Morning Preparation
Begin each day with philosophical reflection: anticipate challenges, recommit to virtue, and set clear intentions.
Epictetus recommended beginning each day with philosophical preparation: review what tasks lie ahead, anticipate potential challenges to virtue, and determine in advance how to respond with reason. Marcus Aurelius's Meditations likely began as such morning preparations, thinking through the challenges of imperial life.
When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly.
Morning preparation in Stoicism is not pessimism but realistic anticipation that prevents shock and enables virtuous response.
Meditations
Written about in
- What Stoicism says about being wronged
Marcus's first move is to expect it: he names the meddling and the arrogant before leaving his room, so that meeting one is not news. Being wronged hurts extra when it is a surprise, and this practice removes the surprise, not the wrong.