Greeks had euthymia and hesychia. The Epicureans, ataraxia. The Christians and Romans, aequanimitas. In fact, the last word Marcus Aurelius heard from his dying stepfather, Antoninus, was aequanimitas. Equanimity. Stillness.Picking up where The Obstacle is the Way and Ego is the Enemy leave off, Ryan Holiday’s new book, Stillness is the Key, endeavors to bring this ancient ideal into our modern-day lives. A collection of stories drawn from all walks of life, and all schools of thought, Ryan’s book illustrates practical ways to bring some essential stillness into your life. It’s fascinating, both Epictetus and the Daodejing at one point use the same analogy: The mind is like muddy water. To have clarity, we must be steady and let it settle down. Only then can we see. Only then do we have transparency. Whoever you are and whatever you’re doing, you would benefit from having more of this clarity. In the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy had to wait and see—he had to be still when everyone wanted him to rush into action—to know if his gambit with the Soviet premier would work. In the midst of a busy public life, Winston Churchill had to find hobbies—painting and bricklaying—that would allow him a chance to rest and restore his mind. The art of Marina Abramovic is defined by her presence, her ability in many cases to sit there and do nothing but be—which is one of the toughest things in the world to do. With stillness, we have a shot at greatness. Not just greatness in performance, but also greatness in personhood. In being human. No one can be a great parent when they’re frantic. No one can be a good spouse if their mind is elsewhere. No one can be creative, in touch with themselves, if they are disassociated or detached from their own soul. The key to the good life—to greatness itself, as Seneca said—is stillness. It’s apatheia. Ataraxia. Upekkha. Euthymia. Whatever you call it, you need it. Now more than ever before.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Following today’s politics is easy. You turn on the news and a bunch of pretty people tell you that your side is good and the other side is irredeemably evil. You pull up social media and you get a bunch of rage profiteers telling you what to be outraged or angry about. Everything is simple and clear cut, compromise is unnecessary, and, in the end, none of it really matters anyway because the world is going to end in 2024 in nuclear holocaust, 2050 from climate change, or any day now in the rapture. Needless to say, that’s not very valuable or very philosophical. What is a Stoic to do? Especially when politics and participation in the polis and empire was so essential to Zeno and Marcus Aurelius and Seneca. Well first, they’d urge you to turn backwards to better understand the present day. Even the early American founders knew this. As John Adams wrote to his son in 1777:“There is no History, perhaps, better adapted to this useful purpose than that of Thucydides…You will find it full of Instruction to the Orator, the Statesman, the General, as well as to the Historian and the Philosopher.” Indeed, people in the State Department right now are reading Thucydides to better understand the rising threat of China. Countless millions—including many of the Stoics—have read it over the last 2000 years to understand the ethical dilemmas inherent in leadership, in war, in politics, and in life. Because Thucydides was so smart, so timeless, he is able to teach lessons to us even now. And because the countries and the events are so distant and impersonal to us, we can actually hear them and learn them.And if we’re smart, we can apply them to the political situations we face today. The ones that could desperately use less partisanship and less virtue signaling and a lot more actual wisdom, justice, temperance, and courage.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

At the beginning of The Odyssey, Zeus utters a famous lament that must, one imagines, be shared by all gods and parents and presidents alike:This is absurdThat mortals blame the gods! They saywe cause suffering but they themselvesIncrease it by folly.At the heart of Stoicism is an admission that life is unfair and largely out of our control. Bad stuff happens to everyone, the vast majority of it not even remotely our fault. Nobody asks to die. Nobody asks to be lied to or smacked by a natural disaster or leveled by some freak accident. The Gods, or luck, or Fate—that’s who is responsible for these untimely deeds (to us at least). But the Stoics also agree with Zeus’s complaint: That humans take this misfortune and compound it. We make things worse than they need to be. By complaining. By quitting. By getting upset about them. By placing blame. By trying desperately to undo what must happen, or to outsmart it by scheme or by bargain. We add folly on top of misfortune.That’s really the plot of The Odyssey if you think about it. Odysseus is too clever for his own good, and it gets him into trouble constantly. He was almost home, but then he took a nap and his curious men—who he refused to explain himself to—opened a bag of wind that set them back. He was free of the Cyclops—who was awful, yes—but then he had to taunt him, not content to leave well enough alone. It was the costliest of all the errors he made. The whole story is Odysseus making a bad situation worse, over and over again until he is rescued by Athena.The key to life may not be brilliance or power. What if it’s just not being stupid? What if it’s just not increasing our troubles by adding folly and hubris and greed on top of them? There’s no guarantee, but it’s worth a try… See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Late last year, a man named Ken Watson died at age 87, but before he did, he made sure to gift wrap fourteen presents for his two year old neighbor. He’d always told her that he’d live to be 100, and when that looked like it wasn’t going to happen, he decided he’d need to plan ahead. Which is why, after his death, his own daughter came around with a large bag of presents—enough to provide one per year until the little girl turned sixteen years old. It’s a beautiful little story that warms the soul. But today, let’s make sure it does more than that. Let’s actually learn from it.Today’s politics have become sadly lopsided, wherein the elderly now make up one of the largest, most intractable, and most self-interested voting blocs. Despite mounting problems on multiple fronts—from the climate to Social Security to immigration to income inequality—we’re unable to come up with common sense solutions, in part because this group is more concerned with protecting their own short-term interests rather than their grandchildren’s long-term ones. It’s shameful and it’s a betrayal of the goodness that someone like Ken Watson so touchingly illustrated. There is an old Greek proverb that reads, “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” It’s one the Stoics would have agreed with. While Marcus Aurelius and Seneca took pains to discourage chasing legacy or posthumous fame, they did believe it was the philosopher’s duty to serve the common good—to contribute to the Roman Empire in a way that would allow it to stand for future generations. That’s what this notion of sympatheia is partly about as well: we are all connected and related to each other. The idea that life is a zero-sum game, that the ticker starts at zero when you’re born and resets when you die, is ridiculous and pathetic. While we don’t control what other intransigent people decide to do with their votes, their money, and their influence, we can at least commit to being a little bit more like Ken Watson in our own lives. How can we make sure that we’re investing in and protecting the interests of the people that come after us? How can we pay forward the bounty (and privileges) that our ancestors bequeathed to us? What trees are we planting that others will one day sit beneath? That’s our job—as citizens and as Stoics. Yes, we have to live here in the present moment and that should be our primary concern. But that cannot come at the expense of the many moments that our children and their children and their children are entitled to experience as well. Be good to each other. Plant trees.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You know sometimes you hear a quote or an aphorism and you think, That’s it. That’s me. That’s my philosophy for life. Well it turns out that is a pretty common and timeless thing. At the very least, we know it goes back to the time of George Washington. Washington’s favorite play was the play Cato, about the Roman Senator and Stoic philosopher by Joseph Addison. This play, which was written in 1712, was hugely famous in its time, and, with some irony, it might be called the “Hamilton” of the day. It was so familiar to the people in the late 18th century that it could be quoted without attribution and everyone knew exactly where the line came from. And Washington in particular liked to quote one line that must have spoken to him the way those quotes speak to us now—where you just know that nothing will capture what you think and feel about life better than that. “Free,” he said in a letter to a friend after the Revolution about his return to private life, “from the bustle of a camp and the intrigues of court, I shall view the busy world ‘in the calm light of mild philosophy,’ and with that serenity of mind, which the Soldier in his pursuit of glory, and the Statesman of fame have not time to enjoy.” In fact, in the book The Political Philosophy of George Washington, the author Jeffry H. Morrison notes that in a single two week period in 1797, Washington quoted that same line in three different letters. And later, in Washington’s greatest but probably least known moment, when he talked down the mutinous troops who were plotting to overthrow the U.S government at Newburgh, he quoted the same line again, as he urged them away from acting on their anger and frustration. In the calm lights of mild philosophy. That’s Stoicism. That’s using Reason to temper our impulses and our emotions. As Epictetus said, it’s about putting our impressions up to the test. It’s what Marcus Aurelius talked about when he said that our life is what our thoughts make it. That what we choose to see determines how we will feel. We must follow this advice today and every day. It served Cato well and Washington even better. All that we see must be illuminated by the calm lights of mild philosophy. So we can see what it really is. So we don’t do anything we regret. So we can enjoy this wonderful gift of life we possess, whatever our station.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You try to turn on your television, only to find that the batteries in the remote are dead and no one bothered to replace them. Your computer freezes in the middle of finishing something important and you lose hours of work. You’re running late for your child’s soccer game because they’ve been fooling around instead of getting ready to play. You’re trying to change lanes on the freeway, but another driver is too close to your car and won’t give you room to maneuver. And the worse, they flip you off. What’s the natural response to all of these situations? To get angry. But, remember, to the Stoics, our “natural” instincts and emotions were something to always question. And sometimes, something to regard with outright skepticism. “The cause of anger is the sense of having been wronged,” Seneca wrote, “but one ought not trust this sense. Don’t make your move right away, even against what seems overt and plain; sometimes false things give the appearance of truth.” Not everyone has an “anger problem” but anger is a problem for everyone. We all cause ourselves harm through it. We drive people away. We act unreasonably. We say things we regret. We shave minutes off our life–or in some cases, put ourselves in outright danger. Anger is a problem that people have dealt with for thousands of years. Marcus Aurelius struggled with his temper, and surely his wife did too. Nuns and saints–for all their good work–also had to work at pushing anger away, at making sure they didn’t make themselves miserable. The good news is that all these wise–and very human figures–have developed some pretty brilliant strategies for dealing with their excessive anger. They discovered real insights on how to keep your problems in perspective; how to cool down in the moment, when your anger is pushing you out of control; how to tame your emotions and stay in charge of your temper. And as usual, the Stoics have some of the smartest and most applicable insights. That’s why we created Taming Your Temper: The 10-Day Stoic Guide to Controlling Anger. 10 days of challenges, exercises, video lessons, and bonus tools based on Stoic philosophy. Materials to help you deal with your anger in a constructive manner. We will give you the tools that you need, not just to manage your anger, but to leave it in the past, so that you can focus on what’s important–living a virtuous and fulfilling life.Learn from the wisdom of the great thinkers and leaders of history: Marcus Aurelius; Seneca; Abraham Lincoln; Mr. Rogers; and others as well. Use our unique exercises to break free from the cage that anger has built around you and see the world, and yourself, in a new light. Each day, watch a new video from Ryan Holiday, author of The Obstacle is the Way, Ego is the Enemy, Stillness is the Key, and The Daily Stoic, as he explains the ideas behind the words and sheds light on our path.Being able to control your anger is a difficult but worthwhile goal. It will take time and effort—and it won’t be free—but by changing your perspective and developing techniques to control your temper, it will ultimately be achievable—and life-changing. Take the first step on the path to a calmer and more fulfilling future. Check out Taming Your Temper: The 10-Day Stoic Guide to Controlling Anger today.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When one looks at the dark moments of history, it’s hard not to be a little afraid. Look at what people have done to each other—look at how bad things have gotten. In Seneca’s time, many horrific acts were not only common but commonly accepted. Like decimation, a common enough practice, where one in ten people were killed just to send a message. And that word lives on in the lexicon two thousand years later. Perhaps the terrifying capriciousness of a practice like this is why Seneca tried to reassure himself that there was little use in being scared.He writes in one of his essays how that if an invader came and conquered your city, the very worst he could do is sentence you to what you’ve been sentenced to from birth—death. Yes, a Hannibal or a Hitler could throw you in chains and drag you away from your family—but the truth is that you were already being dragged away. Yes, each second that ticks by on the clock takes us one instant away from our families. But, “since the day you were born,” Seneca writes, “you are being led thither.” Sometimes the first time our civilizations realize just how vulnerable we are is when we find out we’ve been conquered, or are at the mercy of some cruel tyrant. We realize that we are mortal and fragile and that fate can inflict horrible things on our tiny, powerless bodies. So we should study history then for two reasons: One, to gain some humility. We are not nearly as safe or important as we think we are. In the end, each of us is only a statistic. Each of us is at the mercy of enormous events outside our control. Two, to prepare for the reality of this existence. We may face trying times, but nothing can stop us from being brave in the face of them. We can still, always, as Stockdale said, decide how to write the end of our story—and to write it well.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When we think of greatness, we think of success. We think of strength. We think of influence. We think of the man or woman exerting their will over the universe, or dominating on the athletic field, or dazzling us with their creative brilliance. We think of the trappings of this greatness: ornate mansions, peak physical conditioning, confidently strolling the halls of power.Is this really greatness, though? What if the person who has it is actually miserable? If every minute they’re awake they’re driven by demons or insecurities or the need to control and beat other people? How great is greatness if it is constantly on the edge of destroying itself through overreaching or over-doing?Seneca said that “nothing is great unless it’s also at peace.” What he meant was that stillness and greatness—true greatness, that is—are impossible to separate. It’s stillness that allows us to be great, on the court or in the public sphere or on the page. No one is able to push the bounds of accomplishment if they are distracted or disorganized. At the same time, it’s stillness that allows us to enjoy our accomplishments. What good is becoming a billionaire if all you can think about is how much more there is left to earn? If you’re just comparing yourself to richer people?Stillness is the key to greatness and the key to happiness (and it’s the title of Ryan Holiday’s new book!). There is little hope and little point to life without it. Stillness is what Stoicism seeks to instill in us—so that we can be better at our jobs, at our responsibilities, and in our quiet moments alone. Without stillness, we have no greatness. We have only franticness and insatiableness.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We spend a lot of time worried about what other people are going to do. Will that colleague muscle you out of the way for the promotion? Will another coffee shop or yoga studio or accountant open up on the block and steal your customers? Is so-and-so out to get you? Is the government plotting to raise your taxes or regulate your industry?From these fears come many actions. We get them before they get us. We spend money lobbying or setting up defenses. We call up friends or mentors, ranting and raving. The irony is that all this energy and anxiety is taking our eye off the ball. It’s a distraction from our day-to-day responsibility. And, more importantly, history shows that very few empires are destroyed by external forces. They’re usually undone by the hubris and arrogance and selfishness of their own people and leaders. As Pericles famously said, “I fear our own mistakes more than the enemy’s schemes.” It’s essential that we remember this. We should be far more concerned with our own ego and our own inadequacies than what someone else may do to us. Besides, which do we have more control over? Which can we 100% block? Someone else’s actions? Or our own? Marcus Aurelius put it definitively and adamantly, and which is why today we must chase…“The tranquility that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do.” See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Nobody cared more about statues than the Greeks and the Romans. In fact, the only reason we know what many of the Stoics looked like is because they were preserved in marble by sculptors many thousands of years ago. The Stoics knew that statues were important. Aristocreon, a nephew of Chrysippus, put up a statue of his uncle—to honor his memory and his role in the founding of Stoicism. The grandfather of Cato was once asked why there was no statue of him. His answer: I’d rather people ask why there isn’t a statue of me than why there is. The idea for the Greeks and Romans was to put up these statues so that we might look up and be inspired by the deeds and the principles of the great men (and women) who came before us. But today, what statues do we put up? Last year, Michigan became the home of a new statue of Robocop. Most people can agree that statues of Confederate generals (see: traitors) are not appropriate to maintain with public funds. That’s as far as we’re able to go though. We’re not building new statues, that’s for sure. We can hardly agree on who we admire enough to capture in stone or bronze. That’s really sad and really scary. Because each generation needs guidance. We need to be called to honor the greatness of our past (and in the case of some monuments, reminded of the failures and mistakes civilization has made). We need to see—in tangible form—the principles that we as a people hold dear, that we are aspiring to mirror in our own lives.A nation—an era—is judged by the monuments it erects just as a home is judged by the art that hangs on its walls. So that’s the question for the world and for you as an individual today: What statues are you putting up? And are you living by the example they stand for?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In her page-a-day book Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much, the writer Anne Willson Schaef makes a distinction that the Stoics would have certainly agreed with—there is a difference, she writes, between trying to control everything in your life and taking charge of your life. “Trying to control our lives puts us in a position of failure before we start,” Anne writes, “and causes endless, unnecessary pain and suffering. Taking charge of our lives means owning our lives and having a respond-ability to our lives.” ‘Respond-ability’ is a great word, and one we should add to our vocabulary today. The same goes with the distinction between taking charge and taking control. As the Stoics tried to teach us, only a fool thinks they can control fortune or prevent bad things from occurring through worry or endless work. Only a tyrant thinks they can determine everything other people do and say. A wise person, on the other hand, takes responsibility for themselves and says, “I might not be in control of what happens to me in life, but I am in charge of how I respond to it.” A wise person is both responsible and respond-able. And that’s exactly what we are going to focus on today.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

One way to read The Odyssey is that it’s a story of human perseverance. Odysseus is cunning and determined, he’s willing to do everything and anything to get back to Ithaca...and eventually, because of that, he finally does. That’s certainly the interpretation of Tennyson in his poem “Ulysses”:“We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”But there is also a way to read The Odyssey as illustrating the exact opposite lesson. Because basically every delay and impediment on Odysseus’s long journey home is completely his fault. He says he wants to get back to Ithaca, and then proceeds to constantly undermine himself. It’s only towards the end, when he finally stops and actually listens to the gods (most of whom favor him) that he quickly makes any real progress. In fact, they finally come out and tell him this when Odysseus tries to argue with their instructions for surviving Scylla and Charybdis (he wants to stand and fight, they tell him to dart through). “Goddess, please, tell me the truth, is there no other way?" Odysseus pleads. The goddess answers, "No, you fool! Your mind is still obsessed with deeds of war. But now you must surrender to the gods."Marcus Aurelius talked about practicing the “art of acquiescence.” Seneca and Epictetus spoke often about surrendering to fate—understanding that we are not in control, accepting that there is a larger plan for us spelled out in the logos. It seems like resignation, and it’s a very scary thing for us to try. So most people don’t. We refuse to yield, like Odysseus, and we never end up getting where we want to go.The concept of Amor Fati is quite paradoxical. It’s acceptance fused with determination. It’s the ability to go along and make the best of something—even if every ounce of your being would rather stand and fight. It seems crazy, but it works. Because there is more at work behind the scenes than we know. There is a bigger picture we cannot see. And even if there wasn’t, the universe is much stronger than we are.That’s why it’s better to flow with it than impotently resist it.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

During the American Revolution—as in any war—the British quite rightly targeted the estates and the landholdings of the leadership on the American side. Because to them, these men weren’t founders—they were instigators. At one point in the war, George Washington’s estate was threatened by advancing troops. Thinking he might be able to save his boss’s property, one of Washington’s overseers rushed out to try to convince the enemy to spare them.When Washington heard about this, he was not pleased. In fact, he wrote immediately to his staff: I’d rather my home be demolished than receive special treatment. Given our selfish and corrupt modern politics, it’s a remarkable sentiment. Here was a rich, powerful person turning down a favor, not only refusing to profit from his position but actually willingly accepting a potentially massive sacrifice because of it.Why? Because it was the right thing to do. And as Marcus Aurelius said, that’s all that mattersThe Stoics, were, as far as we know, similarly inclined as leaders. When Rome’s finances were in ruins, Marcus Aurelius sold off the treasures of the imperial palace to shore them up. He could have levied high taxes, he could have invaded another country—he could have used his power so that others suffered instead of his family, but he didn’t. Because that would have been unfair. James Stockdale and John McCain turned down special treatment as prisoners of war in Vietnam. They must have ached for even the slightest relief. They were desperate to get home. But they refused to abandon their duty—they would not undermine their country or deprive their fellow prisoners.This is not to say that a Stoic must decline every perk in life. Or that you can’t be compensated for your work or your success. However, we must always consider whether these perks come at the expense of somebody else, or if our special treatment means neglect elsewhere. What if everyone took advantage of their position? How would the world work? How fair would that be?We must always do the right thing...even if it comes at great cost.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Epictetus could not have summed up Stoicism better than when he said: “It’s not things that upset us, but our judgement about things.” What he meant was that the world is neither positive or negative, it is simply objectively indifferent. A hurricane is a hurricane. Striking gold is simply discovering metal in the ground. It’s our opinions of those events which decide that one is horrible and the other is a blessing.Of course, Epictetus was not saying there is no such thing as “good” or “bad,” at least as far as morality is concerned. While morality is a judgment, it’s an acceptable one when we apply it to actions that are within our control (that is, our own behavior). The trouble is that we can’t seem to keep these judgments contained to that area of influence. We make up categories and then try to organize the world into them...and are often miserable when fate doesn’t get the memo. Death, of course, is the ultimate example. It’s neither good nor bad. It simply is. Each of us is going to die. That’s a fact. It’s not really a positive or a negative fact, particularly since it carries with it the end of our ability to have an opinion about it. Yet that doesn’t seem to stop us from worrying about it, from spending a lot of time trying to decide what it means and whether we like it or not. How miserable this makes people! How many awful and stupid things they do to prevent it, from betraying their friends to missing out on enjoying life in misguided attempts to prolong their existence. As Epictetus said, “Death...is nothing terrible, but the terrible thing is the opinion that death is terrible.”Hopefully you can chew on this a bit today. Death is not bad. It’s simply a fact. Indeed, everything is simply a fact. We’d be happier and more present if we could accept this. If we could stop fooling ourselves into thinking our opinions change anything (except to make stuff worse, most of the time). No judgment. No need to label or categorize. Just take life as it comes.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This was a big argument amongst the early Stoics: What was necessary for the good life? What was actually important to the wise man? They came up with a pretty straightforward but almost impossible to obtain answer: All the wise man should care about is virtue. Everything else—money, fame, family, power, sex—was meaningless. Indifferents. But as the Stoics went off and lived their lives, this explanation had trouble holding up. Really? Nothing matters except virtue? We have to cut every little pleasure and stroke of good luck out of our lives? There’s no material item or position in the world that is useful or helpful to those pursuing or living with wisdom? That doesn’t sound right. It was Chrysippus who came up with a better formulation. Basically, he said that a better way to think about it was need vs want. If a person needs to be famous or needs to be rich, they are vulnerable and often unhappy. That’s obviously not wisdom. But does a wise person have to actively avoid making money? Must they live in obscurity? That seems silly. The wise man, he said, is in want of nothing, but can have and enjoy plenty. Meanwhile, the fool can make sure of nothing but desperately wants everything. Isn’t that perfectly said? And isn’t that the perfect admonishment for us today? Make use of everything we have while we have it and gratefully accept what comes our way…but be perfectly content to live without it if it were to disappear.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Here’s a question to ask yourself about your work and your life: Do you create value for society or do you extract it? Are you a giver or a taker? Do you make the world better with your choices and actions and lifestyle?When the Stoics talk about sympatheia, they are referring to this idea that we all have a role, that we’re all part of a larger whole. And, of course, the Stoics were not so naive that they didn’t understand some people’s roles were to be shameless, to be evil, to be lazy, or whatever. (Marcus alludes to an idea in Meditations that even people who are sleeping are doing a job of some kind). But just because that is some people’s role, doesn’t mean it’s a good role or that it should be yours. It’s worth taking the time on a regular basis to stop and consider what you’re contributing to this whole crazy system we’ve been born into. Marcus said that we were made to do works for the common good. Well, are you? Are you helping people? Is what you sell actually worth people’s money (and therefore time) or are you such a good marketer that you trick them into thinking so? Decide to create value. Decide to give more than you take. Make the world better by being in it.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It must be said that the Stoics were cowardly when it came to slavery. Marcus Aurelius, who believed that we were all part of a common whole, that we were all equal before life and death, who so admired a former slave like Epictetus, who writes at one point about why it would be wrong to have sex with a slave, doesn’t see a problem with owning a person. He had the power to eliminate slavery in the empire, but he just couldn’t do it. Seneca is an even bigger hypocrite. He writes over and over again about the importance of freedom and kindness and fairness, yet how many slaves did he own? Too many to count. He writes about slavery often in his letters, and you can just feel that as wrong as he knows it is, he can’t come out and question the institution that defined Roman life. He even knows he’s being hypocritical and in Letter XLVII more or less admits it. All he can say is: “But this is the kernel of my advice: Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your betters.” Perhaps part of the reason that many Stoics had so much trouble with slavery is that as much power as the Romans had over their slaves, there was someone who had that much power over them. The emperor (indeed Marcus for the entirety of his reign) could throw someone in chains, could kill them, could take their possessions or steal the fruit of their labors. This often happened with capricious and devastating cruelty. Selfishly, stupidly, the lesson they took from this was: If someone can do it to me, why can’t I do it to someone else?They should have really listened to what Seneca was saying, to that timeless and universal idea we see in countless religions and philosophies and now call the Golden Rule. How would you want to be treated by people with power over you? Now why on earth would you treat people you have power over differently than that?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It was not lost even on the Stoics that some parts of this philosophy come more naturally to some people than others. Some folks just seem chill by default. Some are so-called “old souls” who have wisdom and perspective, almost from birth. Others were not blessed (or cursed) with ambition or opportunities, and so there is very little challenge going on in their life anyway. Good for them. That’s their lot in life. It’s not ours. It certainly wasn’t Seneca’s. The rest of us have to struggle. We struggle against our impulses. We struggle to really internalize these teachings. We are struggling to manage our tempers or the envy that creeps up out of nowhere, into our souls, and then out through our hands and mouths as deeds we wish we could undo. It’d be nice if we didn’t have to struggle so much, but we do. And yet, this struggle—and the triumphs over it, however temporary—that is what’s impressive about us. Seneca wrote that he doesn’t admire the person who has it easy, who is naturally Stoic. No, he admires the man “who has won a victory over the meanness of his own nature, and has not gently led himself, but has wrestled his way, to wisdom.” Seneca reserved his deepest appreciation for the person who’d survived the crucible of ego, who’d navigated the gauntlet of envy and pride, who’d walked through the shadow of the valley of death, but with himself as his own shepherd. Today, we must continue to wrestle. We must continue to struggle and fight for victory. It won’t be easy—it never is—but that’s the whole point. It’s the man in the arena that we admire. It’s the one covered in dust and sweat that matters. And that’s who we are.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In her beautiful book about the Los Angeles Public Library fire, Susan Orlean captures the magic of what libraries can offer. She describes walking through the empty library in Downtown LA, not a soul in sight, and feeling connected to all the different voices represented on the millions of pages that surround her. “A library is a good place to soften solitude,” she writes, “a place where you feel part of a conversation that has gone on for hundreds and hundreds of years even when you’re all alone. The library is a whispering post. You don’t need to take a book off the shelf to know there is a voice inside that is waiting to speak to you, and behind that was someone who truly believed that if he or she spoke, someone would listen.” Books, in this way, are wonderful friends. They are always there. They speak wisdom, but offer their advice quietly. They have an unlimited capacity for listening. They offer so much and ask for essentially nothing in return. We can say the same about philosophy, which, of course, mostly comes to us in the form of books. As Seneca said, philosophy offers counsel. It does not yell. It levels no personal attacks. No, it calls for you to be better. It is there whenever and wherever you need it. It softens our solitude. It is a true friend. Books, especially those about philosophy, are that friend who should always be within arm’s reach, who we should turn to constantly. Today, when we have some downtime. Next week when we run into some trouble. In the morning when we are lonely or struggling to start the day. Pick up a book. Read a passage. Listen to the person who truly believed that if they spoke—if they wrote—someone would listen and that it would make a difference. They weren’t wrong.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s pretty incredible to think that Hadrian was able to see the potential in Marcus Aurelius. Hadrian somehow, even though Marcus was just a boy, could tell that this kid had something. That he might be able to withstand the stress and temptation and pressures of the empire. What did he see? How did he know?It’s a mystery. We know that at some point he nicknamed him Verissimus, a pun on his new name M. Aelius Aurelius Verus, meaning truest. But Marcus was a teenager then and there are plenty of “true” teenagers…that doesn’t mean they’ll all be good heads of state. In fact, what’s so impressive about the man that Marcus became is that he was selected so young and he stillturned out to be good. Imagine if you had been told that you would one day be king, imagine if the current king selected you as his favorite—what would that do to your head? (Just look at Marcus’s own son Commodus for a hint)The point is: A great destiny—which all of us have in our own way, since we are all capable of great things—is no trifling matter. It can be corrupting and distracting. It can be a burden. To fulfill it is not a simple matter of sitting back and waiting for it to happen. No, it must be worked for. It must be earned. We must fight against all the temptations and the entitlements. We must make good on what the world sees in us. Ultimately, that is what we can learn from Marcus Aurelius and what we should be most inspired by. Hadrian predicted that Marcus could become something special, but Marcus went out and proved him right. Hadrian put Marcus under nearly inhuman pressure and stress by choosing him, but Marcus is the one who decided that he would thrive in spite of it, that he would rise to the challenge and emerge stronger and better for it. Marcus went out and seized his destiny, and earned his crown.So must we.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Marcus Aurelius, on nearly a dozen occasions in Meditations, speaks of reaching or achieving “stillness.” Most beautifully, he writes of trying to be “like the rock that the waves keep crashing over,” the one that “stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it.” We shouldn’t be surprised to hear him use this word—which sounds Buddhist as much as it sounds Stoic—because it meant a great deal to him. The last word from Antoninus, Marcus’s beloved stepfather, as he passed power to him was simply: Aequanimitas. Equanimity. Intuitively, instinctively, we know what that means. Stillness. Equanimity. Ataraxia. We also know how rare those feelings are. How often are we still? How often are we able to reach that place of clarity and steadiness inside ourselves? Not often enough, considering the incredible feats of focus and creativity and determination we are capable of when in possession of it. Do you want more of it? Would you like to be cooler under pressure? Would you like to be like the rock in Marcus’s analogy, the one that can calm great oceans and endure the strongest currents and biggest waves? How much better would you be with more focus, more self-discipline, a happier soul?The good news is that this what Ryan Holiday’s new book is all about. It’s called Stillness is the Key. And the even better news is that you can preorder it right now. Barnes and Noble even has a limited run of signed copies for sale. At Daily Stoic we’re also offering some cool preorder bonuses for anyone that buys one, five or one hundred copies—in any format, anywhere in the world (details here, please follow the instructions!!).We live in crazy times. Stillness has been the secret weapon of the Stoics and the Buddhists, the Christians and the followers of Confucius, for thousands of years—for a reason. Because it can help us thrive in a world that’s spinning faster than ever. Stillness is the key to the good life, whatever that looks like for you. It’s the key to career success, to happiness, to enduring adversity, to appreciating the wonders of existence. You know you want more of it. You know how special it is. We have all felt its power.So let’s go find it together.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Marcus Aurelius was an incredibly lucky man. He was born a Roman and he was born a man in a time where to be anything other than a man or a Roman citizen was a position of extreme powerlessness. He was also born to a wealthy family who provided him the best tutors, tutors who loved him and taught him the philosophy that changed his life. He was then adopted into Antoninus’s family (at the request of Hadrian) to set in motion his ascension to the throne, a gift of enormous power, wealth, and responsibility. It says in the Bible that to whom much is given, much is required. Marcus took this idea quite seriously. Not only was he not one of those dilettante emperors, he also saw the gifts he had been given as an obligation to do good, to be of service—that it wasn’t about him, but about what he was called to do. So when Rome’s finances were shaky, he sold off imperial treasures to pay down the empire’s debts. When estates were left to him, he could have easily accepted them and increased his family’s wealth while in office, like so many politicians before and since have done. Instead, he found the deceased’s distant relatives and gifted it to them (when his own father died, Marcus passed his rightful inheritance to his sister). We can see in Meditations just how difficult and stressful all this responsibility was on Marcus...yet there was no complaining, no ethical lapses, no regrettable mistakes. Much was given to him at birth and in life, and he rose to the occasion. He did what was required of him and more. So today, think about your own good fortune and the gifts you have received—by nature of where you’ve been born (and when), because of who your family is or the success you’ve had. There is no such thing as a free lunch. There are always strings. In this case, you are now obligated. Much is required of you. You are required to be good. To give back. To help others, to sprinkle some of your stardust on other people. Starting now.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s late summer now and you might be thinking it’s time to squeeze in a last minute vacation. Or maybe you’ve been looking forward to a long-planned one to some distant location. This is just what I need, you’re thinking. I can’t wait to get out there on the beach…or the mountains…or those beautiful ruins. We think we can escape from our job. From our problems. From our depression. From our low-grade dissatisfaction with our ordinary lives. But what do we find when we arrive to the exotic location? After we check in to the hotel or the Airbnb? We find, after the rush wears off, that we don’t feel any different. We brought ourselves with us…the true source of our unhappiness. Seneca was an avid traveler who saw how often his fellow tourists were in denial, how they foolishly thought a change of scenery could exempt them from the real inner-work they needed to do. He liked to quote Epicurus who said that “every man flees himself.” We can imagine Seneca enjoying the lyric from a song by Alice in Chains: heaven beside you…hell within.That’s why vacations often disappoint. Because as beautiful as they are, as much as we design them for relaxation, they are incapable of overriding our anxiety and our dysfunction. If our soul is tense, no amount of massages will relax it. If our mind is chaos, no amount of time in the water will order it. If our life is a mess, eventually we’ll have to return to it–and all the tours and long dinners will evaporate it in a minute. If you want to be happy, if you want to relax, look inward. Do the work. Not only will you be happier at home, but you’ll enjoy your time on the road more too.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

These are times of increasing political extremism. They are also times of corruption and rising inequality. Enormous, alarming trends are sweeping through culture, government, and the economy. In some sense this is new, but in other ways it’s a story as old as civilized society. So the question is not why or what or who or even how—it’s where. Where is the courage? Where are the people standing up to stop all this? Where are the heroes, big and small? The city council member who refuses to rubber stamp the pocket-lining policies of her fellow council members. The parent who turns in their own child for his alarming obsession with guns. The celebrity who uses their platform to speak truth, rather than pile onto whatever the mob has decided is right. To the Stoics, courage was the greatest of the virtues. Being brave enough to take a stand, to risk one’s own neck. To throw yourself in front of the car to save someone else. Or, as Mario Savio put it on the Berkeley campus in the 1960s during the Free Speech movement, “to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus…to make it stop.”Courage was also independence. Refusing to cow to the majority, and instead to hold oneself to a higher standard. That standard was justice, another essential virtue. That meant insisting on what was right. Attacking corruption, intolerance for unfairness. Protecting the downtrodden or the weak. Are there still heroes out there? Yes. We see it in Lori Gilbert-Kaye, who died protecting her rabbi from a gunman. We see it in James Melville, the ambassador who resigned on principle after Trump’s comments about NATO. We see it when people admit they were wrong. When academics challenge political correctness and orthodoxy. We see it when a classmate stands up to a bully. We see it when a fireman rushes into a building, or when a police officer runs towards the shooting. When the ordinary person says, “Hey, don’t say things like that. Don’t treat other people that way. It’s not right.”But we don’t see it enough. In part because we don’t do it enough ourselves.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In his new book, Comedy Sex God (as well as on his wonderful podcast and on his HBO show) the comedian Pete Holmes talks about the aftermath of the dissolution of his marriage. After his wife cheated on him and their subsequent divorce, he was hit with a long developing crisis of faith in the religion he had grown up with.He describes this period as many nights on the road. Lots of work. Lots of drinking. Lots of crying. Lots of Counting Crows songs on repeat. And while that all seems very tough, the interesting part about it, he says, looking back, is how easy it was. How comfortably he slipped into this depression and came to feel at home in it. He almost looks back at the period fondly now, as if remembering a long morning under the warm covers.This is something the Stoics were quite aware of as well, and why they urged us to be wary of our passions. It’s not that they felt that emotions were bad, it’s that they knew how easy it was to slip into them and be consumed by them. When we lose someone we love, grief is natural. It can also be tempting to simply take residence inside that grief as a way of protecting ourselves from ever getting hurt again. When we run into difficulty, it’s natural to be sad about it. And we can quite easily adopt this sadness as our new world view, when the braver thing is actually to make ourselves vulnerable again in the pursuit of something to be hopeful and happy about. One of the key virtues of Stoicism is moderation. Not too little. Not too much. Just the right amount. It’s easy to overindulge your emotions, as Pete Holmes did for so long on the road as a comic. It’s easy to block them off entirely, as Stoicism has been wrongly criticized for advocating for centuries.The truth is, neither absence nor abundance is the right path. Because neither is a path toward anything at all. And what is life but a path whose twists and turns are ours to carve with our own two feet. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The great C.S Lewis observed that we all find forgiveness to be a lovely idea...right up until we have someone to forgive. It’s true. Forgiveness is one of those virtues that’s easy to talk about, but incredibly hard to practice. Particularly when we are hurt, or when we have been seriously wronged. Yet, isn’t that sort of the point? Forgiveness wouldn’t be that impressive, it wouldn’t be that meaningful, if it came naturally. If it could be so easily tossed off.Think of Laura Tibbetts, whose daughter was killed by an undocumented immigrant in 2018. After the body was discovered, all sorts of letters poured in. People tried to stoke her passions to make her angry. This is why we need to build a wall, they said. Those people are animals. We need to protect ourselves. And what did she do? She opened her home to a young boy whose parents were also undocumented immigrants and had worked in the very same fields as the man who had murdered her daughter. That’s not just a lovely example of forgiveness, it’s a profoundly virtuous and impressive thing to do. There must be so much pain in Laura’s heart, so much anger. Yet she has risen above it. She has found a way to see through the rage and the hurt to find something common in their shared humanity. Something she could support and care for, rather than dismiss or rail against. The Stoics believed that these sorts of gestures were the essence of greatness. They believed these were the moments we train for. It’s easy to say that forgiveness is important. It’s easy to talk about sympatheia, or how we are all part of a larger whole, alongside our fellow humans. But it is so hard to do. Because life challenges us. Life throws tragedy at us. Instead of calling us to be better, to live up to a higher standard, the media and our fellow citizens often try to drag us down into the mud, encouraging our basest instincts. We have to keep reaching for that higher standard, though. We have to push through the pain and the anger. We have to pull ourselves out of the mud. We have to forgive. We have to try to be good...and in the process, be great. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.