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Introduction

Why are Meditations so important to our lives 2,000 years after the collections were composed? Meditations is generally a collection of Marcus Aurelius’s journal. The book comprises a record of deeply analyzed and carefully made thoughts that were never meant to be published. Marcus had two intentions while composing the notes:

1. To develop a life philosophy and an imaginary character he could emulate for himself.
2. As a central part of his struggle to live true to himself

Marcus, in this book, touches on essential common truths which should revolve around us to date. Existence, virtues, morality, duty, death, reason, and relationships with people and gods are essential to every human being. The advice Marcus gave himself over 2,000 years ago can fit in today’s stressed-out modern lives. 

About Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD) was a Roman Emperor during the period of the Imperial Cult (161-180 AD). He was and remains one of the most powerful Roman Emperors of his time. 

However, not even his powerful throne would cement his name in the history books for centuries, but the collection of thoughts he composed for himself. Interestingly, he spent half of his time in power in fierce wars to defend his empire’s borders. While the war was a significant factor pushing many rulers to become tyrants, Aurelius, through the collection of his thoughts, often reminded himself of the need to uphold humility and morality.

Every night Aurelius would compose thoughts relating to life, morality change, and death. These collections would later be translated, reformatted, and assembled into a book called “Meditations.”

StoryShot #1: The Evil People Do to You Will Only Hurt if You Respond with Evil

How do you react to people who intend to harm you physically or emotionally? Do you seek revenge, or do you let them go?

Either way, the evil done to you will affect you emotionally, physically, or psychologically. But how you react to the situation determines the extent of pain you suffer. It would be best if you tried to correct the evil doers, for people often do evil without knowledge about the effects on others. But, if they don’t want to change, accept it and move on.

But, one thing you shouldn’t allow is violating your principles. It would help if you always kept your mind free from corruption by the evil deeds of others. Focusing on their actions will hinder your ability to think rationally.

Aurelius advises that you shouldn’t be surprised by the wickedness of others. It would be best if you did not wish that men are not as prone to evil as they are because your wishes cannot be fulfilled. People expose their wickedness due to a lack of knowledge of good and evil. It would be best if you forgave them for their mistake against you, including when you’re hurt. Aurelius emphasizes that humans are social animals meant to live harmoniously. 

Dedicating much time to revenge will not do any good to you. Forget what people are doing, either good or evil, and forgive them for the harm. Instead, focus on yourself, evaluate your deeds and where you could be doing wrong, and correct your actions. Then, fix the problem and spend more time doing what is valuable to you. There is no value, need, energy, or time to waste focusing on what other people are doing. 

StoryShot #2: Be a Guardian to Your Inner Self

Do you wish to spend the whole day in bed? You’re not alone. There is a voice within us that always wants nothing more than to be lazy and keep doing useless things. In that case, ask your inner voice, “So you were born to feel nice instead of doing things that matter to you? Don’t you realize bees, ants, and birds go about their daily activities the best they can?”

Focus each minute like a Roman while performing any duty with the willingness, seriousness, and attention it deserves. Free yourself from internal and external distractions that may hinder your ability to accomplish what you need to achieve. 

Aurelius posits that we have limited time to do what we must do, and every minute that passes without doing what we are supposed to do is a loss to ourselves. Therefore, no matter what a situation underlies, perform your duties thoroughly and with justice. 

Yes, you can achieve your goals, but only if you take everything you do as the last engagement in your life with precise focus, plans, and goals. In addition, it would be best if you didn’t allow your emotions to take control of you or give room for unreasonable and false deeds that will reduce the value of what you do. 

When you become a guardian to your inner self, you minimize the chances of losing focus on your goals. You provide oversight to analyze what you’re doing all the time and inform you anytime you seem to lose focus from the main goal.  

It’s okay for you to have conflicting internal motivations. For example, you want to get to work on time but sleep until eight in the morning. You want an athletic body but can’t stop eating doughnuts. You want to get A+ in your exam, but you also want to achieve the highest level in your latest video game.

Aurelius understood this conflict and emphasized the need to confront the inner voice that diminishes your motivation to undertake something of value to you. Instead, your inner guardian should act like a parent who tells their kids they can’t continue playing when they have to do homework. 

StoryShot #3: Remember the Existence of Death to Stop Worrying About Others

Do you think of death? Unfortunately, most people ignore the phrase “memento mori,” meaning you’re there only for a moment.

When you understand that you can cease to exist anytime, you can no longer waste time on things that don’t add value to your life. For example, you will not be moved by what people say about you. You will not waste time on leisure time watching TV or engaging in any passive activity. 

Remember you’re there now, but you could be gone the next minute. With this in mind, Aurelius emphasizes the need to do only what matters to you. You’re always in a race against time in doing what you’re passionate about and doing all that is meaningful to you. So spend more time with your loved ones and eliminate useless activities and people from your life. 

When you constantly remind yourself about death, it will give you focus. You don’t have to refer to Aurelius to get a perfect example to do only that which matters in life. Yes, you don’t! Remember when your neighbor or family member learned they had cancer? Once they realized their lives were in danger and death could be around the corner, they dropped everything that didn’t add value to their lives and focused on only what was important to them. 

As an emperor, Aurelius faced much more pressure than most of us have or will ever have. Like many leaders today, he faced threats and humiliations publicly from his enemies — not forgetting that many ancient emperors were poisoned by those close to them. 

With the realization that death could strike anytime, Aurelius reminded himself of the personal achievements he needed to make before he died. You will soon be dead, and everyone who knows you will also die. If you constantly remind yourself about this fact, you will find it best not to worry about what other people do. Instead, you will compete against time to achieve your dreams. 

Even if you have a good reputation now, how will it benefit you after you die? Shortly, people will not even remember your name. So, what value do you gain from focusing on what other people do?

This is probably the greatest lesson we’ve gotten from Aurelius. It’s always important to meditate that everything around us, including ourselves, isn’t permanent — we need to focus only on what is meaningful to improve our lives. 

If you weigh the reality of death against your worries, you will be able to detach from many things that make you lose focus on achieving your goals. 

StoryShot #4: Develop Self-Realization and Value Your Opinion

Your opinion shapes the reality of your life. You don’t need an objective reality to determine who you are or what to do — you shape your reality. 

If you become a billionaire with all the material possessions you desire but keep comparing yourself with others, you will lead a miserable life. However, you can be poor and live a happy life because your soul has gratitude. 

Life is an opinion, and when it comes to your life, everything is determined by your opinion. You decide what is good or bad for your life. While we value external realities more than ourselves, we shape our world’s perception with our opinion about ourselves. But humans aren’t entirely rational. We all love ourselves more than others, but we care more about their opinion than ours. 

Aurelius realized that we are more interested in imagining things and sharing our thoughts with others to seek their confirmation. If a god prohibited us from revealing our imaginations to others, few would survive a single day. That is how we value external praise. But what do we gain from it? Just an opinion that may affect your true reasoning. 

You should treat your thoughts with respect and protect them from external interference, including others’ opinions. Conceal your opinion from the outside world by figuring out the actual state and your subjective judgment about your life. 

Develop a clear perspective that limits you from reacting to everything thrown your way but restricts yourself to facts instead of misperceptions from the outside world. Facts give you a reality about the world, while misperception distracts your ability to think and perceive life subjectively.

Suppose you want to be an ideal student of Aurelius’s philosophy. In that case, you must understand that only your opinion matters in your life, and it’s the only thing that can keep you calm and give you the energy you need to overcome uncertainties. However, external validations corrupt your rightful thinking. 

StoryShot #5: Rational Thinking is the Most Valuable Asset You Have

The ability to think rationally sets us apart from other animals. Therefore, we must use this aspect effectively to gain power over things around us.

Your reasoning is your greatest asset to understanding nature, which allows you to come to terms with it even when it presents unpleasant things. Your rational mind has power even over your opinion and can determine whether your desires are in agreement with nature. You can only hurt your mind when you create desires for specific outcomes. 

Aurelius realized that he had power over his mind, not external factors — this became his source of strength.

He reminds himself that the mind controls itself against external perceptions. It’s separated from the external world and cannot be affected by events happening in the world unless it positions itself to be affected. Since nature has allowed you to develop independent objectives, you have no reason to agree with everything it presents. Instead, it would be best to perceive everything rationally to determine whether it’s worth your attention.

Do you understand why you find yourself troubled? Most problems result from our minds. Our mind amplifies little things until they get out of hand. If we think rationally about events happening in our lives, we cannot strengthen them beyond our limits.

You can achieve the freedom you need by controlling your mind to the right reasoning.

StoryShot #6: You Have Responsibility to Work for the Humankind

We are social beings meant to live in harmony with others. The more we help others, the more we gain the true value of life, and the more we benefit. It’s quite ironic. However, imagine you wake up early daily to serve others, making you happy. 

In one way or the other, you should focus on making others happy rather than focus on things that hurt them. When you serve others respectfully, you get happiness and value for your service.

Pleasure doesn’t bring true happiness in life. However, how you perceive your service to others gives you true happiness. Helping others is what humans were meant to do.

What is your talent? What gift do you have? You’re the one to determine what you’re meant to do in service to others, for when others are content with your deeds, they are happy, and you become happy as well. Life’s too short to worry about things that don’t bring true happiness. 

StoryShot #7: Look at the Positive Aspect of Things Happening Around You

What do you make of many things happening every day? How do you determine good and evil?

The mind is a separate entity from things happening in the external world. It chooses what effects the world can have on it. This implies that your mind has the power to decide how to interpret everything revolving around you. When some things seem to hurt your desire or obstruct your way to achieving goals, you can choose not to feel like a victim. 

When people utter words that can hurt you, you have to choose whether to feel hurt or not. How you interpret, every event is important to your mind. If you decide to find at least a positive thing, even from the worst events, your mind will remain focused on important things in life instead of focusing on things that hurt your soul. The mind will become a sieve that only permeates that which is harmless and beneficial to it and the heart. 

Everything can be taken from you, but one thing, the power to choose your attitude in any given circumstance, rests with you.

If you look around, many things push us towards losing hope—the challenges at work, in the family, and society. You are not immune to abuse and discrimination. However, you have the power to choose whether to feel hurt or feel peace of mind.

StoryShot #8: Fame and Pleasure are not Worth Your Time and Energy

It’s in our mind to believe pleasure is essential to our survival, but not. 

Pursuing pleasure and fame is misguided, and we should not waste limited time seeking pleasure from others’ validations.

Fame, no matter how pleasurable it feels, it’s short-lived, and our pursuit of it only reveals our weaknesses.

Your life can’t be better by praise but by the beauty of things that comes from your sound reasoning. The only ideal happiness comes from your positive perception of life and your ability to control what happens around you. 

You’re mistaken if you think you’re gaining anything meaningful when you get external validations. Why do you want to be praised for it when you have done a good thing and others have benefited? The only thing that matters is your internal validation and belief that you have done the right thing. 

If you desire fame and praise, you’re a step away from losing your sensible thinking. But, unfortunately, many desires for recognition can only lead you to act immorally. For instance, when a person is hurt, we are supposed to help them unconditionally and improve their well-being. But unfortunately, we often don’t want to help unless we feel that our desires for praise and fame are met. 

Final Summary and Review

Meditation was a personal collection of journals that Aurelius made for himself. The collections were not meant for publication, making this book even more ideal for our lives today. But what would happen if the collection was never published? We wouldn’t get a chance for such insightful views about life. This book allows you to question life and reflect on things deeply sensitive to the human condition. 

Let’s go over the key insights again to understand how informative Aurelius’s thoughts are:

• The evil done against you only hurt when you respond with evil
• Be a parent to your inner kid
• Remember death to stop worrying about invaluable things and others
• Value your opinion more than others
• Your rational thinking is the greatest asset you have
• You must serve humankind
• Pleasure and fame have no value in your life

Rating

We rate this book 4.3/5.

How would you rate it?

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