Marcus Aurelius's Rules for Living a Better Life

0:00Ryan Holiday: Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

0:14Ryan Holiday: Marcus Aurelius was the most powerful man in the world, but he knew that even so, the vast majority of things were outside of his control. He couldn't control what other people did. He couldn't control what other people said. certainly, even though some emperors tried, couldn't control what other people said about him. But even within these constraints, he tried to be the best person he was capable of being. You know, he's born in the year 121. He comes to power in the year 161 AD. He rules for nearly two decades through all sorts of difficulty, things that we're unfortunately familiar with today, political unrest, floods, issues at the border, a plague, even the Antonine Plague.

1:02Ryan Holiday: And so I find him just an endlessly fascinating model for life. And so in today's episode, I want to give you some rules for life from Marcus Aurelius. Practices, strategies, things I've taken from meditations, things I've taken from the biographical information we have about Marcus, things we can guess about Marcus, but real practices, rules, standards, ways of thinking that we can apply to our actual life. I just, you know, again, you think about the power this guy had. I love this line from Matthew Arnold. He says, despite getting all of that, Marcus proves himself worthy of it. So how do we do that?

1:50Ryan Holiday: I think these rules are a recipe for at least getting close. Certainly, they'll make us better, stronger, more honorable, kinder, more patient, more virtuous. All the things that Marcus strove to be and do. So here are nine stoic rules for a better life from the one and only Marcus Aurelius. My favorite story about Marcus Aurelius comes at the depths of the Antonine Plague, which is a horrible pandemic that kills millions of people. Rome's economy has been devastated. People are dying in the streets and everyone feels like it can't possibly get better. And what does Marcus Aurelius do? He walks through the imperial palace and begins to mark things for sale.

2:27Ryan Holiday: For two months, he sells on the lawn of the great emperor's palace, the jewels and robes and couches, the finery owned by the emperor. He's sending a message. He says, I'm not gonna put myself first. I don't need these fancy things. Not when people are struggling. He says, I'm gonna do the little things that make a difference. To me, this is like the CEO who takes a pay cut in a bad economy. This is the athlete who renegotiates their contracts so the team can bring on new people. This is the leader who sacrifices and struggles, who puts the people first, not their own comfort and needs. That's what greatness is like.

3:02Ryan Holiday: And that's why I love this story from Marcus Aurelius. You're not stuck. I know you think you are, but what the Stoics wanted you to know is that, yes, one path might be closed, but another remains open, right? The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. Marcus Reus isn't saying that nothing can ever stop you. He's saying that when you're stopped in one capacity, there remains other capacities open to you. You always have the opportunity to practice virtue, practice excellence, to change in some form or another based on what's happened. We don't control what happened.

3:34Ryan Holiday: We control how we respond. That's what stoic philosophy is about. So, yes, one path can be closed. A door can be shut. But the window remains open. You know, someone gets in your way. someone blocks you, someone prevents you. Sure, that happens, but they can't stop you from being patient. They can't stop you from practicing forgiveness. They can't stop you from going in a different direction, from changing your mind, trying something new, growing because of this, learning because of it. The Stoics say no one prevents us from accommodating, adapting, changing, integrating the experiences, the obstacles that are in our path and turning them into new paths.

4:11Ryan Holiday: That's what the obstacle is the way is. It's impossible to get stuck because we always retain our ability to choose and change. We know what it is we need to do, right? We have the information. The problem is doing it. Marcus Aurelius says you could be good today. Instead, you choose tomorrow. We put it off. We say, I'm going to get started on the diet. I'm going to get started on the novel. I'm going to get started cleaning the house. I'm not going to do it today. I'm going to do it tomorrow. If it was about information, no one would be overweight. No one would be unhealthy. Everyone would have six-pack abs.

4:46Ryan Holiday: Every project would get completed. We know how to do it. The problem is that we don't do it. We don't take the steps. That's why the Stoics had the discipline of action. At the end of the day, it's all about the action. It's not what you say. It's not what you think. It's what you do. What action are you going to take? What step are you going to take? And really, that's how you finish stuff, step by step. Just take the first step, Marcus Aurelius says. No one can stop you from that. In Texas, a lot of the bugs are just not cool. The ants bite, spiders are poisonous. There's all these kinds of wasps that I didn't even know existed before.

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8:02Ryan Holiday: And then actually that's not true. And then you realize, oh, the anxiety has nothing to do with any of the things. It's actually Mark Struess talks about this in meditations. He says, I escaped anxiety. And then he goes, no, actually I discarded it. And he writes this during a play, no less. But he goes, I discarded it because it was within me. That was a breakthrough I sort of had. It was like, oh, I thought I was stressed and anxious and worried because of all of these very reasonable things that cause those things in your life, work, family stuff. And then when all that gets pared down, you realize it's like, oh, no, it was me.

8:41Ryan Holiday: Marcus Aurelius has a better morning routine than you, I promise. So he gets up early, Even though he doesn't want to get up early, even though he doesn't have to get up early, he makes himself get up early. He says, what were you made to sit here under the covers and keep warm? Were you meant to go do the work of a human being? So he gets up early and he goes and he does his work. And what is the first thing he do? I think that he sits down with his journal. Meditation survives to us because it's the private thoughts of the most powerful man in the world. He wrote down these thoughts because they made him better.

9:10Ryan Holiday: And then what did he do? He got to work on his most important task of the day. He says, concentrate like a Roman. He says, do this as if it's the last thing you're doing in your life. That's what Marcus Aurelius did. His morning routine set him up for success. He didn't approach the day at random. He knew that well begun is half done. And so should you start your day with a morning routine that lets you own the day from the beginning. It's called self-discipline. Nobody else signed up for it. You signed up for it. So you're learning and you're steady and you're self-improvement. you have to be sure that you're applying this only to yourself.

9:45Ryan Holiday: Marcus really says tolerant with others, strict with yourself. The purpose of all this is to make you a better master of yourself. It's not to make you condescending or patronizing or controlling of other people. It's called self-discipline for a reason. It's your discipline over yourself. You'll leave everyone else and their mistakes and their way of doing things to them. Mark Sebelius didn't like people. I mean, you can't read meditations and not see this. He opens meditations with a meditation on how frustrating and obnoxious other people are. And even this idea, this idea of the obstacle is the way.

10:27Ryan Holiday: That quote is him talking about other people, about how people get in our way, how people present obstacles. But he says that in that obstacle, there's an opportunity to actually practice this philosophy that you say you believe, to be good in spite of other people, to be just in the face of injustice, to be temperate in the face of intemperance that's being rewarded, to be courageous when everyone else is being cowardly and being rewarded for it. So for the Stoics, people are frustrating. People are an obstacle. But like all obstacles, they're also the way. That's a challenge we can rise to meet.

11:05Ryan Holiday: We can be better for wrestling with other people's difficulties. So don't resent people. Use them to become better. You're busy, I'm busy, but how much of what we're busy with actually matters? Marcus Rilla says, ask yourself with everything you do and say, is this essential? Because most of what we do and say is not essential. And he's so right. Most of what we do is because people asked us to do it or people told us to do it or that's how we've always done it. Do we actually need to do it? If we found out we were dying tomorrow, would we keep doing it? Would we do it the way we're doing it? Absolutely not.

11:39Ryan Holiday: So he says when you ask yourself, is this essential, you eliminate so much of what you don't need to be doing. And then he says you get the double benefit of now doing fewer things better. That's why you ask yourself this question, is this essential? Do I actually need to be doing it? Am I doing it the way that it needs to be done? And you ask this of everything you do and say and think. Number one, amor fati. It didn't happen to you. It happened for you. Fate chose this for you. Accept it. Embrace it. Bear it. Make something of it. That's the idea of a Morphati. Marcus Rieus says a fire turns everything into fuel and brightness.

12:18Ryan Holiday: That's a Morphati. Number two, it's about what you do for other people. Marcus Rieus says the fruit of this life is good character and acts for the common good. Right? The Stoics weren't trying to study this philosophy to be better sociopaths, to be able to make more money for their own sake, to be more famous. It was about what they do for other people. Do you contribute to your community, to your country? Are you moving the ball forward for humanity? Number three, this puts the other two in perspective, memento mori. You could leave life right now, as Mark Srelius says, let that determine what you do and say and think.

12:51Ryan Holiday: Life is short. Do everything as if it was the thought or action of a dying person, Mark Srelius says. Life is fragile. Those are three great lessons from Stoic philosophy you can apply right now.

13:30We'll see you next time. at toyotachicago.com. For well-qualified buyers, see dealer for details. Offer expires April 30th, 2026.