Marcus Aurelius is one of the most famous and well-known stoic philosophers of all time.
He was a Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 AD and he was the last ruler from a line later
known as ‘The Five Good Emperors.’
He was in one of the highest positions of power in the world at the time and would have
access to the realisation of all his temptations and desires should he wish for them, but instead,
he dedicated his life to fairness and justice.
During his rule, Aurelius found the time to construct a series of autobiographical writings,
now known as the Meditations, which has become one of the most important texts within stoic
philosophy.
In the meditations, Aurelius describes guides on how to improve oneself.
These were mostly focused on ‘taking a cosmic perspective’ and critically analysing your
judgement on yourself and others.
As a leader of a powerful empire that experienced multiple wars during his rule, Aurelius used
his own stoic philosophy to let go of stress and worries and to be the very best and reliable
leader he could be.
Stoicism is an ancient and incredibly famous philosophy that, aside from a theory, is also
a truly inspiring way of thinking and living.
The stoics strongly believed that doing the right thing was the key to individual happiness,
and that in order to do the right thing, sound judgement and clear rational thinking was
necessary.
So with that in mind, in this video, we will talk about how you can develop a rational
mind, through five important lessons that can help you think more clearly, from the
teachings of Marcus Aurelius. 1.
Train Your Perception
Marcus Aurelius says “Choose not to be harmed and you won’t feel harmed.
Don’t feel harmed and you haven’t been”.
One of the greatest lessons of stoicism is to take control of your perception.
We’re used to judging everything we come across.
Any event we experience, any people we meet, sights we see - all of them get a value judgement.
Something was either bad, good, boring, fun, beautiful, ugly, etc.
This is, unbeknownst to us, a very exhausting practice and also one that might affect our
lives for the worse.
For example, judging every interaction you have on a particularly hard day as ‘awful’
gives the day itself an even more negative view.
If you label a party you went to as boring, that is all it will be: that one boring part
of your week.
We often let our initial judgments of things be influenced by our emotions, which means
that they are most likely not entirely rational.
Furthermore, our tendency to judge every moment of our lives goes hand in hand with a tendency
to talk in metaphors and hyperboles that make things seem worse.
If you get dumped by your partner, you might say your ex ‘broke your heart’ instead
of the fundamental fact that they no longer feel for you the way they used to.
This way of speaking - or rather: this way of thinking - shapes how you feel.
It is not the actual event that makes you feel bad, but rather the way you unconsciously
choose to think about it.
The stoics, in contrast, encourage people to be careful to judge everything you come
across and the things that you do and one of the ways to be careful is to 'undo your
judgements' which essentially means to look past them: to be able to forget your first
instinct and to judge something through a more optimistic and reasonable lens.
You can try to ‘re-frame’ that boring party in your mind as an event where you got
to see a new place and meet some new people.
OK, afterwards you might note that you didn’t really resonate with anyone, but you didn’t
go in with the expectation of negativity.
As such, practising not to judge everything based on your first instinct and emotion is
the very best way to start training your perception on life.
Whenever you think about anything in an opinionated way, try to ask yourself, ‘Is this rational?
What have I based my opinion on?
Is there a better or more positive way to interpret this?’
Marcus Aurelius stressed that harms can only be if you consider them as harms.
This means that any hard experience you went through seems harder and worse, the harder
and worse you consider it to be.
As such, you have complete control over how much certain situations affect you.
The stoics also encourage you to see every ‘bad’ thing that happens as an opportunity
or source for ‘good.’
As an exercise of training your perspective in a stoic way, there is a challenge called
‘Turning The Obstacle Upside Down.’
When a new coworker is a slow learner and their mistakes affect the company’s profits,
you might feel frustration.
This coworker is an obstacle to what you are trying to achieve: effectiveness, efficiency
and profit.
However, this situation can also be an opportunity for good.
It is an opportunity for youth to exercise and practice patience, to become a better
teacher, to learn how to integrate new people into the company and how to handle stressful
times.
All of these are skills that will also be useful later, and should also help you increase
profits in the long run, as well.
On this subject, Marcus Aurelius famously said: ‘The impediment to action advances
action.
What stands in the way becomes the way.’
So, all in all, instead of judging everything you come across in an exaggerated sense, take
the time to look at things as they objectively are and you might find that life is simpler
and clearer than you thought.
Every situation has a more positive interpretation and a more negative one.
When you adjust your mindset accordingly, you will find that nothing bothers you as
much as it used to, and you will get through life much more easily.
2.
Learn To Control Your Emotions
Marcus Aurelius advises us to…
“Stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical,
self-centred, irritable”.
Acting out of emotion is often depicted as a stark contrast to acting rationally, and
this is not without reason: there is nothing that clouds our judgement more than our own
emotions can.
So if you want to think clearly at all times, one of the most important skills to master
is the ability to control your emotions.
According to Marcus Aurelius, the emotion of anger in particular, does us more harm
than good.
Contrary to what many people seem to think or try, controlling your emotions does not
mean suppressing them.
When you feel intense anger as a result of a betrayal, you cannot control this anger
by denying its existence to yourself or others or by pretending you’re fine: it will still
be there, no matter how deep down you push it.
Instead, controlling emotions such as anger is, according to the stoics, done by redirecting
emotions.
So when you are next experiencing anger, ask yourself what you can do with that anger.
Yelling at the one who hurt you might seem tempting, but will it help you lessen your
hurt or better your situation?
Will it help the one who betrayed you be better?
In short: think about what you are tempted to do and then ask yourself if it is helpful.
If not, find ways to express your emotions that are helpful.
Maybe you can achieve better results by calmly talking with the one who hurt you, explaining
your feelings, and trying to see their side.
You could also journal, take part in physical exercise, get lost in a video game or anything
else that might help you let go of your anger afterwards.
For another example, take anxiety or fear.
You cannot simply push it down, but you can redirect it.
Instead of letting anxiety paralyse you, you can use it to challenge yourself to take those
actions that make you feel it and acknowledge its existence throughout.
Let’s say you’re too scared to ask your boss for a raise.
Lots of people see such fear as a reason not to do something and they allow themselves
to be stopped by their anxieties.
Others might be able to go through with it and regard their anxiety as something that
is in the way and needs to be pushed down and ignored.
But neither has to be the case: instead, your fear is something that can be expressed healthily
and maybe even end up being helpful.
For example, this fear makes you think about everything that can go wrong - which can lead
you to consider all the possible questions your boss might ask, all the counterarguments
you might get to hear.
This way you can brace for them, and form a plan for each possible scenario.
But most importantly, the fear provides a positive motivation to go through with it:
to challenge yourself and grow as a person.
To prove to yourself that you can.
To make the step not despite your fear, but partly because of it.
And in that scenario, you can be aware of the anxiety throughout and think, ‘How awesome
that I’m trying this anyway?!’
When you manage to redirect strong emotions with ease, you will be a calm person no matter
what and your emotions will never lessen your ability to think rationally and make smart
decisions.
Controlling your emotions is the key to a calmer mind.
3.
Exercise The Dichotomy Of Control
In the words of Marcus Aurelius “You have power over your mind – not outside events.
Realise this, and you will find strength.”.
The dichotomy of control is the distinction between what we can control and what we cannot.
For example, the weather, traffic issues or what people think about you are all outside
of your control.
But how you dress, at what time you leave and the kind of people you surround yourself
with?
That you can control.
So, whenever you face a situation that makes you feel a certain way, ask yourself: what
can I control?
Whatever you can control is a reason to act.
Whatever you cannot control, you should learn to accept and embrace without letting it affect
you.
Learning to distinguish these two things and act accordingly can clear your mind instantly.
A very important part of the dichotomy of control is amor fati, or, translated: love
for fate.
When you embrace life and all the circumstances it brings you, you will always love life.
You cannot escape fate or decide circumstances that are out of your control - but you can
choose to love your life no matter what.
If you find that you are rejected for a job you have wanted for years, you might think
there is no redemption in such a situation.
You wanted the job, tried and failed - you couldn’t possibly pretend to love fate in
a circumstance like this.
However, this is a misunderstanding.
Instead of viewing the fact you didn’t fulfil your ambition purely as a negative, investigate
what led to the negative result and use it to make a positive move.
Either the reason you didn’t get the job was a failure on your part, in which case
this is something you can control.
You can work on those failings and try again when a similar opportunity appears in the
future.
Or the reason was an external factor, like nepotism or a personality clash with a member
of the hiring staff.
This was never in your control, meaning the opportunity never truly existed, and there’s
no point getting upset over something that has never existed.
One part of accepting fate is distancing yourself from a fixed outcome and from external markers
of success.
If you want to be a writer, for example, and measure your success by the amount of sales
your book makes, then you will let your success be controlled by the arbitrary book market
of the time.
But if you choose to measure your success by how satisfied you are with your finished
product, or by the amount of work you put into it, then you are in control of your success.
So by all means, make sure to do everything in power to try and achieve your goals!
But never forget that you might not achieve them and accept this possibility in advance.
If we occupy ourselves only with what is in our control and vow to accept everything that
isn’t the exact way it comes, then one will find themselves being calm whatever happens.
4.
Keep Virtues In Mind
To quote Marcus Aurelius “Dig deep within yourself, for there is a fountain of goodness
ever ready to flow if you will keep digging”.
A virtue is ‘an excellence of character,’ or, simply said: morally good behaviour.
Morally good behaviour benefits not only you and those around you, but the greater good.
The stoics believed in an interdependent universe: that everything and everyone is connected
in some way.
Thus, according to stoicism, what is best for the greater good is eventually best for
you as well.
This is why the stoics were convinced that the most rational people were people that
committed to the greater good - or, in other words: acted virtuously.
Not acting virtuous is the result of ignorance, according to stoics.
When life throws you in an unexpected direction, virtues can guide you towards what to do and
keep you grounded.
This is why the most virtuous people are the calmest and most relaxed.
In order to be virtuous, one has to keep the four most important virtues of stoicism in
mind: wisdom, justice, temperance and courage.
Wisdom, in the eyes of stoics, is the ability to judge what is good, bad, in between, or
neutral.
Instead of being controlled by emotion, one must think clearly and logically as to what
would be the morally correct thing to do.
When you have two options in a difficult situation, wisdom is the ability to think through both
Then: justice.
Justice is acquired through wisdom and it means doing both what is right and fair, to
others as well as ourselves.
The stoics regard it as one’s duty to both oneself, our fellow men and society as a whole.
The third virtue, courage, is the ability to take action in the face of your own fear.
To do what is necessary or helpful even when you do not know you will succeed.
Courage is not the elimination of fear, desire, or anxiety.
Rather, it is deciding to act and taking steps despite our fear, passion, and anxiety.
Lastly, temperance.
The other word for temperance is moderation, which means to stay in the middle between
two extremes - to make sure to never take too much or too little.
In practice, temperance often looks like self-restraint, self-control or discipline.
According to Aurelius, one quality that set humans apart from animals was the ability
to stop oneself if necessary.
Temperance is important for ensuring our long-term well-being over short-term satisfaction.
For a very trivial example, consider a bag of chips.
Finishing the entire bag in one go might be nice in the moment, but it is bad for your
health, and even potentially your mood in some cases.
Thus, one should practise self-restraint and stop after the first few bites.
Temperance is also aided by wisdom: only by thinking wisely can you decide how much of
something you need to acquire before stopping yourself.
The stoics divided all possible things and actions in the world between goods, evils,
and indifferents.
It was always important to seek out good, avoid evil, and choose the indifferents as
you please.
You create evil when you act against one of these virtues; for example, when you steal
from somebody, disrespect someone, act recklessly or cowardly, or make somebody ill.
You participate in good when you act according to these virtues.
And you do neither when you perform indifferent acts, like taking a walk, for example.
These simple rules to live by do not just make you a better person, but they’ll make
one a more relaxed one.
When you act according to the virtues, you are always guided by good and you are always
acting rationally, according to the stoics.
Such behaviour creates a calm mind.
5.
Always Consider The Big Picture
In our final quote from Marcus Aurelius for this video, he says “How beautifully Plato
put it.
Whenever you want to talk about people, it’s best to take a bird’s-eye view and see everything
all at once”.
Considering the big picture is a tremendously important part of clearing one’s mind.
When living life, we are always right in the middle of everything: every problem can seem
like the end of the world.
For example, when you’re in the middle of a small crowd, it might seem that the entire
city is crowded - but taking only a few steps aside will prove the opposite.
So, in general: when we take a step back and look at the entirety of the world and our
lives, we see how small all we experience really is, and how tiny we truly are.
And then we see how much of the world is there beyond our subjective experience.
Lots of people forget that their experiences and opinions are not the only thing that should
matter - even to themselves.
Someone who's had a bad experience with dogs, for example, might not understand or believe
that dogs can be helpful and amazing pets to others, unless they consciously consider
the possibility of other experiences.
From time-to-time, we all need to take a step back and ask ourselves “What are we forgetting
or missing?”
Doing this can be helpful in a number of ways.
For example, imagine having to choose between staying at your current job or applying for
a newly opened position somewhere else.
This might seem like a difficult decision, especially if you’re not sure whether either
of those would satisfy you.
Maybe you feel okay about your current job and don’t want the added responsibility
of the promotion, but you do appreciate the better pay that comes with it.
You might feel stuck.
However, there is so much more you could think about.
Have you considered moving into an entirely different field altogether?
Or a side-hustle - A way to make money in your free time, alongside your current job?
Perhaps immersing yourself in a hobby to shift your focus away from the time spent doing
something you don’t like as much?
There is a big chance that there are many, many options in life that you’re not even
aware of.
Looking at the big picture instead of being focused only on what’s right in front of
you can help tremendously when making a decision.
Looking at the grand scheme of things is not only helpful for deciding what is important,
but also helpful when forming an opinion.
You need to know about all options or all the aspects of a certain situation if you
want to judge it properly.
Furthermore, taking a step back also means getting away from your own view and biases.
When you let go of your own desires for a moment, you might be reminded of the people
around you and your duty to them.
You might think that in the heat of the moment, littering is not a big deal, but when you
step back and think of the entirety of the world, of the possibility of everybody else
doing it, you finally see the smallness of your desire to litter in comparison to the
well-being of the world.
As said before, the stoics thought that everything in the world is interconnected and that the
general well-being of the world improves your personal well-being as well.
Thus, taking a step back and looking at the world as a whole instead of just your life
is tremendously important.
When facing a choice, hardship, problem or change in life, you can inwardly ask yourself
some questions.
This can be in the moment, or later on, perhaps when you’re thinking through your day, whether
while out for a walk or when journaling about them - Something Aurelius was a particular
fan of!
The most common questions to ask yourself are;
What could the long-term effects of my choice/action be?
How could someone else’s perspective on this differ from mine?
Do I know somebody in a similar situation or with similar goals to mine that could help?
Does my choice/action affect my well-being?
Does it affect the well-being of those around me?
Are there any choices I have not considered yet?
Taking the time to consider all aspects of the world helps yourself in the way that it
helps you understand your actions, thoughts, life and choices more clearly - and it helps
yourself in the way that it allows you to help the world.
When you consider the whole picture, you will always have an overseeing view that leaves
you free from unnecessary restraint, bias or doubt.
If you enjoyed this video, please make sure to check out our full philosophies for life
playlist and for more videos to help you find success and happiness using ancient philosophical
wisdom, don’t forget to subscribe.
Thanks so much for watching.