5 Stoic Ways of Dealing With Difficult People - Marcus Aurelius (Stoicism)

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Marcus Aurelius was the emperor of Rome from 161 to 180 AD and is considered as the last of the Five Good Emperors. Widely referred to as a philanthropic ‘philosopher-king’, Marcus worked to embody the philosophy of Stoicism through careful action, self-restraint, and respect throughout his life. During his rule, he found the time to construct a series of autobiographical writing known as the Meditations, and thanks to his prolific journaling, we have a fair idea about how he dealt with his share of difficult people on a daily basis and in this video we will be diving into 5 ways Marcus Aurelius dealt with difficult people and how we can use these lessons to deal with such people in our modern day lives.

1. Set your expectations straight Marcus Aurelius says “When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly”. Stoicism being the practical philosophy makes us see people the way they are rather than seeing them the way we want them to be.

Marcus Aurelius, despite being a man of great temperance and discipline, is said to have set his expectations straight by practicing the technique of negative visualization as a part of his morning routine. Each morning, he mentally prepared himself for the people he might encounter, and was ready to handle anyone, no matter how difficult or abrasive they may be. Difficult people are everywhere and the idea behind this practice of setting your expectations straight by visualizing the way they are is not to think ill about anyone but to stay prepared if they inevitably cross your path.

Imagine that you are in your office, working on your usual task and everything is just fine. Suddenly your boss comes to you and starts shouting at you in front of your colleagues for an error in your report or for something you may or may not have done. In this situation you will probably feel embarrassed, demotivated and probably more than a little angry.

Now imagine the exact same scenario, only this time your colleague warns you about your boss being in a bad mood. Now that you already know about your boss’ mood, you will double check your report before sending it in and even then if your boss yells at you for something you may or may not have done, you’ll still be startled, but not nearly as much because you already knew what to expect. Your expectations deeply influence your emotions and by regularly reminding yourself that unpleasant people can show up at any time, this won’t startle you as much, and you’ll be better able to deal with them.

Difficult people are going to be there and you will encounter them. It’s part of life. So, expect it to happen.

2. Let it go Marcus Aurelius tell us “The best revenge is to be unlike the one who performed the injustice” Centuries before Disney Princesses, Marcus Aurelius was already teaching his followers that the best revenge is to exact no revenge at all. If your response to rudeness or being insulted is to be offensive and insulting right back all you have achieved is to sink to their level and help justify their unpleasant behaviour.

So he advises us to take the higher ground with our response and approach the situation with virtue and logic. Regardless of our perfect planning and rehearsals, plans still can, and often do, go awry. We rarely get to control what happens to or around us.

Despite your best efforts, you still might not get that promotion, you still hit traffic on your commute, your video might not go viral or you might get sick. You can’t really control any of these things. People are no different — their speech and actions are also external, uncontrollable events.

Whether at work or in a social situation, we all encounter difficult people from time to time – some will cut in your line, others may lie and take credit for your work or humiliate you in public; even though one cannot control most of the things they say or do, we let them and their insults affect us long after the incident is over — maybe for an entire day, or week, or month, or even an entire lifetime and we often respond to it with resentment, anger, or even by plotting out revenge. However according to the stoics, vengeance is a waste of time and will ultimately do you more harm than good. They would advise us not to take things too personally.

If someone mistreats you it’s because, in that moment, they don’t know any better. Their actions must be either intentional or unintentional. If they are unintentional, it doesn’t make sense to waste our time and energy on their negligence, and they are intentional, then there is something wrong with their character, and you cannot control how other people behave.

All you can control is how you respond to their behavior. So next time when you experience rudeness or if someone calls you by a name, or speaks to you in a tone that you find offensive, ask yourself how you have actually been harmed by it. For example if someone makes fun of you and calls you ugly, ask yourself – does the opinion of someone like that actually matter?

What exactly are the possible consequences to you if they were to keep calling you ugly? The only possible consequences are in your own head, and if they are just in your mind then you can control them, and if you can control them then they can’t do you any harm. Aurelius teaches us to resist the impulse to respond with resentment and instead learn to let it go.

3. Remember our common humanity In the words of Marcus Aurelius “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” According to Aurelius, we all share a common bond in our human existence. All of us deal with difficult emotions, devastating experiences, and daily stressors. Sure, we all live a different life and lifestyle but in some aspects, we’re all exactly the same.

None of us are immune to pain, illness, loss, and death. We humans are innately social creatures, with many in-built evolutionary mechanisms that enable and encourage us to work together and which is why we should always treat everyone with kindness and compassion - no matter how difficult they may be. When Marcus would experience a shameless or a difficult person, he’d ask himself: “Is a world without shamelessness possible?

No. Then don’t ask the impossible. There have to be shameless people in the world.

This is one of them. ” We all know that meeting problematic people is unavoidable in our lives however Marcus would advise us not to see the actions of these difficult and abrasive people as directly targeting you. Instead, we should attribute their ill-behaviour to ignorance; they behave poorly because they lack the knowledge that you possess.

When someone says or does something that is ‘wrong’ in your eyes. The judgment of being “wrong” is based on the knowledge that you have. If a person doesn’t have the same information or wisdom as you, it is unlikely that they’ll come to the same conclusions regarding what is right and wrong.

For example, if someone is making fun of your weight and is continuously calling you fat, it may be because they might not think body shaming is a bad thing and instead feel that it’s just motivational and that they’re actually just being helpful. You get upset because you think it's unkind, and this affects your confidence, and potentially makes things worse, while they may have no idea how it actually affects you. More importantly just like everyone else, we can also be ignorant.

Think about it — how often do you act or speak with the purposes of upsetting or hurting someone else? How many times have you actively pursued the baiting or taunting of another? With that in mind, you will realise that no matter how irritating or troublesome someone is being — that is usually not their intention.

So, when you engage with family, friends, colleagues, and strangers, treat them with kindness. Remind yourself of our common humanity and that you don’t know what the other person is going through which is why you should always strive to be present and compassionate in your social interactions. This will elevate your relationships and deepen your appreciation for others.

On the rare occasions where hurting you is their intention, you can always choose to return to the concept of controlling our own thoughts and actions. If you find someone gunning for your spirit — you can choose to let that pass over you by sticking to your own morals and values. 4.

Take action To quote Marcus Aurelius “Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one. ” According to Aurelius, it isn’t what we say that defines our character, it’s what we do.

People are way more affected by your actions than your words. What you do speaks so loudly that they can’t hear what you say. So, if you want to influence others, you should show them rather than tell them.

There is a tendency for us all to find and dissect the faults of others after a few less than pleasant interactions. How often do we hear ourselves complaining about the co-worker, about our spouse or a friend and about our toxic relationship with them, but don’t actually do something about it. We wait for the other person to take the initiative.

We need to understand that the issues we face in our relationships will only get worse with stagnation. We need to take action and address the issue immediately. Start by asking yourself what you're doing that might be setting off the other person.

Ask if your ego is coming into play and causing you not to take any action or have any confrontation. Instead of talking about each other, you need to talk to each other. If you want yourself and others around you to be better, don’t go on telling others how to act.

Instead, cultivate the virtues yourself — and express them through your conduct. When you do that, you’ll inspire others. You’ll inspire those around you to be better, too.

And in the process, you’ll make life for yourself and for everyone around you a little bit better. 5. Overcome envy Marcus Aurelius teaches us “If you envy what you don’t have: You’ll never be free — free, independent, imperturbable.

Because you’ll always be envious and jealous, afraid that people might come and take it all away from you” According to Stoicism, there are four passions that contribute to our misery – distress, fear, lust and delight. Envy and jealousy is a form of distress that consumes us and makes us irrational. The blinding passion of envy - wanting something that someone else has or feeling rebuffed by someone else’s success can cause us great pain and distress.

According to Marcus Aurelius, we find happiness within ourselves — not in achieving things that others have. Only we are responsible for fulfilling our lives; by envying what others have or how successful they are, we are putting our happiness in the hands of others, which is misguided and pointless. We waste enormous chunks of our day scrolling through social media looking at the self-selected photos of our friends and being miserable over the fact that they are doing well and how badly we deserve the kind of life everyone else seems to be living.

Envy is a complex cluster of feelings that we experience in response to another person who has success, skills, or qualities that we desire. When envy is activated within any relationship, the relationship can experience significant tension and conflict. According to the Stoics, all the blessings in your life are on loan from Fortune, all of which must be returned sooner or later.

So, while some people may seem to have the success, relationship or fame you covet right now, they could lose everything tomorrow. You have no idea what plans Fortune has in store for them. .

And the more they have, the more they risk losing. Money, fame, and power are impermanent and outside of your control. So, instead of comparing your situation with others, compare yourself with who you were yesterday.

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