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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Classic Resources for Reducing 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 kept saying to my wife over several weeks while reading Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. Not because the line itself is profound, but because it kept forcing its way into my mind—and out of my mouth.

Most people know Marcus Aurelius because of Gladiator. Long before that movie, however, he was famous because of his life and because of his book Meditations. In essence, Meditations is a self-help book—one people are still reading 1,800 years after it was written. There is a simple explanation: it helps.

Marcus Aurelius wrote these reflections while defending the borders of the Roman Empire. The book consists of brief, self-contained passages drawn from Stoic philosophy. Each one is meant to retrain perception—to help Aurelius, and the reader, live peacefully with reality as it actually is rather than as one wishes it to be.

The central claim is uncompromising: “If you are pained about any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it.” Frustration is something we supply. And—Marcus relentlessly insists—we have the power to judge differently. Meditations is a manual for learning how to do that, so that anger and resentment give way to tranquility.

A few examples show how this works.

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).

When you don’t want 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).

When you dislike where you live: “[W]here a man can live, there he can live well” (5.16).

When you can’t get away: “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 of the book’s most penetrating insights is 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). We are made to work together. For that reason, “[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.). This theme recurs constantly: those who act against others violate their own nature—and in doing so, injure themselves.

From this follows an important implication. When someone wrongs us, they cannot truly harm us, because we remain free to act according to our own nature. That does not mean we never correct others. But when correction is rejected, we must bear with them. This, too, is demanded by our nature.

The same logic applies to doing good. Loving others and acting for the common good is natural—and therefore its own reward. As Marcus Aurelius puts it: “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 lived this way, we would be far less anxious about recognition or gratitude.

One place I struggle to put this into practice is driving. As a result, I’ve resolved to let others drive as they wish and refuse to let it govern my emotions.

Recently, I was waiting for a gas pump. I couldn’t pull directly behind the car already there, so I waited slightly to the side. When that car pulled away, another driver quickly darted in and took the spot.

My immediate reaction was clear: “What a jerk!”

Then I remembered Marcus Aurelius. The driver either didn’t know I was waiting, or he did. If he didn’t know, it was an honest mistake and not worth anger. If he did know, then he harmed only himself by acting contrary to his social nature. Waiting a few extra seconds injured me not at all. And who knows what urgency, pressure, or trouble that driver carried with him that day?

Moments later, I pulled up to another pump, filled my tank, and left the gas station . . . with a calm and genuine tranquility.

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