Meditations

The trouble it addresses

Marcus Aurelius ruled the Roman Empire from 161 to 180 CE. For much of that time he was on the northern frontier, fighting a long war along the Danube, while a pandemic, usually called the Antonine plague, killed large numbers across the empire. Many of his children died young. He had nearly unlimited power, and everyone around him had reasons to flatter him.

At some point in the last decade of his life, probably in camp, he began writing notes to himself in Greek. They were not meant for publication. The usual title, Meditations, was added later; the manuscripts call them something like “to himself”. They are short, often repetitive, sometimes stern, and they return again and again to a few thoughts. Reading them is like overhearing someone talking himself through difficult days.

The trouble they address is his own. He worries about anger at people who behave badly, about the temptations of power, about fear of death and about a loss of meaning when so much seems to be passing away. The notebook is his means of steadying himself.

The exercises

Prepare for the day. One of the best-known entries, at the start of the second book, begins: “Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial.” The point is not cynicism. He goes on to remind himself that such people act from ignorance of what is good, that they share with him the same reason and nature, and that he cannot be harmed by them because they cannot make him act badly. The exercise is rehearsal: meet the difficulty in imagination first, and it will not take you by surprise.

Separate events from judgements. Following Epictetus, Marcus repeatedly reminds himself that what disturbs him is not things but the opinions he forms about them, and that those opinions are in his power. “The universe is transformation: life is opinion,” he writes in the fourth book. When he catches himself upset, the exercise is to describe the event plainly, as it is in itself, stripped of the adjectives that make it a disaster.

Retreat inward. People seek retreats in the country or by the sea, he notes, but “it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself.” The inner retreat is not escape. It is a few moments of returning to one’s principles, from which one goes back to the task refreshed.

Look from above. Many entries take a vast view, imagining the whole of time and space and the countless people who have lived and been forgotten. Seen from that height, fame, quarrels and ambitions shrink. The exercise is meant to cure the illusion that what happens to one now is uniquely important.

Remember death. “Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good.” The reminder is not morbid. It makes the present the only place where action is possible, and turns the question from what will happen to me into what should I do now.

Use the obstacle. In one entry Marcus observes that, just as nature takes whatever stands in its way and turns it to its own purposes, so the rational person can make every hindrance material for action. If someone blocks what he intended, he can practise patience or justice instead. The obstacle becomes part of the work.

Guard against the office. In the sixth book he warns himself: “Take care that thou art not made into a Caesar.” The danger he sees is that the role will absorb the person. The remedy he gives himself is to stay simple, serious and kind, and to remember the teachers and family members whose virtues he lists, in the first book, as debts.

The picture of a life behind them

Behind the exercises is Stoic philosophy, which Marcus learned largely through the teachings of Epictetus. On that view, the only true good is virtue: wisdom, justice, courage and self-control. Everything else, including health, wealth, reputation and even life, is “indifferent”, meaning not that it does not matter but that it is not what makes a life good or bad. A person whose happiness depends on things outside their control will always be anxious. A person whose happiness depends on acting well can be steady under any circumstances.

The second part of the picture is that human beings are parts of a whole. Marcus repeatedly describes people as limbs of one body, made for cooperation, and the universe as an ordered system governed by reason. That is why his inner work never becomes self-absorption. The purpose of steadying himself is to act justly for others, and the entries often end by returning to duty: get up, do the work of a human being.

The French scholar Pierre Hadot argued that this is why the Meditations should be read as exercises. Marcus was not inventing doctrines. He was writing down familiar principles again and again, in new words, so that they would become part of how he saw. Repetition was the method.

Carrying it into ordinary work

People who lead others face a version of Marcus’s trouble: pressure, criticism, flattery, and a role that tempts them to become someone else. The exercises translate easily. Spend two minutes at the start of the day picturing what is likely to go wrong and deciding how you want to act when it does. When something upsets you, write down what actually happened in one plain sentence, and then, separately, the judgement you added to it. Before an important decision, imagine looking back on it from twenty years away and ask what will still matter.

The idea that the obstacle can become the work is useful in organisations, where plans are constantly blocked. And the warning about being “made into a Caesar” is a good test for anyone with authority: ask whether the role is changing how you treat people, and what the people you most admire would say if they could see it.