Reading Meditations, you might get the impression Marcus Aurelius didn't particularly like people. He writes about how they frustrate, annoy, and disappoint us. How they fall short. How they fail us. Even how they stab us in the back. Not just sometimes but often. In the morning Marcus says in the opening passage of Book II of Meditations, remind yourself that "the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly."
One suspects if given the opportunity, he could have added a few more epithets to the list…
Yet, it is wrong to think that Marcus Aurelius did not like people. For all the negative assumptions, he adds that we can't let bad or obnoxious people drag us down, we shouldn't let them 'implicate us in ugliness.' It shouldn't surprise us that they are the way they are, and we should take the time to put ourselves in their shoes, to understand and sympathize with why people are acting this way.
Even Marcus's idea that "the obstacle is the way" isn't about accomplishing grand, heroic feats as we might imagine. Rather, he was talking about dealing with difficult people and how each challenging interaction with someone—especially a jerk—is an opportunity to practice virtue. It's easy to connect with those similar to us. But developing empathy for those we don't naturally understand—caring about them and acting in ways that benefit both parties—requires hard work…and real virtue.
Not just one virtue, but each of the Stoic Virtues. Empathy demands courage—it's scary talking to someone who scares you, who thinks differently than you, who doesn't look or sound like you. It requires discipline to keep your emotions in check—especially in a hostile interaction—and justice to genuinely care about others' interests alongside your own. Finally, it takes wisdom to learn from everyone you meet and transform what you learn into an understanding about life. As Zeno taught, these virtues—and opportunities—are simultaneously "inseparable but yet distinct and different from one another."
This is why, over the past five years, we've explored each of these virtues through the Stoic Virtues series, demonstrating how to apply these ancient ideals in our modern world—and the benefits they bring to your life and others.
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