“Marcus Aurelius had a vision for Rome, and this is NOT IT!” Thus thundered Maximus in the well-known movie Gladiator. It’s also something I kept saying to my wife over several weeks while reading Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. Not because the line itself is profound, but because it kept forcing its way into my mind—and out of my mouth.
Most people know Marcus Aurelius because of Gladiator. Long before that movie, however, he was famous because of his life and because of his book Meditations. In essence, Meditations is a self-help book—one people are still reading 1,800 years after it was written. There is a simple explanation: it helps.
Marcus Aurelius wrote these reflections while defending the borders of the Roman Empire. The book consists of brief, self-contained passages drawn from Stoic philosophy. Each one is meant to retrain perception—to help Aurelius, and the reader, live peacefully with reality as it actually is rather than as one wishes it to be.
The central claim is uncompromising: “If you are pained about any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it.” Frustration is something we supply. And—Marcus relentlessly insists—we have the power to judge differently. Meditations is a manual for learning how to do that, so that anger and resentment give way to tranquility.
A few examples show how this works.
When things go badly: “Remember, too, on every occasion that leads you to vexation to apply this principle: not that this is a misfortune, but that to bear it nobly is good fortune” (4.49).
When you don’t want to get up early: “In the morning when you rise unwillingly, let this thought be present. I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going into the world for things for which I exist and for which I was brought into this world?” (5.1).
When you dislike where you live: “[W]here a man can live, there he can live well” (5.16).
When you can’t get away: “Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, seashores, and mountains; and you, too, are wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in your power whenever you choose to retire into yourself. . . . tranquility is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind” (4.3).
One of the book’s most penetrating insights is that human beings are social animals. “For we are made for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth” (2.1). We are made to work together. For that reason, “[t]o act against one another then is contrary to nature and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away” (ibid.). This theme recurs constantly: those who act against others violate their own nature—and in doing so, injure themselves.
From this follows an important implication. When someone wrongs us, they cannot truly harm us, because we remain free to act according to our own nature. That does not mean we never correct others. But when correction is rejected, we must bear with them. This, too, is demanded by our nature.
The same logic applies to doing good. Loving others and acting for the common good is natural—and therefore its own reward. As Marcus Aurelius puts it: “Have I done something for the general interest? Well, then, I have had my reward. Let this always be present to your mind and never stop doing such good” (11.4). If we lived this way, we would be far less anxious about recognition or gratitude.
One place I struggle to put this into practice is driving. As a result, I’ve resolved to let others drive as they wish and refuse to let it govern my emotions.
Recently, I was waiting for a gas pump. I couldn’t pull directly behind the car already there, so I waited slightly to the side. When that car pulled away, another driver quickly darted in and took the spot.
My immediate reaction was clear: “What a jerk!”
Then I remembered Marcus Aurelius. The driver either didn’t know I was waiting, or he did. If he didn’t know, it was an honest mistake and not worth anger. If he did know, then he harmed only himself by acting contrary to his social nature. Waiting a few extra seconds injured me not at all. And who knows what urgency, pressure, or trouble that driver carried with him that day?
Moments later, I pulled up to another pump, filled my tank, and left the gas station . . . with a calm and genuine tranquility.
What’s the right way to act? What is good and just and worthwhile to pursue? What will give meaning to life? What will enable us to flourish? These are the questions of ethics.
