In my book club, we’re reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, one of the Stoic philosophers. (Technically, he wasn’t a philosopher. He was a Roman Emperor whose journal is now a popular Stoic text.) In our discussion last Tuesday, someone mentioned how refreshing it was to read the words of a politician who cared and was trying to be a good person. That made me laugh.
Politics aside, should you read the stoic philosophers? If you decide to invest the time and effort, then here’s what you’ll discover:
- You cannot control most of what happens to you. Your job is not to complain about circumstance, but instead to turn each stumble, explosion, outburst, and headache into an opportunity for being a better human.
- Being a better human means getting good at the work that only humans can do: being rational in your search for living virtuously.
- To be virtuous means to get good at four areas of life: courage, justice, wisdom, and temperance.
- Anything outside of these four virtues is what we would call indifferents. They don’t matter. Indifferents include money, death, and rock and roll (I might fight with the stoics on the last one. Rock and roll is pretty great).
There’s more of course. The stoic way of life is expansive, fascinating, and it resonates today because we’re facing the same kinds of crap they dealt with thousands of years ago. War, disease, getting old, heartbreak, and more fill our over-exhausted minds. In fact, Meditations was a journal which makes it extra special. It wasn’t meant to be a philosophical text shared throughout the ages. What you’ll find are the words of the most powerful man in the world, struggling with how to lead his people with a kind and virtuous heart.
Oh, and as a side note, this is the first book I’ll be selling in my new bookstore when the doors open! I’m so excited! I have a very specific translation that I love and will be shipping. I’ll also be providing a custom Meditations journal and a few other guided tools for those wanting to get the most from this work.
Until tomorrow, read slowly – take notes – apply the ideas.
-Eddy
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