1: Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about.
Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations. On Friday, I share something about myself or what we are working on at PCI.
This week, we’ve been examining the life of the great Stoic philosopher king, Marcus Aurelius.
“Marcus Aurelius managed to not be corrupted by power, managed to not be afraid as he faced a terrible epidemic, managed to not be too angered by betrayal, nor utterly broken by unfathomable personal tragedy,” Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman write in their book Lives of the Stoics. Â
“What does it mean?” the authors ask.
It means we can do the same thing.
2: “At the core of Marcus Aurelius’s power as a philosopher and a philosopher king seems to be a pretty simple exercise,” Ryan and Stephen write: “The morning or evening review.”
Marcus was likely inspired to write regularly and consistently by the Stoic philosophers Seneca and Epictetus.
“Every day and night keep thoughts like these at hand,” Epictetus had said. “Write them, read them aloud, talk to yourself and others about them.”
That’s what Marcus did. For years. He kept a journal. “He was constantly jotting down reminders and aphorisms of Stoic thinking to himself,” Ryan and Stephen note.
His book Meditations, which dates to 167 AD, was not written for the reader. It was a book for the author.Â
Somehow, by writing to and for himself, Marcus created “one of the great literary feats of all time,” the authors write.
“Few care now about the marches and countermarches of the Roman commanders,” the philosopher Brand Blanshard observed in 1984:Â
“What the centuries have clung to is a notebook of thoughts by a man whose real life was largely unknown who put down in the midnight dimness not the events of the day or the plans of the morrow, but something of far more permanent interest, the ideals and aspirations that a rare spirit lived by.”
The first section of Meditations is titled “Debts and Lessons.”
“Across seventeen entries and some twenty-one hundred words (a full ten percent of the book), Marcus takes the time to acknowledge and codify the lessons he had learned from the important people in his life,” write Ryan and Stephen.
“In the privacy of these pages, he recognized his grandfather for his courtesy and serenity of temper; his father for manliness without ostentation; his mother for piety and generosity; his tutor for instilling a positive work ethic; the gods for surrounding him with good people.
“He even thanks—not to put too fine a point on it—Rusticus for teaching him ‘not to write treatises on abstract questions, or deliver moralizing little sermons, or compose imaginary descriptions of The Simple Life or The Man Who Lives Only for Others.’ “
Marcus was writing about the people who had influenced him, who had molded him, who had made him who he was. Most would never know what they meant to him.
So why write it?
“When you need encouragement,” Marcus observes, “think of the qualities the people around you have: this one’s energy, that one’s modesty, another’s generosity, and so on.
“Nothing is as encouraging as when virtues are visibly embodied in the people around us, when we’re practically showered with them. It’s good to keep this in mind.”
Looking back now, it is clear Marcus used his journaling “to calm himself, to quiet his active mind, to get to the place of apatheia (the absence of passions),” Ryan and Stephen suggest.
“The word galene—calmness or stillness—appears eight times in his writings. There are metaphors about rivers and the ocean, the stars and beautiful observations about nature.
“The process of sitting down, with a stylus and wax tablet or papyrus and ink, was deeply therapeutic for him. He would have loved to have spent all his time philosophizing, but that was not to be, so the few minutes he stole in his tent on campaign, or even in his seat in the Colosseum as the gladiators fought below, he savored as opportunities for reflection.”
His reflections served as reminders to keep his ego in check.
“Fame, he wrote, was fleeting and empty,” the authors note. “Applause and cheering were the clacking of tongues and the smacking of hands. What good was posthumous fame, he notes, when you’ll be dead and gone? And for that matter, when people in the future will be just as annoying and wrong about things as they are now?”
Marcus writes: “Words once in common use now sound archaic. . . And the names of the famous dead as well: Camillus, Caeso, Volesus, Dentatus . . . Scipio and Cato . . . Augustus . . . Hadrian and Antoninus and . . . Everything fades so quickly, turns into legend and soon oblivion covers it.”
Reflecting on the legendary Alexander the Great, Marcus writes he and his mule driver “both died and both ended up buried in the same cold ground,” Ryan and Stephen note. “What good was fame or accomplishment? It didn’t hold a candle to character.”
Marcus journaled to “for the true intended purpose of Stoicism,” they suggest: “For getting better, for preparing himself for what life had in store.”
It was in writing that Marcus found peace: “For nowhere can you find a more peaceful and less busy retreat than in your own soul,” he writes. “Treat yourself often to this retreat and be renewed.”
3: There is wisdom in this wise man’s words. We, too, can take time daily to record our reflections, our values, our observations.
This year will be my 15th year keeping a gratitude journal (which has changed slightly in the last two years to become a Journal of Delights). I also keep a journal where I track my sleep, my running, my daily conversations or connections, and the time I spend exploring topics I am curious about.
Last year, I was inspired by Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy‘s book 10X is Better than 2X to start a new journal where I write down three wins from the prior day along with three goals for the coming day.
For me, all this journaling serves many purposes, but perhaps mainly as a way to live a more intentional life.
More next week!
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Reflection: What lessons or insights do I take from Marcus’s journaling?
Action: Decide to keep a journal for 21 days (the minimum time required to start a new habit!).
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