7 Ways Marcus Aurelius Will Help You Journal Like A Pro | Ryan Holiday | Stoicism

in the year 170 at night in his tent on the front lines of the war in germania marcus aurelius the emperor of rome sat down to write perhaps it was before dawn at his palace in the city or perhaps he stole a few seconds to himself during the games ignoring the carnage on the floor of the coliseum below the exact location is not important what matters is that this man known today as the last of the five good emperors sat down with the journal to write not to an audience or for publication but to himself

for himself then as in now people wondered how did marcus aurelius become marcus aurelius how did he avoid being corrupted by power and broken by stress well he would have pointed to a single thing to this activity his most important daily practice journaling his favorite philosopher epictetus observed that people work on their bodies but not on their soul and that is why epictetus recommended that every day we should keep our philosophical aphorisms and exercises at hand that we should write them read them aloud talk to ourselves and to others about them and that is why

marcus aurelius journaled as well it was for him what scholars have come to call spiritual combat he was writing as a way to build his soul a core an inner fortress something that fate and chaos and hysterics and vice and outside influences and external forces could never penetrate and break down so if you want to live a good life you have to build your spirit you have to build that inner fortress and journaling is one of the most time-tested and research-backed ways to do it and here are seven strategies from the stoics to journal like

a pro prepare in the morning despite his admitted struggles to get out of his warm comfortable bed in the morning marcus aurelius seems to have done most of his journaling first thing in the morning when you wake up he wrote tell yourself that the people i will deal with today will be meddling ungrateful arrogant dishonest jealous and surly they are like this he said because they can't tell good from evil we can imagine marcus taking his journal and in it thinking about all the things he was likely to face in the day and how he

wanted to be ready for them and how he wanted to respond to them a healthy mind should be prepared for anything he said we should be like a wrestler waiting poised and dug in for sudden attacks like marcus you should prepare plan and meditate on how you aim to act each day you should do this in your journal envisioning everything that may come and preparing your best response to them keep it to yourself why did marcus aurelius spend those precious hours in his tent riding by the lamplight even on the days he strained under the

burdens of his wartime duties it wasn't for our benefit no he wasn't writing for an audience he was writing for himself and in fact what is now published as meditations was originally titled to himself as tim ferriss has said of his own journaling habit i don't journal to be productive i don't do it to find great ideas to put down prose i can later publish these pages aren't intended for anyone but me most people drop the journal in habit or never begin out of fear or intimidation they think they're a terrible writer that they don't

have good ideas or thoughts to write about that no one will want to read anything they write well that's the great thing about journaling no one has to read it not even you one translator calls meditations a self-help book in the most literal sense and that's what journaling is it's self-help help for you for yourself repeat the most important things it's hard to miss the repetitions in marcus aurelius's writing in fact it's a common criticism that meditations is too repetitive but this misses the point it's supposed to be repetitive he was reminding himself of the

most important things stuff like remember your mortality not to live as if you had endless years ahead of you he writes death overshadows you while you're alive and able be good you could leave life right now he says let that determine what you do and say and think he talks about remembering our duty to the common good undertake nothing for any reason but the common good he says thought and action resulting in the common good what you were born to do he says have i done something for the common good then i share in the

benefits remember to keep returning to philosophy he says not to think of philosophy as your instructor but as a soothing ointment philosophy he says rest in its embrace no role is so well suited to philosophy he says as the one you happen to be in right now remember you can get through this that's what he's reminding himself if it's humanly possible he says you can do it too ask why can't i endure this you'll be embarrassed by the answer he says the impediment to action advances action which stands in the way becomes the way the

act of sitting down and journaling writing and rewriting about ideas from the earlier stoics this was a meditative experience for marcus it was almost like prayer reframing the wisdom over and over and over again until it became muscle memory and then that muscle memory could be translated into works marcus would have agreed with aristotle that we are what we repeatedly do he said the things you think about determine the quality of your mind your soul takes on the color of your thoughts and so two your life takes on the color of what you write about

in your journal take it out on the page like us marcus would have had plenty of things to be stressed and angry about things didn't go the way he hoped he made mistakes people failed him there were plagues and wars natural catastrophes financial crises family difficulties it would have been almost daily that marcus dealt with one problem or another and yet it's nearly impossible to find an account of him losing his temper let alone letting stress overwhelm him this makes sense a study by cambridge university found that journaling when stressed results in improvements in both

physical and psychological health and why should we feel anger at the world marcus wrote in his journal as if the world would notice and he said when frustrated with someone's behavior we should turn around and ask when you have acted like that we all carry destructive thoughts but we should remember as anne frank said that paper is more patient than people we should put our angry thoughts down on the page leave them there rather than projecting them or hurting others with them copy down your favorite quotes the roman writer and philosopher seneca said it brilliantly

we should hunt out the helpful pieces of teachings and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application not far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech we should learn them so that words become works page after page we see quotes from interesting things marcus aurelius read or overheard or observed that quote about feeling angry at the world that came from the 5th century playwright europeans who he quotes another half dozen times in meditations he quotes comedies and tragedies he quotes the teachings of epictetus he quotes sophocles he quotes

philosophers like heracletus socrates democritus epicurus and plato he quotes the poets empedocles pindar and minander marcus talked about going straight to the seat of intelligence he said that's where he liked to go when he needed encouragement and that was what his journal was made to record and remember ask yourself tough questions on nearly every page we see marcus questioning himself the actions he takes the choices he makes the path he is on why am i here how should i live my life how do i ensure that what i do is right how can i prepare

and protect myself against the stresses and pressures of daily life how should i deal with pain and misfortune how can i live with the knowledge that someday i will die am i afraid of death because i won't be able to do whatever i'm doing right now anymore what good is it to be remembered after you're dead if it doesn't harm my character how can it harm me when have i messed up like this person why can't i endure this or that why did i say or do this or that most of what we say and

do is not essential marcus writes if you can eliminate this you'll have more time and more tranquility ask yourself at every moment is this necessary most of what we do is not essential most of it is instinctual or it was foisted on us by someone else most of it actually isn't working for us we might be better and happier if we changed and that starts by asking ourselves the tough questions in our journal every single day review the evening the best way to improve is to review each evening the stoics believed you should examine your

day and your actions as seneca put it when the light has been removed and my wife has fallen silent aware of this habit that's now mine i examine my entire day and go back over what i've done and said hiding nothing from myself passing nothing by ask yourself did i follow my plans for the day was i prepared enough what could i have done better what did i learn today that will help me tomorrow some two thousand years after marcus made it a practice a study conducted by the harvard business review found that participants who

journaled at the end of each day had a 25 percent increase in performance when compared with the control group who did not journal as the researchers conclude our results reveal reflection to be a powerful mechanism behind learning confirming the words of the american philosopher john dewey we do not learn from experience we learn from reflecting on experience this is the path that greatness requires self-awareness self-reflection journaling is uniquely suited to do that marcus knew this and he proved it so what are you waiting for start journaling and who knows maybe in writing exclusively to and

for yourself you'll accidentally produce something that survives and teaches and helps people for centuries to come as bran blanchard writes of marcus aurelius few now care about the marches and counter counter-marches of the roman commanders what the centuries have clung to is a notebook of the thoughts of a man whose real life was largely unknown who put down in the midnight dimness not the events of the day or the plans of the morrow but something of far more permanent interests the ideals and aspirations that a rare spirit lived by and so it will be for

you so start now today and if you are looking for a journal and obviously here we recommend the daily stoic journal which is a journal we designed based on the stoic practice of journaling it helps you prepare for the day ahead sets your intention for the day and at the end it helps you review that day to make sure that you're tackling your philosophical journey as marcus aurelius as seneca did as epictetus did it's got close to 20 000 words of stoic meditations and wisdom inside it hundreds of thousands of people from all over the

world have benefited from this journal you can check that out at dailystoic.com journal hey thanks for watching daily stoke if you want to learn more about stoicism you can check out some of our other videos here subscribe we'd really appreciate it keep learning keep studying and remember those four stoic virtues courage justice temperance and wisdom