Marcus Aurelius: 6 Things to Do When Your Life Becomes Less Interesting

Live to fight another day.

In the Roman Empire, any man could adopt a son.

Unlike today, Roman Emperors could adopt a son/sons who could later become their heirs. The Roman empire was more about knowledge and less about bloodline.

Pius, a Roman Emperor, adopted Marcus Annius at 17.

Marcus was renamed: Marcus Aurelius, or Marcus the golden.

But…

Just after Marcus turned 17, his step-grandfather, Hadrian, died. So Marcus, and his adopted brother, Lucius Aelius, became the imperial successors to the throne.

The timeline looked something like this.

Hadrian → Pius (Adoptive) → Lucius (Adoptive) → Marcus Aurelius (Adoptive)

If you look closely, Marcus’s life was risky. Here are the facts:

• He was adopted, and Lucius could throw him anytime
• Luscious could have banished Marcus
• Everyone knew Marcus was the weak-est link
• Marcus was forced to fight Germans (enemies) alone.

Out of his 59-year life span, many things could go wrong.

So how did Marcus Aurelius manage?

Answer: Marcus was self-disciplined, a man of his word, calm, and a great decision-maker.

So, you’re not unlucky in your life — you don’t know the right tricks to use. Below are 6 teachings from Marcus Aurelius to make you stand out and combat struggles.

Let’s get started:

1. Stay Silent

Have you ever read history books?

Perhaps the account of the “Tempest by Shakespeare” or the “Journey of Christopher Columbus?”

On many accounts, you’ll feel a twinge feeling in your chest. Maybe because you know what is going to happen. You can’t just go and stop history from happening.

Can you?

Marcus Aurelius faced the same problem.

He knew many things: collective wisdom, rule over people, to make citizens happy.

So did he ever stop his fellow brother Lucius from making decisions or perhaps scold him when he died of tuberculosis?

Marcus had multiple occasions to blame his war-like life on Lucius. And interestingly, people would have believed it.

But Marcus believed:

“The best answer to anger is silence.”

You often see kids making the same mistakes you did when you were young. Sometimes, you want to stop them. But you cannot stop them from doing it again.

• Human learners from the error.

If anything makes you angry or even sad, don’t say anything. Chances are that 90% of the time, you’ll say something you’ll regret later on.

So, don’t take the chance.

2. Exert control into things you can change

When Marcus signed a peace treaty with the Germans, Syrians started to rebel.

Marcus’s whole life was spent at war and with plagues.

Yet he realized he couldn’t change most of us. He said:

“The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have.”

Most of the time, we try changing things. We forget that nature has only provided us with one thing to change:

• Our mindset and our physical body

Other than that, we have no control over things.

If you wish to control or get in charge of things, try your luck. You’ll waste a bunch of years when you could have spent them doing good things. But you can:

• I wish to leave things on time
• Go with the flow
• Exert control of things you can control

The world knows people who got out of their way and did something they weren’t in control of.

Like Elon Musk, who proved himself worthy with his ideas and changed the whole perspective of the world.

3. Don’t go against the natural force

A while ago, I wrote this article about Wu Wei:

It’s the concept derived from Chinese philosophy, which means:

“Go with the flow.”

Means that we humans come with a natural default force to love, care, and enjoy lives.

Take, for example, a baby.

The baby is always happy and doesn’t know the meaning of jealousy and revenge until you tell him or he experiences it.

Reading this, a quote by Marcus came to mind:

“The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.”

When we try to become like our enemies — whom we hated our whole life — we reckon our natural default forces.

• We start going out of the way and upset our energies.
• We are what we are. Nothing can change us.

We are a result of thousands of years of evolution. By going against our natural forces, we only upset ourselves. Some unnatural forces are:

• Revenge
• Hate
• Sadness
• Backbiting
• Jealousy

Note: stay away from them.

4. Stay present

We all want to go back and change things.

Maybe put a stamp in the fabric of time regardless of who gets hurt.

Seeing “The Umbrella Academy,” A Netflix series, I realized that if we could change an event that happened in our lives, we wouldn’t be the same as we’re now.

It’s like a trade:

• Go in the past and change an event. Drawback: your personality will be changed.
• Live in the present and change your future. Drawback: none.

Which one would you go for?

Marcus Aurelius writes:

“Confine yourself to the present.”

If only the world could go back and change things and timings, we wouldn’t even be born.

There’d be no Indiana province as we speak if everything could be corrected.

Christopher Columbus could go back in time and wipe the guilt away from the excitement he displayed in the name of India.

5. Manifest

On a scale from 1–10, how much do you wish to live?

I knew most people have no desire to live.

But suppose:

You wake up one day and realize you’re stuck in an open ocean. Which ocean is it? You yelled!

You remember the memory when you were walking with your loved one, and immediately you lost his hands and fell somewhere.

Tell me honestly: how does that make you feel?

We realize the importance 1-second after it’s taken from us. The worth immediately swells to 200%.

But Marcus Aurelius condemned this principle and wrote:

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive — to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”

Bill Gates follow the same step as written in 4-hour-work-week.

… He wakes up every day thinking it’s his last day, and he has to enjoy it the most.

… He starts by thanking nature for this day and uses the privileged day to work like a horse.

If life grants you a precious day to live, it can also take it from you.

6. Live your day, not just spend

Marcus Aurelius had a mindblowing discipline routine:

• He placed duty above everything else
• He was ready for war-like situations
• He wrote to clear his mind
• He had no ego

Marcus’ day was filled with love, caring, his duties, and his learning portion as an empire.

Though hew as an emperor, he felt his only duty was to save and not behold his wrath on his people

In other words, Marcus:

• Spend his day: Solving people’s problems, getting ready for war, fueling stated duties.
• Lived his day: writing, relaxing, meditating, learning

Marcus solely believed:

“You can commit injustice by doing nothing.”

However, many people can interpret the latter quote in various situations.

But being a fan of Marcus’s work, I feel much was true to his obligations as an emperor and as a whole.

We spend our day but hardly live it. With each passing time, the clock is ticking.

Include fun acts in your everyday life to make your day useful and worth it. Some acts include:

• Painting
• Coloring
• Learning new language
• Socializing
• Walking
• Petting a dog
• Writing memoirs

Final thoughts:

Marcus Aurelius never had a (royal) lineage.

What he had was the immense knowledge that fitted him like a crown. So why do you even worry about the royal lineage?

If you didn’t come from a royal family, make sure a royal family comes from you!

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