Meditations by Marcus Aurelius | Book Summary and PDF

In the Marcus Aurelius Meditations PDF summary you will learn:

  • How to avoid procrastination
  • Staying calm under pressure
  • The power of perception
  • Valuing your own opinion over others’ opinions
  • 4 specific keys to handling obstacles

The following are fundamental ideas from the great Roman emperor and a stoic himself based on important quotes from the book.

1) Stop Procrastinating

person hiding in bed covers

“Instead of being a good person today, you choose to become one tomorrow.”

You may have good intentions in life (examples: eating healthy, working out every day, or working on your business), but you tell yourself to do them tomorrow or sometime in the future. You probably also want to  spend time with your loved ones, but only after you’ve made a lot of money.

Letting go such things a little bit today is the underlying current for most people’s lives. We’re procrastinating on what is important because we think that somehow tomorrow we will be a better person.

To think that we will be able to control ourselves more tomorrow is an insidious notion. Tomorrow will only be worse if we continue down this path because we’re adding today’s burden to it.

In the book Compound Effect, author Darren Hardy talks about the idea that it’s the small daily disciplines adding up over time that give us great results. In the same manner, the small daily disciplines of putting off the right things lead us to the wrong results.

That small lapse of judgment where you tell yourself to do things tomorrow will take you forever to accomplish that goal. You will keep on delaying it.

In the book Spartan Up!, Joe De Sena mentions the idea of “taking the cookie later.”

“In Spartan world, gratification must be delayed in order to get success.”

Do the right thing today by not delaying to be a good person today. Constantly delay the small gratification from not doing what’s right, whether it’s working out or eating clean, among others.

“Take the cookie later” and then tomorrow tell yourself you’ll be a good person. That’s how you overcome procrastination.

2) Handling Emotions

woman meditating

“A real man doesn’t give way to anger and discontent and such a person has strength, courage, and endurance unlike the angry and the complaining. The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength.”

Our mental toughness is directly related to how unperturbed we can be under different situations. Marcus Aurelius figured out 2,000 years ago that our ability to handle our emotions is one of the most important indicators of success. This is something that even modern research goes back to.

The book Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman reveals that emotional intelligence (EQ) is more important than intelligence quotient (IQ) in terms of predicting success. One of the most powerful ways to manage our emotions is mindfulness training or meditation.

The book Titan by Ron Chernow is a biography of one of the greatest and richest entrepreneurs in the world, John D. Rockefeller. It says that the more turbulent and challenging the times got, the steelier John D. Rockefeller became. The more calm he was.

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“You won’t let yourself be enslaved by this any longer, no longer pulled like a puppet by every impulse, and you’ll stop complaining about your present fortune or dreading the future.”

Being able to control impulses is critical to success in life. Without this ability, you won’t be able to manage your time and therefore you cannot discipline yourself. You cannot follow through and commit.

Stop complaining about your present fortune or dreading the future. Instead, be in the moment and identify what you can do and cannot do. Tell yourself to only care about the things that you can control and act upon.

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“How much more harmful are the consequences of anger and grief than the circumstances that arouse them in us?”

This is true when circumstances are long gone and yet you’re still seething or upset about them. You are giving emotional power to these circumstances. But they don’t hold any power over you anymore. Thinking about them after they are gone can cause a lot of problems.

The book The Upside of Stress by Dr. Kelly McGonigal describes how stress can be both bad and good for you depending on how you think about the situation. The circumstance might not deserve the kind of emotion you’re willing to give to it.

3) The Power of Perception

a happy woman during a snowfall

“When you are distressed by an external thing, it’s not the thing itself that troubles you but only your judgment of it and you can wipe this out at a moment’s notice.”

It’s not the external circumstance that is troubling you but your perception about it.

How you perceive a situation is actually how the situation feels to you and how you end up taking or not taking action. So when you are distressed or angry, realize that it is not coming from the situation but from your judgment of it.

We have a book summary on Feeling Good by Dr. David Burns, which says that the fundamental understanding of cognitive behavioral therapy is that our negative emotions are challenging emotions that usually result from our flawed thinking or judgment about a situation. We perceive the situation in a certain way and then we create certain emotions around it.

Cognitive behavior therapy lets us go deep inside our thinking to examine how are we perceiving the situation and how we can change the thought if it is harmful to us. Once we become aware of these perceptions, we can change them and get power over them.

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“ He was sent to prison, but the observation he has suffered evil is an addition coming from you.”

Here, someone was sent to prison, but the judgement that he suffered evil and went through bad times was only added by us. At times, we think it logically makes sense.

When I was laid off from a job, everyone around me was worried on how I would be able to handle the situation. The general judgment was that I was in a sad situation. But what happened was that I moved to California, got a much higher-paying job, and my life was completely transformed.

Looking back, it was one of the best things that happened to me. After that, I got laid off a couple more times. But I got excited every time. I saw it as an opportunity to get better. Not only was I going to handle the situation but I knew that I’d make more money and get a better position.

It was not the way most people who got laid off perceived it. They thought of it as the worst thing that had happened to them. They moped and were distressed about it. But in our perception and judgment lies our strength.

Getting laid off was a painful thing one time. The second time I felt I could handle it. The third time it was no big deal. The situations were not any different, but the way I perceived and handled each was very different from probably 99% of the society in their view of layoff.

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“Those obsessed with glory attach their well-being to the regard of others. Those who love pleasure tie it to feelings. But the one with true understanding seeks it only in their own actions. Think on the character of the people one wishes to please, the possessions one means to gain, and the tactics one employs to such ends. How quickly time erases such things, and how many will yet be wiped away.”

At times we’re running after glory and pleasure, things that will have no consequence at the end. However, we don’t know and care about other people to try to win their opinion. It feels glorious that others love us, but we don’t know some of those people so we must not be attached to their opinions.

Marcus Aurelius tells us that we instead need to focus on our own thoughts, attitude, and action because that is the most powerful way to move our life forward.

Let’s always be very clear about our perception or judgment of our life goals so we can go after things that truly matter.

4) Others’ Opinion vs. Your Own

balloons with smileys and sad faces

“I’m constantly amazed by how easily we love ourselves above all others. Yet we put more stock in the opinion of others than in our own estimation of self, how much credence we give to the opinions our peers have of us, and how little to our very own.”

We love ourselves a lot that we don’t care about other people as much as we care about ourselves.

When it comes to opinion, we don’t listen to our own and we fail to hold ourselves in high esteem. We instead put more stock and credence on the opinion of others than in our own estimation of self. That’s when we give away our power.

We need to invert this. We need to care less about other people’s opinion about us and instead just care more about them as people. That is one of the most powerful ways to never give away our power to others.

Care more about other people, but care less about their opinion towards you.

5) 4 Keys to Handling Obstacles

“While it’s true that someone or something can impede our actions, they can’t impede our intentions and our attitudes which have the power of being conditional and adaptable. For the mind adapts and convert any obstacle to its action into a means of achieving it. That which is an impediment to action is turned to advanced action. The obstacle on the path becomes the way.”

Our thoughts and intentions are always adaptable. They can go beyond any current obstacle even though that obstacle can impede our actions.

If you have a goal and there are obstacles on the way, the mind will actually adapt and convert that obstacle into a way of getting to that goal. The obstacle becomes the path forward.

Sometimes we are faced with emotional challenges and we cannot think clearly, therefore we don’t make any progress. But the obstacle is actually the way forward. Obstacles therefore are a good thing.

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“Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not ‘This is a misfortune’ but ‘To bear this worthily is good fortune.’”

When you are faced with a challenge, don’t tell yourself that it is a misfortune. Instead tell yourself that it is worth bearing because something good will come out of it.

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“You shouldn’t give circumstances the power to rouse anger for they don’t care at all.”

The circumstances don’t care if you get angry or sad or just emotional. It’s always up to you. Your emotions are within your control.

Your perception, not the circumstance itself, is creating those emotions. Anytime you‘re getting negative emotions, you’re giving power to your circumstances, which should not be the case.

1st Key: Thoughts

Your thoughts, attitudes, and intentions cannot be impeded because these things are within your control every single moment.

2nd Key: Emotions

Your emotions are within your control. The obstacle does not own your emotions. You cannot give your negative emotions (anger, sadness, etc.) in response to the obstacle.

3rd Key: Obstacles

The mind will convert an obstacle into a means to achieving your goal. The obstacle is something you should be excited about because then you know it is the path forward.

4th Key: Actions

The impediment to action advances action. So anytime your action is impeded, the impediment itself will advance your action. Do not just give up because your action might be better in that moment.

These are the 4 keys to handling obstacles. Remember, your thoughts, emotions, actions, and the obstacle are all in this realm of handling the obstacle.

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