Tag: Marcus Aurelius

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5 Perspectives to Get Us Unstuck

We’re about to start a new year. It’s time to think about new goals, new activities, and new habits. The trouble is, we often end up stuck in the same old ways of doing things. We start something new, and resistance sets in. It’s like we’re walking through deep mud and trying to climb up a steep bank. It seems like everything around us wants to keep us in the same old ruts.

The ancient philosophers of the Western world dealt with big abstract ideas, but they also thought through these common problems. I have found that they offer some ways to help us think differently about common problems that offer new perspectives. They are alternative perspectives on common problems that can help get us unstuck.

1. Change of habits takes time. Aristotle says “. . . men acquire many qualities neither by nature nor by teaching but by habituation, bad qualities if they are habituated to the bad, good if the good” (Eudemian Ethics, 1.1).

My comment: we look at many things we can’t do and think that we cannot do them because we cannot do them now. Aristotle observes that many things involve work over time, habituation. So, it would be better when looking at most things we cannot do to not say, “I cannot do that,” but rather to say, “I cannot do that today.” We can acquire new skills. They just take work over time.

2. How you think will determine how you live. “Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind, for the soul is dyed by the thoughts” (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.16).

My comment: the way that we think about things has a strong effect on how we feel about them. However, we can think differently about things and so feel differently about them. For example, we may look at mistakes as a disaster, and so we get angry at ourselves. However, we can think differently. We can accept that mistakes are a normal part of the human learning process. This makes it easier to keep going. That’s what these alternative ways of thinking are all about. If our thoughts shape the character of the soul, we can change our thoughts and consequently the character of our soul. Continue reading “5 Perspectives to Get Us Unstuck”

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Philosophical Resources for Suffering Well


It is not only Christians who have seen the value of suffering and suffering well. Philosophers and teachers throughout the world have provided us with a variety of helpful ways of processing suffering. Here are a few that I have studied over the past year.

I want to present two lists of quotes from two different philosophers. The first list is from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations (read more here).

  • Misfortune gives us opportunity to grow in and exercise good character, which is a great reward in itself. “Remember, too, on every occasion that leads you to vexation to apply this principle: not that this is a misfortune, but that to bear it nobly is good fortune” (4.49).
  • If people do us wrong, we can preserve ourselves by not responding in kind. “The best way of avenging yourself is not to become like the wrongdoer” (6.6).
  • If we get our way, that’s good. If we don’t, we have an opportunity to learn to be content when we don’t. Learning that is a great good. “Let us try to persuade men. But act even against their will when the principles of justice lead the way. If, however, any man by using force stands in your way, have recourse to contentment and tranquility, employing this hindrance as a spur to the exercise of some other virtue; and remember that thy attempt was limited, that you did not desire to do impossibilities” (6.51).
  • It is our mindset not necessarily the thing itself that makes things so bad. “But I unless I think that what has happened is an evil, am not injured. And it is in my power not to think so” (7.14).

The second list is from the Roman philosopher Seneca’s letters to his student Lucilius.

  • We don’t really know what we are made of until we have had to undergo many trials. “For our powers can never inspire in us implicit faith in ourselves except when many difficulties have confronted us on this side and on that, and have occasionally even come to close quarters with us” (25). He goes on to compare those who struggle in life with those who fight in the arena: “The only contestant who can confidently enter the lists [i.e., engage in the conflict] is the man who has seen his own blood, who has felt his teeth rattle beneath his opponent’s fist, who has been tripped and felt the full force of his adversary’s charge, who has been downed in body but not in spirit, one who, as often as he falls, rises again with greater defiance than ever” (Ibid., 26).
  • Things are often worse in our fears than they are in reality. “There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than they are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality” (Ibid.).
  • There is no reason to reject present happiness because of the possibility of future unhappiness. “Why, indeed, is it necessary to summon trouble–which must be endured soon enough when it has once arrived, or to anticipate trouble and ruin the present through fear of the future? It is indeed foolish to be unhappy now because you may be unhappy at some future time” (XXIV, 57).
  • Recognize that all relationships are temporary and prepare accordingly. “Let not the eyes be dry when we have lost a friend, nor let them overflow. We may weep but we most not wail” (LXIII, 148). How are we able to do this? “For I have had them as if I should one day lose them: I have lost them as if I have them still” (LXIII, 149).
  • Past unhappiness does not necessitate present unhappiness: “What benefit is there in reviewing past sufferings and in being unhappy, just because you were once unhappy?” (LXXVIII, 220).
  • Whoever does wrong to someone else does more evil to themselves than to their neighbor. “When we do wrong, only the least and lightest portion of it flows back upon our neighbour; the worst and, if I may use the term, the densest portion of it stays at home and troubles the owner. My master Attalus used to say: ‘Evil herself drinks the largest portion of her own poison” (LXXX, 234).
  • Losing things does not mean that we cannot continue to enjoy them. “What resource do we find, then, in the face of these losses? Simply this–to keep in memory the things we have lost, and not to suffer the enjoyment we have derived from them to pass away along with them. To have may be taken away from us, to have had, never” (XCVIII, 353).
  • Don’t worry about what you don’t have. Enjoy what you do. “To have whatsoever he wishes is in no man’s power; it is in his power not to wish for what he has not, but cheerfully to employ what comes to him” (CXXIII, 455).

Both of these books provide numerous other thoughts that contain resources for suffering well. Seneca and Marcus Aurelius suggest that the way we think about suffering is a large part of our suffering. This is something we can change, and many thinkers, like these two, can help us do so.

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How to Reduce Frustration and Anger

“Marcus Aurelius had a vision for Rome, and this is NOT IT!” Thus thundered Maximus in the well-known movie Gladiator. It’s also something I said to my wife repeatedly over the course of several weeks, each time I got up from reading Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. It’s not that I thought that quote was particularly insightful. It just kept coming into my mind, so I said it out loud!

Gladiator is the reason most people know about Marcus Aurelius, but Marcus Aurelius has been famous for a long time because of his life and because of his book Meditations. Meditations is in essence a self-help book that people still read 1,800 years after publication. And there’s a reason for that–it is helpful!

Marcus Aurelius wrote these meditations while defending the Roman Empire’s borders against its numerous enemies. The book is a series of self-contained paragraphs that were based on what Aurelius had learned in Stoic philosophy. Each paragraph contains one idea or thought to enable him or the reader to see things differently and so live in peace with the world as it is and not as he would like it to be.

His basic thesis is “If you are pained about any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it.” Frustration is what you bring to the table, and, he often adds, it is in your power to judge the situation differently. Meditations is a book that teaches you how to judge situations differently so you can reduce frustration and anger and enjoy tranquility.

Here are a few examples.

What do we think when things go badly? “Remember, too, on every occasion that leads you to vexation to apply this principle: not that this is a misfortune, but that to bear it nobly is good fortune” (4.49).

What if we have to get up early? “In the morning when you rise unwillingly, let this thought be present. I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going into the world for things for which I exist and for which I was brought into this world?” (5.1).

What if I don’t like where I live? “[W]here a man can live, there he can live well” (5.16).

What if I can’t get away and go on vacation? “Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, seashores, and mountains; and you, too, are wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in your power whenever you choose to retire into yourself. . . . tranquility is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind” (4.3).

One thing I found particularly insightful was the idea that human beings are social animals. “For we are made for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth” (2.1). Humans are made to work together. Consequently, “[t]o act against one another then is contrary to nature and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away” (ibid.). One of Marcus Aurelius’ constant themes is that those who act against others act contrary to their social nature and thus harm themselves.

An important corollary of the social nature of human beings is that when someone acts against us, they cannot do us harm because we can still act in kindness toward them in accordance with our own nature. This does not mean that we should not try to teach them, but when they do not accept correction, we must bear with them. This is what our nature requires.

Similarly, to do good to and love others is natural to us. Consequently, to love or do good is its own reward. As Marcus Aurelius writes, “Have I done something for the general interest? Well, then, I have had my reward. Let this always be present to your mind and never stop doing such good” (11.4). If we viewed things this way, we would be less concerned with whether or not others appreciate what we have done.

One thing that regularly frustrates me is other drivers. So, I have made it my resolution to seek to let others drive how they want and not let it change my emotions.

The other day, I was waiting to pull up to a gas pump. I could not line up directly behind the car at the pump, and so I parked a little bit to the side. As soon as the car at the pump pulled out, another driver darted in and took my spot.

My first thought was, “What a jerk!”

Then, I remembered Marcus Aurelius. I realized, the driver either did not know I was waiting, or he did. If he didn’t know, then it was a mistake, and there was no reason for me to be angry. If he did know, then he only harmed himself by acting contrary to his social nature. Having to wait a few seconds for another pump did me no harm. Besides, who knows what priorities, hurry, or difficulties this driver might be experiencing that day?

A few seconds later, I pulled up to another pump, filled up my tank, and left the gas station . . . with a pleasant tranquility.

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