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It was on this day 1841 years ago that Marcus Aurelius came to the end. It had been an incredible life, as we’ve talked about. From an ordinary kid to the ruler of the world, this boy who would be king, had made the absolute best of the hand he had been dealt. He hadn’t been corrupted by power, but shared it. He hadn’t been made bitter by adversity but great because of it. Even the plague—which had dragged on for years—had brought out the best in Marcus Aurelius.

But now, time had run out. All good things come to an end. Marcus began to show symptoms of the plague. His doctor gave him a week, at most. Marcus gathered his five most-trusted advisors to plan for his succession and to ensure a peaceful transition of power. Grieving, those advisors were too pained to think about a future without him. “Marcus reproached them,” one biographer tells us, “for taking such an unphilosophical attitude; they should instead be thinking about the implications of the Antonine plague and pondering death in general.”

“Weep not for me,” began Marcus’s famous last words, “think rather of the pestilence and the deaths of so many others.” He would survive a day or so more. Perhaps it was in these last few moments, weak in body but still strong in will, that he jotted down the last words that appear in his Meditations—a reminder to himself about staying true to his philosophy:

Make your exit with grace—the same grace shown to you.

Yes, the life of Marcus Aurelius is a story that teaches us how to live well. But it is also a story about how to go out well. It’s a story that epitomizes that line from Leonardo da Vinci, “As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.” Maybe happy is too high a bar. How about decent? Strong? Empathetic? Graceful. Marcus was all these things.

Because his training had made him this way. He was prepared for life’s final challenge. He rose to this occasion as he had the others. Will you? Have you trained? Have you studied his example?

You must....the Daily Stoic

You’ve been reading for years now. You’ve been studying your Stoicism. You’ve been keeping up with your morning journals, doing your evening review.

So when does this all culminate and coalesce into wisdom? When are you good? Never. The answer is never. “Until when is a person obligated to study Torah?” Maimonides once asked, rhetorically. “Until the day of one’s death.”

So too with Stoicism. So too with the pursuit of knowledge. This is not a journey with a fixed endpoint. It goes on so long as you do; with each breath our obligation to continue our study and practice of courage, moderation, justice and wisdom remains. It must. Because there is always room to get better and improve, always someone and something to learn from.

There is a passage in Meditations, likely written by Marcus Aurelius in his fifties, more than a quarter-century into his study of philosophy, where he criticizes himself for the anxiety and fear he feels about death. You’re still struggling with this, he says, after all these years. Keep working at it, keep going. For Seneca, it was the same—he wanted to find one thing in his studies each day, one thing to make him better or kinder or calmer.

And so must you. It’s wonderful that you’ve been at this for as long as you have, but you have to keep going. Stay at it until the day of your death. You’ll need it...The Daily Stoic.

You’ve been reading for years now. You’ve been studying your Stoicism. You’ve been keeping up with your morning journals, doing your evening review.

So when does this all culminate and coalesce into wisdom? When are you good? Never. The answer is never. “Until when is a person obligated to study Torah?” Maimonides once asked, rhetorically. “Until the day of one’s death.”

So too with Stoicism. So too with the pursuit of knowledge. This is not a journey with a fixed endpoint. It goes on so long as you do; with each breath our obligation to continue our study and practice of courage, moderation, justice and wisdom remains. It must. Because there is always room to get better and improve, always someone and something to learn from.

There is a passage in Meditations, likely written by Marcus Aurelius in his fifties, more than a quarter-century into his study of philosophy, where he criticizes himself for the anxiety and fear he feels about death. You’re still struggling with this, he says, after all these years. Keep working at it, keep going. For Seneca, it was the same—he wanted to find one thing in his studies each day, one thing to make him better or kinder or calmer.

And so must you. It’s wonderful that you’ve been at this for as long as you have, but you have to keep going. Stay at it until the day of your death. You’ll need it...The Daily Stoic.

These are angry times… with plenty to be angry about. From politicians that have failed us to systemic evils that have gone on for too long. Maybe you’re someone who was conned, pressured into spending money you didn’t have with the hope of promises someone didn’t keep. Maybe you were hurt in an accident. Maybe you were wrongly deprived of your liberties or fair share.

It makes sense that you’re angry. It makes sense that you’d want to get even.

But the Stoics would urge you to question that anger. Not because they think you should “accept” this ill-treatment, but because they think that getting revenge is not the right response. First, they would say that anger rarely leads to well-thought out responses. Second, because there is something better out there than getting even.

When Marcus Aurelius wrote “the best revenge is to not be like that,” he wasn’t precluding other actions, you know. Given that he held up justice as a cardinal virtue and adjudicated many legal cases, we know that he was also a strong believer in holding people accountable. Musonius Rufus has a whole lecture entitled, “Will the philosopher prosecute anyone for personal injury?” which argues against holding personal grudges. Yet he also famously prosecuted several major cases in Rome against people who had committed grievous wrongs against other Stoics. He wasn’t doing this out of animus—he was doing it because he wanted justice. He wanted to prevent it from happening again.

So as we sit here today reflecting on a great laundry list of crimes and failures and misdeeds from people who were supposed to be serving the people, who were charged with following the law and protecting the common good, we should remember: It’s not revenge we’re after. Anger won’t help. What we need to get, at the ballot box, in the courts, in public, is not comeuppance, but justice.

We need to make sure these things can’t happen again.....The Daily Stoic