If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimation of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8:17
Some time during the winter of 2018 (that’s the Australian winter, so this is around July) I happened to watch the below video after an old mate posted a link on social media.
It’s an introduction to the various concepts behind Stoicism and Stoic philosophy found in the writings of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. It’s a somewhat basic video which, at under eight minutes, barely touches the depth of Stoic belief. And yet, the Marcus quote (which is elaborated on in the video) intrigued me, as did several other basic concepts put forward in the video. To be clear, I applaud the succinct way in which the FightMediocrity channel presents many helfpul concepts, although I will mention that there’s also stuff there which I disagree with.
So that video led me to find a copy of Marcus’ collected writings, known as Meditations. Each morning before my daily exercise I made a point of reading two pages, pencil in hand to highlight the more memorable passages.
I was captivated, so much so that I soon began to seek other texts on the same topic. Most notable for me in my early discovery of Stoicism was the final chapter in William B. Irvine’s A Guide To the Good Life as well as the numerous free daily email updates courtesy of The Daily Stoic.
One of the things that struck me about Stoicism was the simplicity of the belief system. Stoicism is universally accessible, it does not require intense or scholarly study, and it can be practised almost anywhere. Indeed, I suspect that this is one of the reasons for its enduring appeal. I also believe this likely goes a long way to explaining why Stoic belief has influenced all kinds of intellectual fields, from cognitive behavioural therapy to certain aspects of Christian doctrine.
Meditations is a case in point. It is divided into twelve books, each separated into observations that vary in length from a page to a single line. There is no specific order in which the book needs to be read and insight can be found from any point. In short, you don’t need to spend weeks reading and analysing this. You can pick it up at any point, at any time, and read it for as long as short as you like.
The quote above is found in Book 8, observation 17 (I made up my own reference system) and it’s one of many examples from Meditations that is applicable in almost any daily situation.
For instance, a large part of my day is spent writing. Although deep down I love writing, it can occasionally feel thankless or frustrating. Writing is a prolonged process that rarely yields an immediate reward and like so many others in this field, I sometimes find that I put things off or start to doubt or overthink a work.
In situations like this, Marcus reminds us that it is often not external forces that prevent us from moving ahead, but rather, our own feelings about a situation.
How can this be? Is it the aversion of a couple of minutes’ worth of physical effort? Is it anxiety about an ensuing confrontation? Or are we failing to start work on an artistic creation because we fear that it may be perceived as being inadequate upon completion (a common characteristic among people working in creative fields)?
So much of what occurs in this world that we inhabit is outside of our control. And yet, there are so many more things that we could control, yet for a multitude of petty reasons we put them off. On a daily basis, it might be vacuuming the floor, doing that half hour of fitness, writing or editing that project, filling out that long overdue form, or having a difficult conversation with a neighbour or family member.
Yes, the COVID-19 pandemic is a strange moment in modern history. So much over what we once had control has been taken from us. And yet, so many of us are fortunate enough to still have control over much of their lives.
It is incredibly comforting to remind ourselves that we can often switch off the distress that could result from having to do the things we would rather not do – especially once we understand that it is often much easier than we first imagined.