Marcus Aurelius's Rules for Living a Better Life

courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. Marcus Aurelius was the most powerful man in the world, but he knew that even so the vast majority of things were outside of his control, it couldn't control what other people said, certainly even though some Emperor tried to control what other people said about him. But even within these constraints, he tried to be the best person he was capable of being.

He's born in the year 121, he comes to power in the year 161 AD. He rules for nearly two decades through all sorts of difficult. It things that were unfortunately familiar with today, political unrest, floods, issues at the border, a plague, even the Antenine plague. And so I find him just an endlessly fascinating model for life.

And so in today's episode, I want to give you some rules for life from Marcus Aurelius. Practices, strategies, things I've taken from meditations, things I've taken from the biographical information we have about Marcus, things we can guess about Marcus. But real practices, rules, standards, ways of thinking that we can apply to our actual life.

I just, you know, again, you think about the power this guy had, and I love this line from Matthew Arnold. He says, despite getting all of that, Marcus proves himself worthy of it. So how do we do that? I think these rules are a recipe for at least getting close. Certainly, they'll make us better, stronger, more honorable, kinder, more patient, more

virtuous, all the things that Marcus strove to be in due. So here are nine still rules for better life in the one and only Marcus are realies. My favorite story about Marcus Aurelius comes at the depths of the Antenine plague, which is a horrible pandemic because millions of people, Rome's economy has been devastated. People are dying in the streets, and everyone feels like it can't possibly get better.

And what does Marcus really do? He walks through the imperial palace and begins to mark things for sale. For two months, he sells on the lawn of the great Emperor's palace, the jewels and robes and couches, the finalry owned by the Emperor. He's sending a message.

He says, "I'm not going to put myself first. I don't need these fancy things. Not when people are struggling." He says, "I'm going to do the little things that make a difference." To me, this is like the CEO who takes a pay-ca in a bad economy.

This is the athlete who renegotiates their contracts, so the team can bring on new people. This is the leader who sacrifices and struggles, who puts the people first, not their own comfort and needs.

“That's what greatness is like, and that's why I love this story from Marcus Relius.”

You're not stuck. I know you think you are, but what the stills wanted you to know is that, yes, one path might be closed, but another remains open. The impediment to action advances action, what stands in the way it becomes the way. Marcus Relius isn't saying that nothing can ever stop you.

He's saying that when you're stopped in one capacity, there remains other capacities open to you.

You always have the opportunity to practice virtue, practice excellence, to change in some

form another based on what's happened. Don't control what happened. We can control how we respond. That's what stuck philosophies about. So, yes, one path can be closed, a door can be shut, but the window remains open.

So, someone gets in your way, someone blocks you, someone prevents you, sure, that happens. But they can't stop you from being patient, they can't stop you from practicing forgiveness. They can't stop you from going in a different direction from changing your mind, trying something new, growing because of this learning, because of it. The stills say no one prevents us from accommodating, adapting, changing, integrating the

experiences, the obstacles that are in our path, and turning them into new paths.

“That's what the obstacle is the way it is.”

It's impossible to get stuck because we always retain our ability to choose and change.

We know what it is we need to do, right? We have the information. The problem is doing it. Marcus really says, "You could be good today. Instead, you choose tomorrow.

We put it off." We say, "I'm going to get started on the diet. I'm going to get started on the novel. I'm going to get started cleaning the house. Not going to do it today.

I'm going to do it tomorrow." If it was about information no one would be overweight, no one would be unhealthy, everyone would have six pack abs, every project would get completed. We know how to do it.

The problem is that we don't do it, we don't take the steps.

“That's why the stills had the discipline of action at the end of the day, it's all about”

the action. It's not what you say. It's not what you think.

What action are you going to take, what step are you going to take, and really that's how you finish stuff.

By step, just take the first step, Marks really says, "No one can stop you from that."

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It takes an immense amount of self-awareness to go like, "I'm feeling discomforted because of X," or "I'm feeling anxious because of X," you know.

“I think that was something for me that I found during the pandemic where suddenly I wasn't”

doing anything. So I wasn't having to get to this plane. I wasn't stuck in traffic here. I wasn't having to prepare for this or that. And so you'd think that my anxiety would go way down that suddenly you'd have a lot

less to worry about. And then, actually, that's not true. Then you realize, "Oh, the anxiety has nothing to do with any of the things." It's actually Mark Shrews talks about this in Meditations. He says, "I escaped anxiety," and then he goes, "No, actually, I discarded it."

He writes this during a plague, no less, but he goes, "I discarded it because it was within me." That was a breakthrough. I sort of had. I thought I was stressed and anxious and worried because of all of these very reasonable

things that caused those things in your life, work, family, stuff. And then, when all that gets paired down, you realize it's like, "Oh, no, it's me." Mark Shrews has a better morning routine than you, I promise. So he gets up early, even though he doesn't want to get up early, even though he doesn't have to get up early, he makes himself get up early.

He says, "What were you made to sit here under the covers and keep warm, were you meant to go do the work of human being?" So he gets up early and it goes and it does his work. And what is the first thing you do? I think that he sits down with his journal.

Meditations survives to us because it's the private thoughts of the most powerful man in the world. He wrote down these thoughts because they made him better. And then what did he do?

He got to work on his most important task of the day.

He says, "Consentrate like a Roman." He says, "Do this as if it's the last thing you're doing in your life."

“And that's what Marcus I realized that his morning routine set him up for success.”

He didn't approach the day at random. He knew that well begun has half done. And so should you start your day with a morning routine that lets you own the day from the beginning. It's called self-discipline.

Nobody else signed up for it. You signed up for it. So you're learning and you're steady and you're self-improvement. You have to be sure that you're applying this only to yourself. Marcus really says, "Ton on it with others strict with yourself.

The purpose of all this is to make you a better master of yourself. It's not to make you condescending or patronizing or controlling other people. It's called self-discipline for a reason. It's your discipline over yourself. You'll leave everyone else and their mistakes and their way of doing things to them."

Marcus really didn't like people. I mean, you can't read meditations and not see this. He opens meditations with a meditation on how frustrating and obnoxious other people are. And even this idea, this idea of the obstacle is the way that that quote is him talking about other people, about how people get in our way, how people present obstacles.

But he says that in that obstacle there's an opportunity to actually practice this philosophy that you say you believe, to be good in spite of other people, to be just in the face

when everyone else is being cowardly and being rewarded for it.

So for the stillics, people are frustrating, people are an obstacle. But like all obstacles, they're also the way that's a challenge we can rise to meet. We can be better for wrestling with other people's difficulties. So don't resent people, use them to become better. You're busy.

I'm busy. But how much of what we're busy with actually matters.

“Marcus Rias has asked yourself with everything you do and say, "Is this essential?"”

Because most of what we do and say is not essential.

And he's so right. Most of what we do is because people ask us to do it. People told us to do it or that's how we've always done it. Do we actually need to do it if we found out we were dying tomorrow, would we keep doing it?

Would we do it the way we're doing it? Absolutely not.

So he says, "When you ask yourself, is this essential?"

You eliminate so much hope you don't need to be doing it. And then he says, "You get the double benefit of now doing fewer things better."

“That's why you ask yourself this question, "Is this essential?”

Do I actually need to be doing it? Am I doing it the way that needs to be done?" And you ask this of everything you do and say and think. Number one, a more faulty. It didn't happen to you.

It happened for you. It chose this for you, accept it, embrace it, bear it, make something of it. That's the idea of a more faulty. Marks really says, "A fire turns everything into fuel and greatness." That's a more faulty.

Number two, it's about what you do for other people.

“Marks really says, "The fruit of this life is good character and acts for the common”

good." Right? The studs weren't trying to study this philosophy to be better sociopaths, to be able to make more money for their own sake, to be more famous. It was about what they do for other people, to contribute to your community, to your

country, or you're moving the ball forward for humanity. Number three, this puts the other two in perspective, "Memento more. You could leave life right now," as Marks really says, "Let that determine what you do and say and think. Life is short.

Do everything as if it was the thought or action of a dying person," Mark is says. Life is fragile. There's a three great lessons from StoPlus so you can apply right now. [MUSIC]