10 Stoic Lessons to Improve Your Life
Marcus Aurelius was fifty years old when he first turned to writing. He died a few years later, disappointed with what he left behind. But what he left behind was Meditations — a key Stoic text and a crucial guide to living a better life, to this day.
This is the first lesson of Stoicism:
1. You cannot see your life clearly while you are living it
Aurelius thought that his life had been a failure — overshadowed by successful and powerful men, like his father and brothers. But it is Marcus Aurelius that history remembers, and who helps us live better lives to this day.
This is a key lesson for anyone’s life.
I have found that I cannot evaluate my actions as I am doing them.In fact, this will often prevent you from taking any actions at all. Nor can you guarantee how your actions will be judged by the future.
All you can do is live life according to your own curiosity, and do more of what brings you joy. Marcus Aurelius didn’t write Meditations to be remembered by history, or to change people’s lives. He wrote the text as a guide to himself — a mixture of lessons that he had learnt, and things that he wanted to do better. He wrote it because he wanted to, and because he enjoyed writing.
