Why We Admire Marcus Aurelius | Ancient Strategies For Finding Happiness

Marcus Aurelius was smart. He was rich and powerful. He won wars and conquered territories. But that doesn’t explain why we are still talking about his Meditations so many thousands of years later. As Brand Blandshard would observe of Marcus’s writings 1984,"Few care now about the marches and countermarches of the Roman commanders. 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."📕 We created a premium leather-bound edition of Meditations - To learn more and to pick up your own copy of this beautiful new edition of Meditations, visit dailystoic.com/meditations✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. On Tuesdays, we take a closer look at these Stoic ideas, how we can apply them in our actual lives. Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy.

• 0:31Ryan Holiday?

  Why we admire Marcus Aurelius.

• 0:37Ryan Holiday?

  Marcus Aurelius was smart. He was rich and powerful. He won wars and conquered territories. But that doesn't explain why we are still talking about his meditations so many thousands of years later. As Bran Blanchard would observe of Marcus's writings way back in 1984, "Few now care about the marches and counter marches of the Roman commanders. What the centuries have clung to is a notebook of the 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."

• 1:22Ryan Holiday?

  So what were those ideals and aspirations? What did that rare spirit live by? The opening pages of Meditations reveal that spirit quite well, for Meditations begins with a section entitled "Debt and Lessons." Across 17 entries in some 2,100 words, a full 10% of the book, Marcus takes the time to acknowledge and codify the lessons he had learned from the important people in his life. As we said recently, it's remarkable to remember that his book was never to be seen by the people mentioned. It was purely for his own edification that Marcus wanted to remember that his grandfather taught him to be courteous. His father taught him to be manly without ostentation. His mother taught him to be generous. His tutor instilled a positive work ethic.

• 2:07Ryan Holiday?

  We know that Marcus tried to live by the four virtues. In Book Three, he said he'd never found anything better in life than courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom. In Book Six, he added epithets for himself, values he said should not be traded for any others: upright, modest, straightforward, sane, cooperative, disinterested.

• 2:29Ryan Holiday?

  Isn't that what we're all pursuing? Isn't that what we are all looking for? The virtues, the code that guided that rare spirit of a man? Isn't that what we want to take and apply in our own lives? It's even remarkable to see what Marcus promised would happen if you followed this prescription. If you maintain your claim to these epithets, he wrote, without caring if others apply them to you or not, you become a new person, living a new life. If you want to talk about passing on a legacy, that's the best you can do. If you want to be admired, be a good person. Live life by a rare spirit. Be in control of yourself. Be generous.

• 3:09Ryan Holiday?

  Live by those four virtues that Marcus lived by every day, even if no one gives you credit. And then, and only then, will you be worthy of lasting and permanent interest. And speaking of lasting and permanent interest, in case you missed it, we have our own edition of Meditations that we're publishing, a leather-bound edition of this timeless book that I helped bring into the world, mostly because my own copy is a little worse for wear, some 16 years after buying it, and I wanted something that could really stand the test of time. This new one has a genuine leather cover with these gold foil imprints. There's 12 illustrations for each of the 12 books of Meditations, comes in this cool box, there's these cool in sheets, and then there's a ribbon to mark your page as you're going through it.

• 3:54Ryan Holiday?

  And then, of course, there is my life of Marcus that I wrote at the end of the book for all of you to read. We'd love for you to check it out, which you can grab at dailystoic.com/meditations. We're shipping them out next week because we only have a very limited run of them. So grab one while you still can, before they sell out, and it almost certainly will, at dailystoic.com/meditations. One of my absolute favorite writers is Arthur Brooks. I've had him on the podcast twice. I read his columns for The Atlantic. I've read his work many times. We carry his book, Strength to Strength, here at The Painted Porch. And he came out this

• 4:38Ryan Holiday?

  Feels like forever ago now. In March, he was here for South by Southwest. He came out to sign some of the books and he and I talked specifically about the Stoics, what the Stoics got wrong, his equation for happiness and much, much more. I think you're going to like this riffing between me and Arthur Brooks. We've had the longer form interviews on the podcast. So if you want even more from him, you can listen. We've got basically another two hours of conversation with Arthur. But for now, why don't you just listen to he and I talking about some Stoic ideas and you must check out his writing for The Atlantic. He most recently wrote a piece that quoted me, but it's all about Seneca's solutions for happiness. It's called

• 5:21Ryan Holiday?

  11 ancient solutions for modern malaise and I'll link to that in the episode page as well. Thanks so much. It's always wonderful talking to Arthur. I ran into him at a dinner party. That's how we first got connected and then he happened to know my podcast producer Jane Brady Knight and she set this up. So thanks to Jane as well. And enjoy this conversation with me and Arthur Brooks talking about the Stoics and the art of happiness.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Most important thing that we get wrong in the reading of the Stoics is not actually being alive in our own feelings and understanding ourselves, but trying to block out the things that we consider to be weak.

• 6:05Ryan Holiday?

  What are some happiness strategies from the ancients?

• 6:08Speaker 01

  There are lots. I mean, obviously there's so much to choose from, but let me think of three really contrasting ones. And we'll start with the guy who is the anti Stoic epicurus. His big idea about happiness is it comes from peace. It comes from tranquility. It comes from good feelings. So get all the bad feelings out of your life. Get all the hassles and problems out of your life. Live well, live with peace and happiness will follow.

• 6:32Ryan Holiday?

  We think of epicurus saying that pleasure is happiness, but really he's saying about removing unpleasantness.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, people think of him as some sort of unbridled, immoral hedonist. That's completely wrong. Epicurus, I mean, he had a cult, a compound, a commune or something, where people were like, "Yeah, the Epicurean way was a big deal." But he was really all about peace, all about being able to live well without the problems of life impinging upon you. If you take away all those problems, then that's when you find your happiness.

• 7:05Ryan Holiday?

  All right, so what are the other two?

• 7:06Speaker 01

  Second one is, let's take this one, this is a classic. This is from Jesus Christ, Radical Love. That's the secret of happiness, because happiness is love. Love is God, God is love, and happiness is the ultimate thing that you can acquire in life and acquire in the life thereafter as well.

• 7:23Ryan Holiday?

  In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius, I think it's from one of his philosophical mentors, he says, "I'd be curious what you think of this paradox." He says, "The key is to be free of passion but full of love."

• 7:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. No, that's actually, there's something to that, although the Christian worldview would say that to be free of passion is a problem too, because what you need is passion. Well, it's a different sense than what Epicurus would have said and what the Stoics would have said too. The excess emotionality that we would associate with that is certainly, yeah, I can actually find the consistency between those two.

• 7:53Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, the anger, lust, greed, desire, et cetera, compared to empathy.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  The basic positive and negative emotions, yeah. And the complex emotions that actually come from being a person fully alive, that's quite different, I agree.

• 8:06Ryan Holiday?

  Okay, third one.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Third one is, let's go to the Lord Buddha, 500 years before Christ, who would say that the secret of happiness is want less. This is really important, and this gets actually to the concept of passions, as we were talking, as Epicurus or Epictetus for that matter would have understood passions. Want less, because that's the basis of attachment. And, you know, the first noble law of Buddhism is that life is suffering, where the word in Sanskrit is dukkha, which is really dissatisfaction. When you want more, all you do is you blow up your dissatisfaction. And the secret to defeating that in the eightfold path of the noble path of Buddhism is really, it comes down to wanting less.

• 8:47Ryan Holiday?

  I love it. What are some things you think the Stoics got wrong?

• 8:50Speaker 01

  So probably the Stoics didn't actually get anything wrong, but there's a lot of the ways that we interpret the Stoics that we get wrong.

• 8:57Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  In the way that we think about them. So one of the ways that people who don't read enough of your books, who are not, you know, daily consumers of this product, they get wrong is they think to be a Stoic, you need a stiff upper lip, not feel any suffering, that you need to actually bury yourself in a dignified way with pain, but you shouldn't actually feel pain and you certainly shouldn't show people that you feel pain. And that's wrong.

• 9:19Ryan Holiday?

  This is lowercase versus uppercase stoicism, you could say.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  I think that's right. I think that's right. So, you know, are you taking this pain stoically? That just means, you know, it's sort of British.

• 9:28Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  The stiff upper lip stuff. That's actually not how the Stoics, I mean, the Stoics, they feel the same things that we feel, but they actually find the meaning in them. And as such, they point their emotions in a productive direction and manage them appropriately. And so the most important thing that we get wrong in the reading of the Stoics is not actually being alive in our own feelings and understanding ourselves, but trying to block out the things that we consider to be weak.

• 9:52Ryan Holiday?

  And don't you think, one of the things I think people get wrong about the Stoics is this idea that they're apathetic or resigned, that they sort of just defer to the status quo, which to me is belied by the fact of they were all involved in politics. They all created works of art. They all raised kids. They were all engaged in life, which is, I think, a theme in your work, that one of the best ways you can find happiness is by finding purpose, finding something, a project, a thing, a cause to put yourself into.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  Totally. And to dedicate yourself entirely to teaching. I mean, one of the most poignant Stoic moments, as far as I'm concerned, is the last words of Cicero. I mean, arguably, he was a Stoic. I mean, he was kind of a mixed bag.

• 10:27Ryan Holiday?

  He's a fellow traveler.

• 10:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally. And he was, you know, being pursued by Roman centurions to be put to death because he had, you know, crossed Mark Antony over the assassination of Julius Caesar. He was like getting canceled, man. I mean, we think it's bad today. And so he's chased by these centurions and they track him down and they're about to cut his throat. And he says, "There's nothing proper about what you're about to do to me, centurion, but do try to kill me properly."

• 10:52Ryan Holiday?

  And I think some of those like epic last words, they come from a place of confidence and security and like that you know what it what matters in life. You can only have the sort of balls to to sort of defy Nero as Seneca does at the end or Cato does at the end. You know, I think of Cato sitting down to read Socrates before taking his own life rather than submit to Caesar. To me, that's a person who who knows what really matters in life, even though he's spending and he's spending his few last minutes on earth with that.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  Oh, it's so important. You know, this is if there's one thing that we learn about the end of life from the Stoics, it should be that your last word should not be, oh, let me hang on for one more minute. It's like, I will take, you know, that machine, that test, that drug whatever it happens to be, just give me 10 more minutes, just like gripping with your fingernails at the very end or pleading for your life. I mean, look, your life's gonna end, whether it's today or 30 years from now. Die with dignity and die in such a way that you can inspire other people.

• 11:50Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, Marcus realist dying of the plague, his friends are crying and he says, don't cry about me. Think about all the people who have also lost their lives and then think about your own mortality now in this moment. To me, he's how can I spend my last few minutes on earth productively, not to make a little more money, to write a more thing, but to just actually be there. He's being there for the people who are supposed to be there.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, it's like, it turns out his real last words were, I should have bought more crap.

• 12:17Ryan Holiday?

  And it's not, I'm sorry. His last word should have been something about, I really screwed up with Commodus. Please don't make a member, but.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  And careful with my son, yes.

• 12:29Ryan Holiday?

  Give me the equation for happiness.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  The equation for happiness is that 50% is genetic, 25% is your circumstances and 25% is your habit.

• 12:37Ryan Holiday?

  So we only control 25% of it.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  Directly. However, here's the interesting thing. So 50% comes from identical twin studies. There's a lot of great science on this. That 50% of your baseline happiness is genetic, but it's actually all actually having to do with your habits as well. Why? Because all of our genetics also have switches. You have proclivities and switches.

• 12:55Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  So something like 60% of your tendency to be an alcoholic is genetic, but I have this incredible technology. It's called not. Drinking.

• 13:02Ryan Holiday?

  Right, sure.

• 13:02Speaker 01

  Which means that you're not gonna be an alcoholic under the circumstances. And the same thing is true.

• 13:06Ryan Holiday?

  You can get sober or get help with said.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, or just not drink if both your parents are alcoholics, which is probably a pretty good strategy. And so this is the same thing with happiness. You have your baseline and understanding yourself, knowing yourself, which is from the Oracle of Delphi. Know yourself, I mean, this is one of the most ancient ideas. It's critically important such that you are not a slave to your proclivities, but rather the master with your switches of yourself. The second part is circumstances. Everybody thinks that's a big swinger. If I ask my students, what'll make you permanently happy? It's like getting that job, graduating from college.

• 13:36Ryan Holiday?

  Moving to New York City.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, having the person I love marry me. Sorry. Circumstances do affect 25% of your happiness or unhappiness, but they never last. The thing that really lasts and affects your circumstances to give you better luck and your switches, so you're not mastered by your genetics is your habits. And your habits come in four categories. All the happiest people have four daily habits. And everything you do falls into one of these particular categories. Now, there's lots of little things like, you know, go to the gym and eat your vegetables and this kind of stuff. But the big four are faith, family, friendship, and work that serves others. And faith means, by the way, not necessarily traditional faith. It means a life philosophy.

• 14:16Ryan Holiday?

  Something bigger than yourself.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's something transcendental, somewhere you can zoom out and get peace and perspective. And that, by the way, it might, it might just be studying the Stoics.

• 14:23Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  Just to pull that one out of the hat.

• 14:25Ryan Holiday?

  Of course, I would agree.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  But by the way, and that is not inconsistent with traditional religious faith. I'm a, I'm a practicing Catholic and, and a student of Stoics.

• 14:33Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. Second is family life, the ties they bind that don't break and you don't choose. And God knows you wouldn't in many cases, but those are the 2 a.m. calls you can count on.

• 14:41Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  The third is the most intimate relationships in your life, which is your friends. And that means for all the strivers that are watching us right now, real friends, not deal friends.

• 14:50Ryan Holiday?

  Yes, which you talk about in Strength to Strength.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's such a big difference. I know so many.

• 14:55Ryan Holiday?

  What did your son say you were on the phone and you're like, oh, that was my friend? And he said, is that a work friend or a real friend?

• 15:00Speaker 01

  He said, is that a real friend, Dad, or a deal friend? You have a lot of deal friends. This kid's like 11. I mean. He's been listening to me or reading my research or something. It's very annoying. And the last is work, and work's just gotta have two characteristics to it. You have to earn your success and you have to serve other people, especially people with less power and privilege than you. And what an extraordinary joy it is. And I don't care if you're a bus driver, or if you're a writer, or a college professor, or an electrician. If you believe that you're earning your success, your skills meet your passions and your accomplishments and merit are rewarded, and you serve other people and you know who they are, you'll get joy from your work.

• 15:37Ryan Holiday?

  So Zeno, founder of Stoicism, suffers a shipwreck. He washes up in Athens penniless. This is how the story goes. Ends up in a bookstore and he hears the bookseller reading the work of Socrates, or a work about Socrates. Specifically, this is from Xenophon. He's reading about the choice of Hercules, virtue and vice. And afterwards, he walks up to him and he says, "Where can I find a man like that? Like Socrates?" And he points him to a philosopher who's walking by and says, "Like, there." And that's where Stoicism comes from, is this sort of philosophical encounter in a bookstore. But where it all comes full circle is Zeno had gone to the oracle as a young man. And the oracle had said, "You will become wise when you begin to have conversations with the dead," which he realized in that bookstore was philosophy.

• 16:20Ryan Holiday?

  Because philosophy is how we talk to the wisest people who have ever lived, who are no longer with us.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  So, tell me this. What was the role? Because Zeno lost everything in that shipwreck. It was all of his purple ink.

• 16:31Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  Or whatever he was selling, right?

• 16:32Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, purple dye, which dye is the...

• 16:34Speaker 01

  Which was super expensive stuff, right? It was made from seashells or from something.

• 16:38Ryan Holiday?

  Sea snails, yeah.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  Exactly. But he was ruined. He had to be ruined to become complete. How's that?

• 16:45Ryan Holiday?

  Well, so he says, "I made a great fortune when I suffered a shipwreck."

• 16:49Speaker 01

  Was it because he suffered the shipwreck that he made the great fortune? Or was it subsequent to that and serendipity?

• 16:53Ryan Holiday?

  Well, the great fortune was discovering philosophy.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  But he couldn't have done it unless he had lost his great fortune.

• 16:58Ryan Holiday?

  Well, it's like in Fight Club. Once you lose everything, you're free to do anything. Like, I think it was, it's not just like, oh, the serendipity of like, you know, because of this, you know, butterfly flops, it's when it ends up here. I think it's by losing everything, he's forced to rebuild his life. And at that rock bottom moment, it's what do I build my life around? What matters? What do I care about? He was a merchant. He was dealing interior in purple because that's what his father had done and his father had done before him. So I think it wipes the slate clean and he's like, well, now I'm at this crossroads.

• 17:31Ryan Holiday?

  What direction am I gonna go?

• 17:32Speaker 01

  So for the people watching you, us, right now talking about this, and they're suffering because they're bereaved, or they're insecure, or they're sick, or they're afraid, that's a huge opportunity. And they should say, something has wiped my slate clean, and like Xeno, I can actually arise anew, but in a much, much better way, right? And only because of this loss.

• 17:53Ryan Holiday?

  Yes, and that's the idea of finding the meaning of the suffering. It always allows you to reevaluate, to question, to change, to go in a different direction that had you gotten to everything you thought you wanted would not have been possible. I hope you liked this video. I hope you subscribe. But what I really want you to subscribe to is our Daily Stoic email. One bit of Stoic wisdom, totally for free, to the largest community of Stoics ever in existence. You can sign up at dailystoic.com/email. There's no spam. You can unsubscribe at any time. I love sending it. I've sent it every day for the last six years, and I hope to see you there at dailystoic.com/email.