How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius

by Donald J. Robertson

In essence, it means undertaking any action while calmly accepting that the outcome isn’t entirely under your control. We learn from Seneca and others that it could take the form of a caveat, such as “Fate permitting,” “God willing,” or “If nothing prevents me.” It implies that one is taking action while excluding something: assumptions regarding the eventual outcome, particularly any expectations of success. We say “reserve clause,” incidentally, because our expectations are reserved for what is within our sphere of control.

Virtue consists in doing your very best and yet not becoming upset if you come home from the hunt empty-handed—we typically admire people who approach life in this way.

The wise man, in other words, desires to act virtuously with wisdom and justice in the social sphere, insofar as he’s practically able to do so. He simultaneously accepts, though, that the outcome of his actions is not under his direct control. There’s no guarantee that he’ll succeed in benefiting his fellow citizens, but he does his best anyway.

Inoculating ourselves against stress and anxiety through the Stoic premeditation of adversity is one of the most useful techniques for building general emotional resilience, which is what psychologists call the long-term ability to endure stressful situations without becoming overwhelmed by them.

He says that at times, like many other people, he feels a strong desire to get away from things and retreat to the peace of the countryside, seashore, or mountains.9 However, he tells himself that feeling the need to escape from life’s stresses in this way is a sign of weakness. It might be what the Stoics called a “preferred indifferent,” but escape is not something we should demand from life or feel we really need as a coping tool—that sort of dependence on being able to escape from stressful situations just creates its own problems. Marcus tells himself that he doesn’t literally need to get away from it all because true inner peace comes from the nature of our thoughts rather than pleasant natural surroundings. He tells himself that resilience comes from his ability to regain his composure wherever he finds himself. This is the “inner citadel” to which he can retreat,

When we deliberately remind ourselves that we project our values onto external events and that how we judge those events is what upsets us, we gain cognitive distance and recover our mental composure.

Whereas modern psychotherapy typically focuses on anxiety and depression, the Stoics concerned themselves more with the problem of anger. Indeed, an entire book by Seneca titled On Anger, which survives today, describes the Stoic theory and treatment of this passion in great detail.

The Stoics believed that vicious people fundamentally lack self-love and are alienated from themselves. We must learn to empathize with them and see them as the victims of misguided beliefs or errors of judgment, not as malicious.