It was a terrible blow. It was the call you never wanted to get. It was an awful setback. It's been a painful few months…a dreadful few years.
This is life. It has always been thus.
Marcus Aurelius lost his father at age 3. His mother at age 34. He buried nine of his children. His reign was, as an ancient historian said, an unending series of troubles—floods and wars and plagues and betrayals.
How did he get out of bed in the morning? How did he stay hopeful? How did he stay good? How did he not fall to pieces? How did he work through the unimaginable?
He did it in the pages of what would become Meditations. He did it in conversations with Rusticus and Fronto and Sextus. Jarred, unavoidably by his circumstances, Marcus Aurelius tried to get back to the rhythm of philosophy as much as he could help it.
Was it easy? No. Was he superman? No. He wept—we know this. He wept at work. His health faltered. He sometimes felt like giving up. He questioned whether the gods were picking on him. He lost his temper.
But he did keep going. He did his best. He endured. Not perfectly, not without pain, but with resolve. That is the task before all of us. Like Marcus, we can choose to steady ourselves in wisdom, to seek refuge in philosophy, to lean on those who guide us. We will falter. We will doubt. We will grieve. But we will also rise—again and again—not because it's easy, but because it's the only way forward.
Through daily prompts and weekly themes, you'll learn to apply ancient Stoic wisdom to overcome modern challenges, process difficult emotions, and find strength and stability for the unpredictable year ahead.
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