We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
~Seneca
I picked up the book “Meditations” as a Christmas gift for myself last year, a book to start my new year. At the time I already had a general thought of what stoicism is, based on an excerpt I read about the life of a Stoic named Lucius Annaeus Seneca. I learned of his peculiar death. Peculiar today yet common in his day. Accused of being a tyrant, he was ordered suicide by King Nero to which he calmly obliged. And as death finds it hard to take his life, a doctor slashes his ankles to fasten the process.
“Meditations” is the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius’ diary. Albeit uncomfortable to read one's private thoughts, especially of someone who died hundreds of years ago, by the way, this Roman emperor talked to himself with such wisdom in his thoughts about the world and the Anthropocene, its timelessness, and simplicity, there’s no doubt these could prove essential for the post-post-modernist generation who are now exploring the life as life and not life as other things.
As a citizen of this post-post-modernist era, I list down what I learned about Stoicism, especially Marcus Aurelius’ ways of thinking which I think we need to adapt.
Grab opportunities
“Remember how long thou hast been putting off these things, and how often thou hast received an opportunity from the gods, and yet dost not use it.”
Sometimes we let go of opportunities because we think we are incapable of reaching and succeeding in them. Without even trying or at least making a move we shrug it off and accept a non-existing defeat already. We do this with the thought that many opportunities would still come after. But we don’t know this for sure, the same thing how we are not sure of the inevitable failure that flickers on our mind when opportunities strike. We let go until it flies away with the thought of what could’ve been.
For us to grab the opportunities confidently we need to be clear of doubts and have a solid view of what we are and what we want, in turn, this will boost our confidence to grab every opportunity that lands on our palms.
“Thou must now, at last, perceive of what universe thou art a part…and that a limit of time is fixed for thee, which if thou dost not use of clearing the clouds from thy mind, it will go and thou wilt go, and it will never return.”
Learn something new
“Do the things external which fall upon thee distract thee?”
During the quarantine, the lockdown, peak of the Covid 19 cases, people have adapted new hobbies and learned something new and learned several things about themselves, which brought them joy that most of them shared this new knowledge and skills with their friends and loved ones. I wonder what stopped the people from doing and trying all these new things, pre-pandemic?
Answer: Distractions.
During the lockdown, everything was at a halt trying to adjust to the new ways of living. No schools, no work, no nothing. Which was the perfect time to learn everything. But now that slowly society is coming back and the hustle culture is once again being embedded in our minds like a static noise, there is no time to come back to learning something new, there’s that static noise in the background, in the form of work problems, school homework, etc. that hinders our focus and affects our enthusiasm (why I also stopped learning a new language). This is why to learn something new, or anything in general, we have to cease or manage external distractions.
“Give thyself time to learn something new and good, and cease to be whirled around. But then thou must also avoid being carried about the other way”
Don’t care about what others think
“Through not observing what is in the mind of another a man has seldom been seen to be unhappy; but those who do not observe the movements of their own minds must of necessity be unhappy.”
I used to buy clothes while considering what my family, my friends, or what the society would think. I would buy trendy yet uncomfortable clothes just to gain my friends’ validation. I would correct my posture whenever I walk even if it hurts my back just to satisfy my parent’s standards. Looking back, this led to several days of eyes filled with tears and sleepless nights because I strive to reach the expectations of the people around me.
But now, I buy thrifted clothes cause I personally like vintage styles, I eat at cheap food stalls spread across the street even if people walk past me with their faces scrunched in disgust, and I paint my nails in the most absurd colors just because I think they look pretty, I choose whatever I do with my life even if my parents don’t approve. I did all of these because I wanted to be happy for myself and not for anybody else.
“Do not waste the remainder of thy life in thoughts about others…for thou losest the opportunity of doing something else when thou hast such thoughts as these.”
Consider different points of view
“ Accustom thyself to attend carefully to what is said by another, and as much as it is possible, be in the speaker’s mind”
This quote from a 161 AD emperor is the same as the quote from the 1960s book entitled “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee. It goes: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
There was once a study that said human beings are inherently selfish– that we value ourselves more than others. Assuming that this is true, it makes sense how we tend to be rude and sometimes antipathetic to others which creates this dirty lens that separates us from others and acts as an impediment to further understanding a person.
However, recent studies show that we are not inherently selfish but rather innately cooperative. Maybe society makes it hard for us to understand somebody through a different lens. Marcus Aurelius reiterating this thought all throughout his private essays, teaches us that we can consider different points of view by constantly reminding ourselves that everyone goes through different lives, different experiences, different hardships, and different from us.
Refrain from fault-finding
“From Alexander the grammarian, to refrain from fault-finding”
Naturally in the face of problems and trouble, we seek for the ones that cause it, we glare at it till it melts. But what does exerting energy toward the fault starter would do to solve the problem at hand? Nothing. Thus, like what Marcus Aurelius had learned from Alexander the Grammarian, we should adopt a more solution-driven approach to any problem (except if finding the fault is crucial to solving the problem) and refrain from pointing fingers as to who is at fault for creating obstacles.
“I do my duty: other things trouble me not; for they are either things without life, or things without reason, or things that have rambled and know not the way.”
Enjoy the little things
“We ought to observe also that even the things which follow after the things which are produced according to nature contain something pleasing and attractive.”
Something is pleasing even to little mundane things. In his book, Marcus Aurelius gave an example of this: The bread which when baked has some of its parts split at the surface thus parts open which are obviously not according to the baker’s plan. Still, this little imperfection adds something special to the bread.
In a society where most of the people’s happiness comes from things that can be bought with money–an incredible amount of it, we fail to look closely at the beauty of nature and simple things in our universe that not many see or that many fail to acknowledge. The white foams as the water meets the shore, the blinking lights of the stores at night, the raspy out-of-tune but confident voice of the busker at the park, the little plant standing upright from the crack of the asphalt road. Little things that make up the world, little things that bring joy to you, appreciate it and live it.
“Look within, within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up if thou wilt ever dig.”
Live in the present
“Bear in mind that every man lives only this present time, which is an indivisible point, and that all the rest of his life is either past or it is uncertain.”
Throughout the book, there is one thing that Marcus Aurelius emphasized: Life is short.
Life is a continuous and connected thread. What you do in the past can affect your future. However, none of these are something that you can change at the moment, as right now, you are in the present and this is the only thing that you are capable of manipulating.
Hence, succumbing to self-regret from things you did in the past or worrying about your future won’t do anything as right now, all you have is the now. And as we live in this world for only a fleeting moment, we must cherish our present times by doing good and having fun (not stupid fun though).
You can do it!
“If a thing is difficult to be accomplished by thyself, do not think that it is impossible for man: but if anything is possible for man and conformable to his nature, think that this can be attained by thyself too.”
A thing can be difficult but it can never be impossible to pursue. This may be one of the human words of wisdom that I still find hard to believe. I would sometimes think that a certain task is impossible to finish but then I would see someone doing it as well and finishing it.
Another line from the book kind of contradicts this thought of the late emperor “To seek what is impossible is madness” but then I realized that sometimes we tend to configure an impossible thing in our mind that hinders us from achieving a certain goal, when in fact, it’s just our cowardice that is talking, and that it is not actually impossible.
In this generation, our vision of the possible is becoming so little whilst the vision of the impossible encompasses almost everything. For instance, a full schedule and impending deadlines I had during finals week last year led me to think that it was impossible for me could reach the end of the school year without failing. It wasn’t a thought of flying or vomiting rainbows, but I immediately thought it was an impossible predicament with no way out. And now I’m here, in the next school year, gratefully with no fail.
I’m no Superman or some Harry Potter with magical wands, but I can make the impossible possible as long as I put my mind to it.
***
And these are some (out of so many) lessons about the ways of a happy living (the stoic way) I learned from Marcus Aurelius, that I plan to adopt in 2023. What about you? Do you have any New Year's Resolutions? Do you think the stoic way is for you? You can comment down below!
To end, I want to share one of my favorite (out of many) quotes in the book:
“The unripe grape, the ripe bunch, the dried grape, all are changes, not into nothing, but into something which exists not yet.” ~Marcus Aurelius
You can buy Meditations by Marcus Aurelius at Amazon.com! Just click the photo below!
Thank you for reading!
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