It’s a New Day: Here’s How the Wise Will Use It
The four keys to Marcus Aurelius's best days
It’s a new day.
Maybe yours started with celebration or despair or a shrug of indifference. But fate is what it is, so why not make something worthwhile of it?
Wise men and women have begun to live anew each morning the same way for millennia. Amid plenty and famine, death and new life, revolution and continuity, each day calls for the same perspectives.
No one said it better than Marcus Aurelius in book two of Meditations:
“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions.”
By my count, Marcus has embedded seven things to prepare himself for the day ahead, but I want to focus on four:
1) Premeditation of Evil:
The unlooked-for blow lands the hardest, as the philosopher Seneca said, so considering the worst-case scenario and preplanning your response will leave you better off even if things go well. You’ll also be happier because the worst-case scenario probably won’t occur, which is a reason for gratitude.
This kind of negative visualization may seem depressing, but I don’t think so. It’s a surgical intervention to dispel shortsighted thinking and planning.
It’s a premortem rather than the postmortems people usually do, and it’s valuable because it actually prevents disasters.
Consider:
2) Many People Will Suck Today
Everyone is the hero of their own story.
They want to think their actions are good or justified, and it’s very unlikely that the cretinous fools you encounter or hear about are trying to maximize the world’s evil. As Marcus suggests, they’re merely ignorant of what’s right.
So if we can bring the perspective that others are merely mistaken rather than malicious, our days will go better, we’ll be less angry, and we’ll have more empathy.
Consider:
3) Anger Won’t Help
Anger feels righteous and justified, but it leaves us stupid, mistake-prone, and less capable of addressing the injustices. Historically, it’s the cool-headed rational actors who’ve done the most good in our world, and their own lives.
Consider:
4) Evil and Events Can’t Harm Us
Marcus believed — and I agree — that events may hurt us, people may do physical damage, but they can’t degrade the only important thing — virtue.
Instead, all the undesired things people and fate throw at us are opening gambits in the latest round of the Stoic Invincibility Game which makes us stronger, more capable people.
Consider:
It’s Your Day: Use It Well
Whatever’s happened, today is your day, and there’s no guarantee there will be another. Do what you can to use it well.
If you’d like to learn more about utilizing Stoicism for a good life, here are some of the benefits I’ve seen.
Thanks for reading Socratic State of Mind.
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I was once a person who was distraught over the election of Donald Trump, but I found the solution was not to simply categorize this thing I didn't understand as evil and then get on with my life. Rather I started listening to sources of news which brought me new perspectives, which challenged my thinking on issues, and ultimately after much uncomfortable questioning of my own ideas I realized the reason I was distraught was because I was in a Plato's cave, an echo chamber. This cave is designed to trap one in an emotional state of fear and hatred of the other, so that you can no longer think clearly or rationally. But once I took the difficult step to break free of that cave, I rid myself of the fear and angst because I could see more clearly.
The wise ought to look to their own mind and thought patterns, and wonder if maybe they aren't seeing things clearly. The un-examined life is not worth living, as Socrates once said.
The wisdom of Stoicism can be applied anywhere, anytime regardless of political affiliation. Good stuff 👊🏻