Marcus Aurelius Was Terrible at Stoicism

About this episode

This episode explores the struggles of Marcus Aurelius with Stoicism, highlighting his personal failures and self-reflections.

Marcus Aurelius is the most quoted philosopher on the internet, and his private journal shows a man who kept failing at the thing he's famous for. He struggled to get out of bed. He needed ten separate strategies to manage his temper. Near the end of his life he wrote, to himself, that he was "far from philosophy." In this episode I read the passages most Stoicism channels skip. The two getting-out-of-bed debates, four books apart. The brutal self-talk about caring what people think. The proc...

People in this episode

Host: Jon Brooks

Topics covered

• Stoicism
• philosophy
• self-improvement
• mental health
• historical analysis

Keywords

• Marcus Aurelius
• Stoicism
• philosophy
• self-talk
• mental struggles

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