Stoa

Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius’ 9 Rules for Living a Stoic Life: Presented by Ryan Holiday:

The rules begin with

1. 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.
2. 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.”
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.”
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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?