On this day 1,905 years ago, the boy who would be king was born.
And in honor of Marcus Aurelius' 1905th birthday today, Ryan Holiday is hosting an exclusive LIVE Q&A as part of our ALL-NEW How To Read Meditations guide!
The Q&A begins at 2 p.m. ET so make sure to grab the guide before then to receive your invite in time.
Marcus Aurelius's life teaches us how to live well. And because he lived well, his story also teaches us how to die well: with grace, with strength, with empathy, and with the comfort of knowing that he lived a good life as a good man. You may have read Meditations front to back dozens of times, but if you haven't studied his life, his last words, his example—you must.
In a recent video on theDaily Stoic YouTube channel, Ryan Holiday shares five lessons from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, beginning with stepping up to life’s challenges:
Every struggle we face, we have a choice: will we be blocked by obstacles or will we advance through and over them? We might not be emperors, but the world is constantly testing us. It asks: “Are you worthy?” “Can you get past the things that will inevitably fall in your way?” “Will you stand up and show us what you’re made of?”
In a recent episode of The Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan Holiday shares the speech he planned to give at the U.S. Naval Academy—before they banned it. Speaking on the Stoic virtue of wisdom, Ryan discusses Admiral Stockdale, Epictetus, and the importance of persevering when learning:
“Learning is not always fun. Mentors are not always nice. The course they set out for us is not always easy. But as Epictetus said, as Stockdale would have read, the philosopher’s lecture hall is a hospital. It’s painful. You shouldn’t walk out of it feeling good or pleasurable, but you should still be in pain because you weren’t well when you entered. The work, the rework, the changes, the remedies that philosophy applies to us, that our teacher subjects us to won’t always be fun. And it will take time to recover. But where we end up—that’s what matters.”
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