THE STOIC MORNING MORN ING RITUAL RITUAL BEFORE MEETING T H E D AY
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Ask yourself the following rst thing in the morning: -What am I lacking in attaining freedom
from passion? -What for tranquility? -What am I? A mere body, estate-holder, or reputation? None of these things. -What, then? A rational being. -What then is demanded of me? Meditate on your actions.
-How did I steer away from serenity? -What did I do that was unfriendly,
unsocial, or uncaring? -What did I fail to do in all these things? —Epictetus, Discourses, 4.6.34-35
Most successful people have a morning ritual. For some, it’s meditation. For others, it’s exercise. For many, it’s morning journaling—just a few pages where they write down their thoughts, fears, hopes. In these cases, the point is not so much the activity itself as it is the ritualization of reection. The idea of taking some time to look inward and examine. WWW.DAILYSTOIC.COM
The Stoics were actually pioneers of the morning ritual.
Epictetus urged his students to start each day by asking themselves these difcult questions. He wanted them to be conscious of their choices and their philosophy throughout the day. Marcus Aurelius had a different, albeit more controversial ritual.
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When you rst rise in the morning tell yourself: I will encounter busybodies, ingrates, egomaniacs, liars, envy-mongers, and cranks. They
are all stricken with these afictions because they don’t know the difference between good and evil. Because I have understood the beauty of good and the ugliness of evil, I know that these wrong-doers are still akin to me...and that none can do me harm, or implicate me in ugliness--nor can I be angry at my relatives or hate them. For we are made for cooperation. —Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 2.1 THE DAILY STOIC
Before you write that off as a depressing thought, ask yourself: Would you rather be pleasantly surprised during the course of the day or unexpectedly disappointed? You can be certain as clockwork that you’re going to interact with someone who seems like they’re being a jerk (as we all have been ourselves in the past). The question is: Are you going
to be ready for it?
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This morning exercise calls to mind a joke from the writer Nicolas Chamfort, who remarked that if you “swallow a toad every morning” you’ll be fortied against anything else disgusting that might happen in the course of the rest of the day. Might it not be better to understand up front that other people often behave in selsh or ignorant ways (the
toad) right when you wake up, than it is to dribble it out through the day? Professor Massimo Pigliucci does a similar exercise. As he told us, each morning he does “a premeditatio malorum (I suggest people don’t start with the latter, and don’t do it often, as it can be disturbing) as the Stoics called them
(indifferent to one’s virtue and moral character), so that one is better prepared if and when they actually happen (this is similar to techniques used in cognitive behavioral therapy
to deal with one’s fear, techniques that were, in fact, directly inspired by Stoicism).”
But there is a second part to this, just as there is a second half of Marcus’ quote:
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No one can implicate me in ugliness—nor
can I be angry at my relative or hate him. THE DAILY STOIC
The point of the preparation is not write everyone off in advance. It’s that, maybe, because you’ve prepared for it, you’ll
be able to act with patience, forgiveness and understanding. The larger lesson to take from both of these approaches is to realize that Stoicism is a practice, not simply words in a
book. This is something one does, not knows. Every morning. Every day. Let philosophy and hard work guide you to better answers, one morning at a time—over the course of a life.
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