The 99 West book club had a discussion of the book by Scottish Author, Donald Robertson, “How to think like a Roman Emperor” in which he introduces one of history’s greatest figures: Marcus Aurelius. “This entire book is designed to help you follow Marcus in acquiring strength of mind and eventually a more profound sense of fulfillment,” Robertson wrote. He tried to combine Stoicism with elements of CBT so you get some findings from modern research mixed into ancient philosophy.
“Marcus Aurelius faced colossal challenges during his reign as emperor of Rome. The Meditations provides a window into his soul, allowing us to see how he guided himself through it all.” Through this window, we may be able to apply the Stoic wisdom to our everyday challenges and deal with them more efficiency. “However, Roberson warns, “that change won’t leap off the page.” We need to put the ideas into practice, as Marcus wrote to himself.
“waste no more time arguing about what a god man should be; just be one.”
Who was that Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius?
Marcus Aurelius was the last famous Stoic of the ancient world.
Although Marcus first began training in philosophy when he was just a boy of about twelve, his practice intensified in his mid-twenties, when he dedicated himself wholeheartedly to becoming a Stoic.
Marcus Aurelius was known for his physical frailty, due to chronic health problems, but he was also known for his exceptional resilience.
He repeatedly tells himself that the goal of his life is not pleasure but action.
Marcus Aurelius, indeed, viewed himself as a Stoic first and an emperor second.
Through his mother, who was a lover of Greek culture, Marcus got introduced to and tutored in philosophy from an exceptionally young age.
He enjoyed spending time in his holiday villas, taking a break from running the empire. By the time he wrote The Meditations, pleasant retreats were a thing of the past, and his life was spent far from home at the fronts of the Marcomannic Wars.
“He tells himself that resilience comes from his ability to regain his composure wherever he finds himself. This is the ‘inner citadel’ to which he can retreat, even on the frigid battlefields of the northern campaign.”
Fun story: As a young emperor, Marcus was ridiculed as a snob and a bore because at gladiator games they could see that he was reading legal documents and discussing them with his advisors. He was told to show his face at these events, but he wanted to use the time to do serious business for running the empire.
His final words?
Go to the rising sun, for I am already setting.
Favorite take aways #1: How to speak wisely
In the book, you learn about the fundamental difference between a sophist and a Stoic: the former speaks to win praise from his audience, the latter to improve it by helping its members achieve wisdom and virtue. Instead of exploiting the emotions of the audience, Stoics wanted to describe events in plain and simple terms. Which requires two main things: Conciseness and objectivity. The stoics were concerned that their speech should not only be honest and simple but also appropriate to the needs of the hearer. There is no point in speaking plainly to people if it doesn’t benefit them. Correcting someone else’s vices, Marcus says, is like pointing out that they have bad breath. It requires considerable tact. So, just blurting out the truth might not be enough. We must put more effort into communicating wisely and phrase things appropriately to hearer’s needs. I find myself guilty of just blurting out what I think to be true, not considering the hearer’s needs enough. So, I’m grateful for Marcus’ wisdom and try to speak more appropriately to the needs of the hearer.
Favorite Take aways #2: How to prepare for death
Socrates used to say that death is like some prankster in a scary mask, dressed as a bogeyman to frighten small children. The wise man carefully removes the mask and, looking behind it, he finds nothing worth fearing.
This childish fear of death is perhaps our greatest bane in life. Fear of death does us more harm than death itself because it turns us into cowards, whereas death merely returns us to Nature.
As death is among the most certain things in life, to a man of wisdom it should be among the least feared.
Every era of history teaches us the same lesson: nothing lasts forever.
Today a drop of semen, tomorrow a pile of ash or bones.
Everything is different, but underneath it’s all the same: anonymous individuals marrying, raising children, falling sick, and dying.
Death comes knocking at the king’s palace and the beggar’s shack alike.
Indeed, to learn how to die is to unlearn how to be a slave.
The last and chapter of the book is about death. It’s based on ideas presented in The Meditations and Donald Robertson magnificently paraphrased them into a sort of internal monologue. Brilliant!
A quick summary of the last chapter (quotes from the book)
· Socrates used to say that death is like some prankster in a scary mask, dressed as a bogeyman to frighten small children. The wise man carefully removes the mask and, looking behind it, he finds nothing worth fearing.
· This childish fear of death is perhaps our greatest bane in life. Fear of death does us more harm than death itself because it turns us into cowards, whereas death merely returns us to Nature.
· As death is among the most certain things in life, to a man of wisdom it should be among the least feared.
· Every era of history teaches us the same lesson: nothing lasts forever.
· Everything is different, but underneath it’s all the same: anonymous individuals marrying, raising children, falling sick, and dying.
· Death comes knocking at the king’s palace and the beggar’s shack alike
Philosophy of life
The preventative approach and Emotional resilience.
Strength of Character and moral integrity.
Finding sense and purpose in Life
How to face adversity
How to conquer anger within yourself
How to moderate your desires
Experience healthy sources of Joy
Endure pain and loneliness patiently and with dignity
Exhibit courage in the face of your anxieties
How to cope with loss
Confront your own mortality.
The Stoic Goal of life
For Stoics that goal [of life] is defined as ‘living in agreement with Nature,’ which we’re told was synonymous with living wisely and virtuously.
The true goal of life for Stoics isn’t to acquire as many external advantages as possible but to use whatever befalls us wisely… Most important of all, the pursuit of these preferred indifferent things [health, wealth, status] must never be done at the expense of virtue.
It’s human nature to desire certain things in life, such as sex and food. Reason allows us to step back and question whether what we desire is actually going to be good for us or not. Wisdom itself is uniquely valuable because it allows us to judge the value of external things – it’s the source of everything else’s value.
Remember: the fundamental goal of life for Stoics, the highest good, is to act consistently in accord with reason and virtue.
What matters in life isn’t what happens to us but how we respond to it. Philosophy is a way of life, how we choose to act.
Marcus, for example, “repeatedly warned himself not to become distracted by reading too many books but instead to remain focused on the practical goal of living wisely.”
And although it’s natural, chasing empty, transient pleasures can never lead to true happiness. What we’re really after is the sense of authentic happiness the Stoics called Eudaimonia.
How to speak wisely
The fundamental difference between a sophist and a Stoic: the former speaks to win praise from his audience, the latter to improve them by helping them to achieve wisdom and virtue.
Whereas orators traditionally sought to exploit the emotions of their audience, the Stoics made a point of consciously describing events in plain and simple terms.
For Stoics, this honesty and simplicity of language requires two main things: conciseness and objectivity.
The Stoics adopted a more moderate approach, and they were concerned that their speech should not only be honest and simple but also appropriate to the needs of the hearer. There’s no point in speaking plainly to people if it doesn’t benefit them.
Correcting someone else’s vices, Marcus says, is like pointing out that they have bad breath – it requires considerable tact.
As the real goal for the Stoics is wisdom, just blurting out the truth might not be enough. We must put more effort into communicating wisely and phrase things appropriately to the hearer’s needs.
Generally, we should stick with the facts and not add value judgments. This will help others and ourselves to get less overwhelmed and anxious.
How to live by your values
Marcus wrote that anyone who truly wants to achieve wisdom through Stoicism will make it his priority in life to cultivate his own character and seek help from others who share similar values.
Plato… said that lovers are typically blind regarding the one they love. As we, in a sense, love ourselves most of all, we are also most blind with regard to our own faults. The majority of us therefore struggle to attain the self-awareness required to improve our lives.
Galen’s solution to this problem is for us to find a suitable mentor whose wisdom and experience we can genuinely trust.
Even if you don’t have a real-life mentor following you around, you can still benefit from the concept by using your imagination.
Writing down the virtues possessed by a hypothetical wise man or woman, or those we aspire to ourselves, is usually a very beneficial exercise.
By deeply reflecting on our values each day and attempting to describe them concisely, we can develop a clearer sense of direction.
The Stoics divided the day into three stages:
The Stoic morning meditation: Prepare yourself for the day and its challenges, ask yourself, “What would my role model do?”
Mindfulness throughout the day: Try continually to be self-aware, as if a wise mentor or teacher is observing you.
The Stoic evening reflection: Review how things went.
Interesting fact: Marcus kept a statuette of his tutors after their deaths.
How to Conquer Desire
When doing what feels pleasurable becomes more important than doing what’s actually good for us or our loved ones… that’s a recipe for disaster.
So you should carefully evaluate your habits and desires in terms of the bigger picture: how much do these pursuits actually contribute to your long-term happiness or sense of fulfillment in life?
In fact, really thinking through consequences of behaviors and picturing them vividly in your mind may be enough in some cases to eliminate the behavior.
Once you’ve spotted the early warning signs of a craving or habit, you can also help yourself change by noticing the separation between your current perspective and external reality.
You might also adapt Epictetus and say “It’s not things that make us crave them but our judgments about things.” We are the ones who choose to assign value to things that look appealing.
Marcus encourages himself to replace the feeling of desire by the feeling of gratitude. Instead of desiring what we don’t have, we should be grateful for what we do have by imagining the loss of what we hold dear.
The Stoics often used the story of Hercules to show that nothing good and admirable is granted in life without some pain and effort.
How to tolerate pain
Epicurus coined the maxim “a little pain is contemptible, and a great one is not lasting.” You can therefore learn to cope by telling yourself that the pain won’t last long if it’s severe or that you’re capable of enduring much worse if the pain is chronic.
Pain is just a sensation, in other words; what matters is how we choose to respond to it.
If we can learn to withhold our judgment that pain is terrible or harmful, then we can strip away its horrific mask, and it no longer appears so monstrous to us.
This approach is one of Marcus’s favorite strategies for encouraging an attitude of Stoic indifference. Viewing things as changeable, like a flowing river, can help weaken our emotional attachment to them… We will achieve indifference to painful feelings, he says, if we remember that the demands they place on our attention will only be for a limited time, because life is short and will soon be at an end.
Pain is an inevitable part of life and always offers an opportunity to practice virtue.
Marcus says that “Nothing happens to anyone that he is not fitted by Nature to bear.” For example, Nature has equipped us with the potential for endurance, which we can practice when enduring pain.
How to Relinquish Fear
Premeditation of adversity can be useful in confronting anger and other negative emotions, but its techniques are particularly suited to treat fear and anxiety. The Stoics defined fear as the expectation that something bad is going to happen.
Fear is essentially a future-focused emotion, so it’s natural that we should counter it by addressing our thoughts concerning the future. Inoculating ourselves against stress and anxiety through the Stoic premeditation of adversity is one of the most useful techniques for building emotional resilience, which is what psychologists call the long-term ability to endure stressful situations without becoming overwhelmed by them.
From clinical research, we know that anxiety abates naturally with repeated exposure. And this exposure can only be imagined. Therefore, if we confront our fears in imagination for long enough, they will go away, as familiarity breeds indifference.
“We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality,” as Seneca most famously said.
How to conquer anger
Anger stems from the idea that an injustice has been committed, or someone has done something they shouldn’t have done.
We should not meet disagreeable people and enemies with anger… Stoics think of troublesome people as if they are a prescription from a physician… If no one ever tested your patience, then you’d lack an opportunity to exhibit virtue in your relationships.
If someone hates you, Marcus says, that’s their problem. Your only concern is to avoid doing anything to deserve being hated.
Nothing lasts forever. If events will seem trivial in the future when we look back on them, then why should we care strongly about them now?
The main antidote to anger for Marcus is the Stoic virtue of kindness.
Marcus believed that anger does more harm than good.
The Stoics lived by the idea that nobody does wrong willingly. And we should always remain open to the possibility that the other person’s intentions are not in the wrong.
How to accept one’s fate
The Stoics wanted to develop a healthy sense of gratitude in life, unspoiled by attachment. So they practiced calmly imagining change and loss, like a river gently flowing past, carrying things away. The wise man loves life and is grateful for the opportunities it gives him, but he accepts that everything changes and nothing lasts forever.
Marcus actually imagines Nature herself as a physician, like Asclepius, the god of medicine, prescribing hardships to him as if they were painful remedies. To take Nature’s medicine properly, we must accept our fate and respond virtuously, with courage and self-discipline, thereby improving our character.
The paradox of accepting discomfort is that it often leads to less suffering.
The universe is change: life is opinion.
Nature as a doctor? Yeah, that’s what Marcus imagined when given challenges in life. He thought them to be painful remedies, which he must accept and respond virtuously. What a fantastic strategy.
Don’t fight what happens but try to accept and even embrace it – amor fati.
Seneca said it brilliantly, “One is only unfortunate in proportion as one believes one’s self so.”
How to think like a Roman Emperor
“This entire book is designed to help you follow Marcus in acquiring strength of mind and eventually a more profound sense of fulfillment,” Robertson writes.
Robertson tries to combine Stoicism with elements of CBT, so you get some findings from modern research sewed into ancient philosophy.
“Marcus Aurelius faced colossal challenges during his reign as emperor of Rome. The Meditations provides a window into his soul, allowing us to see how he guided himself through it all.”
Through this window, we may be able to apply the Stoic wisdom to our everyday challenges and deal with them more efficiently.
“However,” Robertson warns, “that change won’t leap off the page.” We need to put the ideas into practice, as Marcus wrote to himself,
“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be; just be one.”
Most men are eager to point their neighbor’s flaws whether we ask them to or not so instead of resenting it we should welcome criticisms from others as one of life’s inevitabilities and turn it to our advantage by making all men into our teachers. If we desire to learn wisdom, we must be ready to listen to anyone with whom we encounter with gratitude not to those who flatter us for those who rebuke us. This does not mean that we should trust all opinions equally of course. We must train ourselves to discriminate from good advice from bad and not to preoccupied ourselves with the opinions of foolish people. Not to give equal wait to all opinions.
From my notes:
Be your own mentor!
Meditate of what your day will look like each morning
Questions to ask at the end of the day:
What is something I regret doing?
What should I do differently next time?
What is something I feel proud of doing?
Sometimes is good to interrupt what you are doing out of habit to check if those things are healthy or unhealthy for you in the long run. This is like a cross examination in a court of law. Ask these questions?
Whose soul, am I?
Am I behaving like a child, Tyrant a cheap, a wolf,
Am I fulfilling my true potential as a rational being?
Am I being foolish?
Am I being alienated from other people
Am I letting me be drag off course by fear and desire?
What passions are there right now in my mind?
Who is this actually working out?
What is ultimately the most important thing in life to you?
What do you really want your life to really stand for or represent?
What do you want to be remember for after you are dead?
What sort of person do you want to be in life?
What sort of character do you want to have
What do you want written on your tomb stone?
What do you want ideally people to remember you for?
Think of Christmas Carol after the ghost of Christmas future
Do to columns
Desire and Admired
Long term happiness
Evaluate your
Following steps
Evaluate the consequences of your Habits or desires
How do these contribute to long term happiness
Spot warning signs
Gain cognitive distance
Do something else instead
Plan new activities consistent with your core values
Contemplate habits you admire in other people
Express gratitude for the things you already have in life
Evaluating the consequences of desires
Example: If you regularly watch TV what could you do instead? Like reading a book
Asking what consequences would come from it?
Unhealthy habits
Unhealthy emotions
Record the early warning signs
Rate it from 1 to 10 how strong is the desire
Just this one won’t hurt or I can always start tomorrow
Look for early signs of warning
Mentally review These type of techniques
1. Emotional habituation is when anxiety naturally wear off by been exposed over time it becomes easier to get used to a situation.
2. Emotional acceptance when we learn to view our pain with greater indifference
3. Cognitive distancing when we see things with detachment
4. De- catastrophizing is when we rethink the severity of the situation of how awful it seems
5. Reality tasting where we take a situation and make it more objective
6. Problem solving where we repeatedly review and event and figure out a solution
7. Behavioral rehearsal where we rehearsed what to emulate as our ideal behavior
Prescriptions to conquer anger by the Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurellus
1. We are naturally socially animals design to live in communities to help one another. Rational beings are design to live wisely and harmoniously with one another. Mentally prepare each morning to deal with troublesome people. Nor can I be angry with my fellowmen. Ignoring our fellowship with others goes against nature. Don’t expect people to act like our friend. Be prepare to meet many foolish and vicious people in life and to accept this as inevitable and treat this our opportunity to exercise our own wisdom. We exist for one another. We have to learn at least tolerate them. If no one ever tested your patience than you lack an opportunity to show your virtues. “There are wicked men, there are useful to thee without them, what need would there be for virtues.”
2. Consider a person’s character as a whole. Don’t just focus just on what you find annoying. Think of them doing as normal things like sleeping in their beds, eating, relieving themselves, etc. The idea is that we should broaden our awareness of them as a whole. Look at them in their souls about kind of people they really are. Put yourselves in the other person’s shoes. Think of them of how do they spend their time. He is mindful and understands who they are by day and by night. They fundamentally lack self -love. They don’t know any better. Forgive them. To under
3. Nobody does wrong willingly. No man does evil knowingly or willingly. If they are doing what is right then let go of your anger because they are right, if they doing what is wrong, forgive them because they do not know what they do. Nobody wants to make mistakes. All creatures want to seek for truth. Don’t think of them as malicious but mistaken. In the same way, we don’t blame children when they do wrong because they don’t know any better. The rest of humanity deserves our love and compassion because they don’t know between good and evil. Other people are compelled by their ignorance to act the way they do.
4. No one is perfect, yourself included. Is a double standard to criticize other people without acknowledging our own imperfections. Whenever we are offended by the faults of another to pause and immediately look at ourselves and pay attention to our own character. Many people do not do wrong because they are afraid of getting caught not because they are virtuous. We are capable of doing the wrong things when strong emotions are high. Our anger proves the flaws on our character. We are somewhat slave to our passions. Whenever you point and anger at someone else remember that three fingers at pointing at our own direction.
5. You can never be certain at other people’s motives. We can’t read other people’s minds so we shouldn’t run to conclusions of what are their intention. People can do things that appear bad but they are not aware of that. We base our conclusions on probabilities. You can never know for certain what is on people’s heart. You keep an open mind and give them the benefit of the doubt.
6. Remember we all would die. In the grand scheme of things, these problems are minute. Nothing last forever. The events will be trivial in the future so why be so worried now? We will eventually be dead and forgotten. Remain calm. This moment will soon pass. Nothing last forever.
7. It is our own judgement that upsets us. When you are angry, remind yourselves that is not things or other people that make you angry, it’s our own judgement that upsets us. Is up to you if you persist in your anger. We can control how we react to it. Is not what happens first that matters, is what you do next. Other people’s actions can’t harm your character. All that really matters in life is that you are a good person or a bad person. Other people can harm your property and even your body but they can’t harm your character. No one can make you angry without your permission.
8. Anger does more harm than good. Anger is counterproductive. Think of the consequences of responding with anger and compare them with those who respond rationally and perhaps with empathy and kindness. Just think of how ugly anger looks. A red screaming face as if someone has a horrible disease. It’s unnatural and against reason. Think of where does anger get us? It requires more effort of losing our temper to tolerate the very act that made us angry. The actions of others our external to us and cannot touch our character. Anger transforms us unto another person, almost like an animal. Anger does more harm to the person experiencing it and he has the power to stop it. Your only concern is doing anything to deserve their hate. If someone hates you, that is their problem.
9. Nature gave us the virtues to deal with anger. What tools do you have to cope with the situation. Ask yourself, how do other people cope with anger? What would your role models do? How do they deal with anger when others lose their temper? Wrongdoing inevitably exists in the world but nature has given us virtues to counterattack those who wronged us. What antidotes device do we possess like kindness. Good will toward others. The desire to help them. Speak to them delicately, willing to accept the outcome as favorable or not. We should not speak sarcastically bur reply with affection and kindness in our hearts. Be simple and honest and not lecture them like a school mater. Kindness is like educating others to become wise. The desire to turn enemies into friends. Anger does more harm to us, humans are essentially social creatures. Think of tactful ways to be reconcile.
10.It’s madness to expect others to be perfect. To expect bad people not to do bad things is madness because that is wishing the impossible. To expect them not to hurt others and not to hurt you is foolish. We know there are good men and bad men in the world. Bad men will do bad things so it would irrational to expect otherwise. To crave impossibilities is insanity because it is impossible for the wicked to act otherwise. There are people who will betray you. Respond calmly as to expect that these things will happen in life. People say, “I can’t believe this” when they are upset but usually they are describing things that are very common in life like betray, deceit, insult, but someone else might say, ”that is no surprise” or “c’est la Vie” Everything that happens is like flowers in the Spring or fruit in Summer. We can easily anticipate people’s behavior base on past behavior. Don’t be surprise by anything in life. When someone shows themselves of who they are, believe them!
Think of this with coping with anger, view others as brothers and sisters. You need to view even your enemies like family. It is our duty to live in harmony with them. To be angry is not manly, but rather a mind and gentle disposition is more manly. In reality, someone who is more capable in showing kindness to someone who has insult them is more courage and manly then one who gets way with their anger. Getting angry is a sign of weakness.
From Socrates and Plato
Hand me down to the centuries to convey spiritual doctrines. Medieval Masonic things to convey symbolism of ethical teachings.
Prudence
Justice
Fortitude
Temperance
or in today’s terms: Wisdom, justice, courage, moderation
A kind of physiological therapy helping with our deepest fears. What was interesting to me as I read this book is that all of that ancient and modern philosophy is rooted in all the teachings of Christ.
con amor,
Vero
