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October 14 - October 19, 2025
The wise man’s sense of delight comes from one thing alone: acting consistently in accord with virtue.
Socrates had likewise claimed, paradoxically, that those who practice self-control actually obtain more pleasure from things like food and drink than those who indulge in them to excess.
However, an even deeper paradox lies in the notion that, ultimately, the virtue of self-discipline itself might become a greater source of “pleasure” than food or other external objects of our desire. More accurately, exercising moderation may become a source of personal satisfaction and inner fulfillment that outweighs the ordinary pleasures it seeks to overcome.
In “The Choice of Hercules,” likewise, there are basically two paths forward: 1. The path of vice, or following excessive desires and irrational emotions (unhealthy passions) 2. The path of virtue, or exercising self-discipline and following reason and your true values in life
We should remind ourselves, Epicurus said, that pain is always bearable because it is either acute or chronic but never both. The Church Father Tertullian neatly summed up the same idea by saying that Epicurus coined the maxim “a little pain is contemptible, and a great one is not lasting.” You can therefore learn to cope by telling yourself that the pain won’t last long if it’s severe or that you’re capable of enduring much worse if the pain is chronic.
Marcus meant that pain is tolerable if we remember that our attitude toward it is what really determines how upset we become. It’s not our pains or illnesses that upset us but our judgments about them, as the Stoics would put it. This is one of the main therapeutic tools in the armamentarium of Stoic pain management.
When faced with any of these discomforts, Marcus would simply warn himself, “You are giving way to pain.”14 Then he’d apply the same coping skills, whether he was struggling in a blizzard along the Danube or suffering fatigue from riding for days from his base at Aquileia in northern Italy to the legionary fortress of Carnuntum. Pain, discomfort, fatigue—they’re all just unpleasant sensations.
The most important thing he observed in those individuals who coped well was their ability to “withdraw” or “separate” their mind from bodily sensations.
Remind yourself that Nature has given you both the capacity to exercise courage and the endurance to rise above pain
For Marcus, what matters is that we stop looking at pain and illness through the lens of harm. Those judgments originate within us. They are projected outward onto bodily sensations and other external events. It’s important to remember that whether we view something as helpful or harmful depends entirely upon our goals.
The Stoics want us to go through a radical upheaval in our underlying values so that our supreme goal is to live with wisdom and its accompanying virtues. They want us to treat physical pain and injuries with indifference. In fact, these misfortunes can even provide an opportunity for us to exercise greater wisdom and strength of character.
Realizing that fear of pain may be doing you more harm than the pain itself can motivate you to start regularly practicing the psychological skills required to overcome intolerance of pain and discomfort.
By viewing things objectively, isolating the present moment and dividing it into smaller parts, we can tackle them one at a time, using the method we’ve called depreciation by analysis. He says, for example, that we should ask of each present difficulty, “What is there in this that is unbearable or beyond endurance?”27 Indeed, Marcus notes that the power of events to afflict us is greatly diminished if we set aside thoughts of the past and future and focus only on the present moment, the here and now, in isolation.
Let the affected part of the body complain if it must, he says. The mind doesn’t need to agree and go along with it by judging the sensation to be very bad and harmful.29 Think of the pain in your body as if it’s the barking of an angry dog; don’t start barking along with the dog by groaning about your own pain.
A dog tethered to a moving cart can either pull on his leash and be roughly dragged along or accept his fate and run along smoothly beside the cart. Indeed, one of the earliest Stoic definitions of man’s natural goal is that it consists in a “smoothly flowing” life, free from unnecessary struggle.
Pain becomes more painful when we struggle against it, but the burden is often lightened, paradoxically, if we can accept the sensation and relax into it or even welcome it.
Marcus actually imagines Nature herself as a physician, like Asclepius, the god of medicine, prescribing hardships to him as if they were painful remedies.33 To take Nature’s medicine properly, we must accept our fate and respond virtuously, with courage and self-discipline, thereby improving our character. So Marcus sees voluntarily accepting hardship as a psychotherapy of the passions. We must swallow the bitter pills of Fate and accept painful feelings and other unpleasant symptoms of illness when they befall us.
Diogenes the Cynic reputedly taught that we should treat painful sensations like wild dogs. They will bite and tear at our heels the more we try to flee in panic but will often back down if we have the courage to turn and face them calmly.
People who strongly believe that unpleasant feelings are bad and try to suppress them from their minds often become more tense and preoccupied with the very feelings they’re trying to avoid, trapping themselves in a vicious cycle.
“he who knows how to suffer suffers less.”
After Lucius’s sudden death in 169 AD, Marcus had been unexpectedly left in sole command of the troops assembling along the Danube for the First Marcomannic War. In his late fifties, with no military experience whatsoever, he’d found himself in command of the largest army ever massed on a Roman frontier. He stood at the head of roughly 140,000 men who awaited his orders, unsure what to expect of him. It must have been incredibly daunting. Yet he embraced his new role completely and turned it into an opportunity to deepen his Stoic resolve.
We say “reserve clause,” incidentally, because our expectations are reserved for what is within our sphere of control. We’re pursuing an external result “with the reservation” that the outcome is not entirely up to us. “Do what you must, let happen what may,” as the saying goes.
The Stoic-minded archer’s true goal should be to fire his bow skillfully, insofar as doing so is within his power. Paradoxically, though, he’s indifferent to whether or not his arrow actually hits the target. He controls his aim but not the arrow’s flight. So he does the best he can and accepts whatever happens next. The target—perhaps an animal he’s hunting—could move unexpectedly.
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.
In a sense, the Stoic gets to have his cake and eat it: to retain his emotional detachment while nevertheless taking action in the world.
The worried mind is always getting too far ahead of itself; it is always in suspense over the future. The Stoic Sage, by contrast, is grounded in the here and now.
Likewise, the mind of the Sage, acting with the reserve clause, adapts itself, without hesitation, to whatever befalls him. Whether he meets with success or failure, he makes good use of his experience.
His equanimity remained intact as long as he never desired what was beyond his grasp, which constitutes one of the foundations of the Stoic remedy for worry and anxiety.
A man “complete in himself, smooth and round, who prevents extraneous elements clinging to his polished surface, who is such that when Fortune attacks him she maims only herself.”
The moral is that in times of peace, we should prepare for war if we want to be ready to defend ourselves. The Stoics likewise used moments of leisure to prepare themselves to remain calm in the face of adversity.
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, even on the frigid battlefields of the northern campaign.
According to the Stoics, individuals are bound to make moral errors, because the majority do not have a firm grasp on the true nature of good and evil. Nobody is born wise, but rather we must become so through education and training.
Even though they may act unjustly, they cannot truly harm him because their actions cannot tarnish his character.
Stoics think of troublesome people as if they are a prescription from a physician, or a training partner we’ve been assigned by a wrestling coach. We exist for one another, says Marcus, and if we can’t educate those who oppose us, we have to learn at least to tolerate them.6 These challenges will help us grow in virtue and become more resilient.
the Stoic teacher Apollonius is portrayed saying, “There are wicked men—they are useful to thee; without them, what need would there be for virtues?”
Indeed, the wise man only really pays attention to the opinions of those “living in agreement with Nature,” and so he is continually mindful of what sort of men he’s dealing with. He understands who they are “at home and abroad, by night and in the day, in what vices they wallow and with whom.”
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. Marcus says that you should contemplate how they are blinded by their own mistaken opinions and compelled by them to act as they do—they don’t know any better.
mistaken. In The Meditations, he says you should view others’ actions in terms of a simple dichotomy: either they are doing what is right or doing what is wrong. If they are doing what is right, then you should accept it and cease to be annoyed with them. Let go of your anger and learn from them. However, if they are doing what is wrong, then you should assume it’s because they don’t know any better.
When faced with someone whose behavior appears objectionable, Epictetus therefore advised his students simply to repeat this maxim to themselves: “It seemed right to him.”
Ironically, the very anger we feel toward those who offend us can itself be seen as evidence of fallibility on our part. Our anger proves that we too are capable of doing the wrong thing under the influence of strong emotions.
Remembering that fallibility is the common lot of mankind—including you—can help diminish feelings of anger. When you point your finger in anger at someone else, remember that three fingers on the same hand point back in your own direction.
We can’t read other people’s minds, so we shouldn’t jump to conclusions about what their intentions are.
By contrast, anger assumes an unwarranted certainty about the motives of other people. Cognitive therapists call this the fallacy of “mind-reading”—leaping to conclusions about other people’s motives although they are always somewhat veiled from us.
He reminded himself not to worry about how future generations would judge him but to do only what reason commended as the right course of action. When we remember that nothing lasts forever, it no longer seems worthwhile getting angry with other people.
All that really matters in life is whether you’re a good person or a bad person, and that’s down to you alone. Other people can harm your property or even your body, but they can’t harm your character unless you allow them to do so.
The Stoics liked to consider how ugly and unnatural anger looks—a scowling face, grimacing, turning puce with rage, like someone in the throes of a horrible disease.15 Marcus views the profound ugliness of anger as a sign that it is unnatural and against reason.
The Stoics believe that we take offense because we assume other people’s actions threaten our interests in some way. However, once you consider that your own anger is a bigger threat to you than the thing you’re angry about, then you inevitably start to weaken its grip.
If someone hates you, Marcus says, that’s their problem. Your only concern is to avoid doing anything to deserve being hated.
The main antidote to anger for Marcus is the Stoic virtue of kindness, which along with fairness makes up the cardinal social virtue of justice. Whereas the Stoics viewed anger as the desire to harm others, kindness is essentially the opposite: goodwill toward others and the desire to help them. However, what other people do is not strictly up to us, so we should exercise kindness and goodwill toward others with the reserve clause in mind, by adding the caveat “Fate permitting.” Like Cato’s archer, a Stoic should aim at the target (of benefiting others) but be satisfied if he has acted with
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1. Anger does more harm to us than to the person with whom we’re angry. 2. Humans are essentially social creatures; Nature didn’t intend us to fight but to help each other.
