Marcus Annius Verus was born in a prominent and established family but nobody at the time would have predicted that he would one day be Emperor of the Empire.
There is little that is known of his childhood but he was a serious young man who also enjoyed wrestling, boxing and hunting.
Around his teenage years, the reigning emperor at the time, Hadrian was nearing death and was childless.
He had to pick a successor and after his first choice, Lucius Ceionius, died unexpectedly, he chose Antoninus.
He was a senator who was also childless and he would have to adopt Marcus, as per Hadrian’s condition, as well as Ceionius’s son, Lucius Verus.
This is how Marcus’s name changed to Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. It is important to realize the gravity of that position and the magnitude of power that Marcus possessed.
He held one of—if not the most—powerful positions in the world at the time. If he chose to, nothing would be off limits. He could indulge and succumb to temptations, there was nobody that could restrain him from any of his wishes.
There is a reason the adage that power in absolute absolutely corrupts has been repeated throughout history—it unfortunately tends to be true. And yet, as the essayist Matthew Arnold remarked, Marcus proved himself worthy of the position he was in.
And it was not only him who offered that verdict. The famous historian Edward Gibbon wrote that under Marcus, the last of the ‘Five Good Emperors,’ “the Roman Empire was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of wisdom and virtue”.
The guidance of wisdom and virtue. Just think of the diary that he left behind, which is now known as his Meditations which we discuss below: the private thoughts of the most powerful man in the world, admonishing himself on how to be more virtuous, more just, more immune to temptation, wiser.
3 STOIC EXERCISES FROM MARCUS AURELIUS
1.Practice The Virtues You Can Show
It’s easy to succumb to self-pity when we start telling ourselves that we lack certain talents, that we miss stuff that seems to come so easily to other people.
We need to catch ourselves when we do so. We need instead to focus on the things that are always within us: our capacity and potential for virtuous action. As Marcus wrote to himself,
“No one could ever accuse you of being quick-witted.
All right, but there are plenty of other things you can’t claim you “haven’t got in you.”
Practice the virtues you can show: honesty, gravity, endurance, austerity, resignation, abstinence, patience, sincerity, moderation, seriousness, high-mindedness.
Don’t you see how much you have to offer—beyond excuses like “can’t”? And yet you still settle for less.”
2. Draw Strength from Others
As discussed earlier, Marcus most likely wrote the notes to himself which are now Meditations on the battlefield, during the last decade of his life. In those times of difficulty and adversity, he’d write to himself notes of encouragement, to pick himself back again, to do his duty.
One exercise that we can borrow from him is to draw strength from people in our lives or simply role models that inspire us. As he wrote,
“When you need encouragement, think of the qualities the people around you have: this one’s energy, that one’s modesty, another’s generosity, and so on. Nothing is as encouraging as when virtues are visibly embodied in the people around us, when we’re praactically showered with them. It’s good to keep this in mind.”
3.Focus on The Present
Marcus knew the temptations that exist for all of us to let our imagination run wild envisioning all the ways things can go wrong.
Of course, such an exercise can be useful in preparing us for the future and making us ready for adversity, but Marcus well understood that it can become a crippling fear that will paralyze us from any useful action. As he put it,
“Don’t let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole. Don’t try to picture everything bad that could possibly happen. Stick with the situation at hand, and ask, “Why is this so unbearable? Why can’t I endure it?” You’ll be embarrassed to answer.
Then remind yourself that past and future have no power over you. Only the present—and even that can be minimized.
Just mark off its limits. And if your mind tries to claim that it can’t hold out against that…well, then, heap shame upon it.”
MARCUS AURELIUS QUOTES
“Yes, you can–if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable.”
“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: ‘I have to go to work – as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for – the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?’”
“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil.”
“Not to feel exasperated, or defeated, or despondent because your days aren’t packed with wise and moral actions. But to get back up when you fail, to celebrate behaving like a human–however imperfectly–and fully embrace the pursuit that you’ve embarked on.”
“The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
“No carelessness in your actions. No confusion in your words. No imprecision in your thoughts.”
To love only what happens, what was destined. No greater harmony.
The best answer to anger is silence.
The first step: Don’t be anxious. Nature controls it all.
The second step: Concentrate on what you have to do. Fix your eyes on it. Remind yourself that your task is to be a good human being; remind yourself what nature demands of people.
Then do it, without hesitation, and speak the truth as you see it. But with kindness. With humility. Without hypocrisy.
The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have.
Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions – not outside.
Objective judgement, now, at this very moment. Unselfish action, now, at this very moment. Willing acceptance, now, at this very moment – of all external events. That’s all you need.
How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life.
You’re subject to sorrow, fear, jealousy, anger and inconsistency. That’s the real reason you should admit that you are not wise.
Almost nothing material is needed for a happy life, for he who has understood existence. Click to tweet
Receive wealth or prosperity without arrogance; and be ready to let it go. Click to tweet
For God’s sake, stop honouring externals, quit turning yourself into the tool of mere matter, or of people who can supply you or deny you those material things.
As the same fire assumes different shapes when it consumes objects differing in shape, so does the one self take the shape of every creature in whom he is present.
A man when he has done a good act, does not call out for others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes in season.
Remember: Matter. How tiny your share of it. Time. How brief and fleeting your allotment of it. Fate. How small a role you play in it.
Is any man afraid of change? What can take place without change? What then is more pleasing or more suitable to the universal nature? And can you take a hot bath unless the wood for the fire undergoes a change?
And can you be nourished unless the food undergoes a change? And can anything else that is useful be accomplished without change? Do you not see then that for yourself also to change is just the same, and equally necessary for the universal nature?
Receive without pride, let go without attachment. Click to tweet
When you have assumed these names – good, modest, truthful, rational, a man of equanimity, and magnanimous – take care that you do not change these names; and if you should lose them, quickly return to them.
Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.
If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.
I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others.
Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it.
Consider that before long you will be nobody and nowhere, nor will any of the things exist that you now see, nor any of those who are now living.
For all things are formed by nature to change and be turned and to perish in order that other things in continuous succession may exist.
He who follows reason in all things is both tranquil and active at the same time, and also cheerful and collected.
In a word, if there is a god, all is well; and if chance rules, do not also be governed by it.
So I look for the best and am prepared for the opposite.
https://dailystoic.com/marcus-aurelius/#comment-40Treat whatever happens as wholly natural; not novel or hard to deal with; but familiar and easily handled. (This is one of my favorite Marcus Aurelius quote. Leave a reply here and let me know what’s yours!)
http://wisdomquotes.com/marcus-aurelius-quotes/
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