Marcus Aurelius’ 9 Rules for Living a Stoic Life

This week, the Guardian’s Zoe Williams pro­filed Ryan Hol­i­day, a one-time pub­lic-rela­tions whiz-kid who’s rein­vent­ed him­self over the past decade as a speak­er for the dead: specif­i­cal­ly Epicte­tus, Seneca, and above all Mar­cus Aure­lius, the fig­ure­heads of the ancient school of phi­los­o­phy we now know as Sto­icism. It “cen­ters on four virtues: courage, tem­per­ance, jus­tice and wis­dom,” Williams writes. “Mar­shal­ing these will give you com­plete self-con­trol, enabling you to react with equa­nim­i­ty to all out­side stim­uli, and not whine about stuff.” Wealth “should mean noth­ing to the sto­ic, which makes it iron­ic that some of the rich­est peo­ple on Earth claim to live by sto­icism.”

That last line comes as an obvi­ous jab at Hol­i­day’s pop­u­lar­i­ty among not just sports stars and celebri­ties but big mon­ey-mak­ers in Sil­i­con Val­ley as well. But then, Sto­icism was meant to work for any­one, no mat­ter their socioe­co­nom­ic sta­tus: Epicte­tus was a slave, after all, while Mar­cus Aure­lius ruled over the Roman Empire. And it is Mar­cus’ col­lect­ed writ­ings the Med­i­ta­tions (avail­able free as an eBook or audio­book) that inspired Hol­i­day’s video above from his Youtube chan­nel Dai­ly Sto­ic. In it, he presents “nine Sto­ic rules for a bet­ter life,” open­ing with an exhor­ta­tion that “life is short: do every­thing as if it was the thought or action of a dying per­son.”

The rules begin with “put peo­ple first,” which Mar­cus once demon­strat­ed as a leader by sell­ing off the impe­r­i­al palace’s fin­ery dur­ing the eco­nom­ic hard­ships of the Anto­nine Plague. Sec­ond, “anoth­er path is always open” — or, as expressed in the title of Hol­i­day’s first book about Sto­icism, “the obsta­cle is the way.” Even if you feel stuck, “you always have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to prac­tice virtue, prac­tice excel­lence, to change in some form or anoth­er based on what’s hap­pen­ing.” Third, “take it step by step”: famil­iar advice, per­haps, but a wel­come reminder that what stops us from begin­ning a project or process of change is nev­er a lack of infor­ma­tion, but a sim­ple lack of action.

Fourth, “dis­card your anx­i­ety,” which may feel caused by out­side cir­cum­stances, but in Mar­cus’ view, comes whol­ly from inside our­selves; Hol­i­day speaks of Mar­cus’ dec­la­ra­tion that he “dis­card­ed anx­i­ety because it was with­in me.” Fifth, “well begun is half done” — or as they put it in Korea, where I live, “the start is half.” No mat­ter where in the world you hap­pen to be, you can put into prac­tice Hol­i­day’s prac­ti­cal inter­pre­ta­tion of this rule: get up ear­ly in the morn­ing so as to “own the day from the begin­ning,” just as Mar­cus did. Sixth, “be strict with your­self,” even as you remain tol­er­ant with oth­ers: “leave every­one else and their mis­takes and their way of doing things to them.”

Sev­enth, “don’t resent peo­ple,” even if, like Mar­cus, you don’t par­tic­u­lar­ly like them. Your ene­mies offer you a hid­den oppor­tu­ni­ty to “be good in spite of oth­er peo­ple, to be just in the face of injus­tice, to be tem­per­ate in the face of intem­per­ance that’s being reward­ed. Eighth, “ask your­self, ‘Is this essen­tial?’ ” Whether you’re a Roman emper­or or a twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry “knowl­edge work­er,” life tends to fill up with press­ing but not ulti­mate­ly impor­tant tasks, at least with­out con­stant vig­i­lance about how much they real­ly mat­ter. Ninth, keep these three mantras in mind: “Amor fati,” or “embrace your fate”; “It’s about what you do for oth­er peo­ple”; and “Memen­to mori,” or “remem­ber that death is inevitable.” The orig­i­nal Sto­ics have been gone for com­ing on two mil­len­nia now, but they still set an exam­ple for us today. How many of us can fore­see the same for our­selves?

Relat­ed con­tent:

What Is Sto­icism? A Short Intro­duc­tion to the Ancient Phi­los­o­phy That Can Help You Cope with Our Hard Mod­ern Times

The Sto­ic Wis­dom of Roman Emper­or Mar­cus Aure­lius: An Intro­duc­tion in Six Short Videos

An Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to Sto­icism, the Ancient Greek Phi­los­o­phy That Lets You Lead a Hap­py, Ful­fill­ing Life

How to Be a Sto­ic in Your Every­day Life: Phi­los­o­phy Pro­fes­sor Mas­si­mo Pigli­uc­ci Explains

Three Huge Vol­umes of Sto­ic Writ­ings by Seneca Now Free Online, Thanks to Tim Fer­riss

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.