How to tackle life with the mindset of an emperor.
“It takes a wise man to learn from his mistakes, but an even wiser man to learn from others.”
Zen Proverb
The past is a school, but it need not be our own past that we learn from. We can learn from others who came before us, be it yesterday or centuries ago.
Marcus Aurelius, the last of the five good emperors and one of the greatest stoic philosophers, did what most successful people do today: he kept a journal, and in it, he wrote lessons and admonishments that are now compiled in his famous ‘Meditations’.
As one of the greatest leaders Rome had ever known, a veritable student of life, he spent his years in a troubled era of war, politics, and strife and yet managed to cultivate a character that was admired by his contemporaries and countless people today.
Here’s what we can learn from his journey.
1. A Life Without Focus Is Wasted
“People who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse toward are wasting their time — even when hard at work.”
MARCUS AURELIUS
Focus is popularly called the new IQ, and there’s truth in that. No matter how smart, skilled, or connected we are, all of our efforts amount only to as much as we can focus — for focus is what enables us to consistently, and effectively, do the work it takes to create results. In the words of Aurelius,
“Stick to what’s in front of you — idea, action, utterance.”
Marcus also urged himself in his journal to focus on things that mattered, and to treat his mind’s eye with the respect it deserved:
“The value of attentiveness varies in proportion to its object. You’re better off not giving the small things more time than they deserve.”
A life without focus is wasted.
2. Do Hard Things
“Practice even what seems impossible. The left hand is useless at almost everything, for lack of practice. But it guides the reins better than the right. From practice.”
Marcus Aurelius
It’s easy to not do hard things because they seem so impossible at first. To become great at anything difficult, it takes practice — despite discouragement, despite doubt, despite pain. Marcus admonished himself to look at it simply: Is the thing possible to do? Then do it.
“Not to assume it’s impossible because you find it hard. But to recognize that if it’s humanly possible, you can do it too.”
Not only are they possible, but the more you do hard things, as Anthony Moore wrote, the more success you’ll achieve. Do hard things, and start by believing that you can.
3. The Present Moment Is All We Have
“Give yourself a gift: the present moment.”
MARCUS AURELIUS
In a time where it’s easy to become distracted, most people live in the future or the past — they worry about what happened or what may happen, they obsessively plan for the future, they think about tomorrow while today goes by in a blur. They take it too far.
No matter how much we may plan or think about tomorrow, we only ever have today — and only today to do the things that will build that tomorrow we’re so focused on.
“Even if you’re going to live three thousand more years, or ten times that, remember: you cannot lose another life than the one you’re living now, or live another one than the one you’re losing. The longest amounts to the same as the shortest. The present is the same for everyone; its loss is the same for everyone; and it should be clear that a brief instant is all that is lost. For you can’t lose either the past or the future; how could you lose what you don’t have?”
Know your future. Plan, think, but don’t forget that today is the only thing that exists and the only place where you can ever be. Learn to truly be in it.
The present moment is all we have. So use it wisely.
4. Stop Caring About What Others Say
Thanks to his position, Marcus was subjected to more criticism and verbal arrows than any of us ever will. How did he handle it? He changed how he thought about other people’s words — and found tranquillity in them:
“The tranquility that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do. Not to be distracted by their darkness. To run straight for the finish line, unswerving.”
You can’t change what others say or do, but you can focus and change yourself — and that’s what matters in the end. Furthermore, it’s folly to be afraid of other people’s opinions when most people are just as critical of themselves as they are of you.
“Enter their minds, and you’ll find the judges you’re so afraid of — and how judiciously they judge themselves.”
Don’t care what others say. Focus on your path, and keep going.
5. Do Less To Accomplish More
With society as it is, we are pressured to do more and more, and often we do just that: we take upon so many things, and fill our days with so much fluff that we can barely focus and make progress in the areas that truly matter to us.
As Robin Sharma says, we live in an age of Mass Distraction.
Marcus urged himself to limit this, by cauterizing wasteful things from his life:
“‘If you seek tranquility, do less.’ Or (more accurately) do what’s essential . . . Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better. Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquility. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’”
Do less, so that you can accomplish more.
6. Don’t Rely On Luck, Create Your Own Instead
“I was once a fortunate man but at some point fortune abandoned me. But true good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions, and good actions.”
MARCUS AURELIUS
People overestimate their luck. It’s no wonder lotteries and gambling are a booming businesses — the Monte Carlo fallacy, the fallacy of sunk costs, and other errors of judgment are insidiously at play.
In the end, the best luck, and the only one we can truly rely on, is the luck we create for ourselves. How? Just as Marcus said: through cultivating an exceptional character, tackling life with the right aims, and taking action.
Your character, goals, and actions have far more to do with your success than Lady Fortune. So create your own luck.
7. The Best Revenge Is To Be Better
Marcus was wronged by many people, no doubt, and what was his response to those transgressions? Did he repay it in full? No.
“The best revenge is to not be like that.”
When someone hurts you, the best response is to not stoop to their level, to not belittle yourself by becoming like them. Instead, become better, be bigger, be mature enough to let go. Nothing shames someone more than when the people he tries to provoke simply ignore him.
We live in a troubled era, as did Marcus. It’s easy to treat our enemies as they treat us, but in doing so, we risk becoming like them.
“Take care that you don’t treat inhumanity as it treats human beings.”
The best revenge is simply to be better.
8. Listen More Than You Speak
“Practice really hearing what people say. Do your best to get inside their minds.”
MARCUS AURELIUS
Listen more than you speak. Seek first to understand rather than to be understood. Not only does that help you see the world clearer, but it also shows people extraordinary respect — and that’s more useful than hearing yourself talking, because people love to be heard.
Listening is, as Thomas Oppong put it, an active skill that has become increasingly rare — and it’s one we need now more than ever.
9. It’s Okay To Ask For Help
“Don’t be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you’ve been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So what?”
MARCUS AURELIUS
None of us is in this alone, nor were we meant to be. Yet most people find it hard to ask for help. Some go so far as to take pride in it, but refraining from asking for help just to paint yourself as macho and independent is foolishness. There are many mistaken beliefs about this topic.
A real sign of maturity and strength is not being ashamed to ask for help when you need it, to put aside pride and accept when you’re over your head.
It’s okay to ask for help.
10. Die Daily
“Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly.”
MARCUS AURELIUS
Wake up every day with the awareness that yesterday is gone and tomorrow may never come. Treat your life with that sense of importance: that you are not guaranteed anything, much less the morrow.
When we do this, we can better assess what we’re doing in our daily lives to see if it truly matters:
“Stop whatever you’re doing for a moment and ask yourself: Am I afraid of death because I won’t be able to do this anymore?”
You will never be younger than you are now.
The person you were yesterday is dead. Now, take the rest of your life and live it well. Die daily.
11. No One Else Will Make Your Dreams Come True
“You have to assemble your life yourself — action by action. And be satisfied if each one achieves its goal, as far as it can. No one can keep that from happening.”
MARCUS AURELIUS
Your list of goals won’t magically materialise. No one will create your life for you. No one will hand you your dream on a silver platter.
You must do work. You must shed the tears. You must create your life, brick by brick, day by day, or it will never happen.
All that we have, all that we truly deserve, will be the fruits of our own labour and nothing more. You must create your own life.
12. Hurting Others Hurts You Too
“To do harm is to do yourself harm. To do an injustice is to do yourself an injustice — it degrades you. And you can also commit injustice by doing nothing.”
MARCUS AURELIUS
When you hurt others, or let others get hurt when you could have done something about it, you demean yourself, even if you may not feel that way.
Anyone can stoop to being cruel, wicked, and violent — we all have that part in ourselves. But there is nothing exemplary about that, nothing that makes you a higher person. Stronger? Perhaps on the surface, in a simpleminded way. But that doesn’t change what you make yourself.
Doing ills to others dirties your hands, and even more so your character, even if you wear a Rolex and a fitted Armani suit.
Hurting others is self-harm.
13. Ask Why (Especially Of Yourself)
“Learn to ask of all actions, “Why are they doing that?” Starting with your own.”
MARCUS AURELIUS
Ask questions. Ask why. Seek understanding, not only of why other people do things, but why you are doing what you do. Why do you act on the things that you act on?
Knowing the answer just to that can change your life. Ask.
14. Be Good, Don’t Complicate It
“Stop talking about what the good man is like, and just be one.”
MARCUS AURELIUS
Cut all the wordy commandments and debates and philosophies, and instead live by the simple rules: to be good, and leave it at that. Deep down we all know what that means. What do we need to be good? Marcus puts it simply:
“If it’s not right, don’t do it. If it’s not true, don’t say it.”
It’s simple to be a bad person. But it’s just as simple to be good.
So be good.