I was in Vietnam the first time Stoicism truly hit me. Not in a grand, cinematic moment—just a humid evening in Da Nang, alone with a cold beer and a copy of Meditations so water-stained it looked like it had weathered a monsoon. I had read Aurelius before. But this time, this line cut through me: “You may depart from life at once; act and speak and think, therefore, as if you were on the point of death.”
I’d left a career in finance and a brief stint teaching behind, drifting from project to project, place to place, trying to figure out what it meant to live deliberately. That one sentence was the answer I hadn’t realized I was looking for. I didn’t need more time, money, or clarity. I needed to start living as if this mattered. As if I mattered. And Stoicism told me how: live with virtue.
The word “virtue” can sound dusty to modern ears, like it belongs in some ancient debate chamber or Latin exam. But to the Stoics—and eventually to me—it meant something deeply alive. Virtue wasn’t a pious checklist. It was a compass. Wisdom. Justice. Temperance. Courage. Not just ideals, but disciplines you practice moment by moment. They don’t make life easier. They make it worth it.
Wisdom is the cornerstone. Without it, the rest collapse. Not wisdom as in collecting facts or clever quotes, but a kind of moral clarity. “no man can live a happy life, or even a supportable life, without the study of wisdom,” Seneca said. Wisdom is the discipline of knowing what really matters.
That line has saved me from countless spirals—financial, emotional, existential. When I ran a business that flopped within eighteen months, I was tempted to spiral into blame and regret. But Stoicism reminded me to zoom in: What part of this did I control? What could I learn? What’s the next right action? Wisdom isn’t flashy. It’s just stubborn clarity. It’s the ability to stand in a storm and not lie to yourself about what the wind is and what is your own hand on the wheel.
But virtue doesn’t stop at introspection. Justice is the outward expression of it. “If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it,” Aurelius wrote. Justice, to the Stoics, wasn’t just about law or politics. It was a way of being with others. It meant treating every interaction—from checkout counters to friendships—as an opportunity to respect human dignity.
It’s hard to overstate how radical that is in an age of algorithmic outrage and weaponized sarcasm. I’ve felt the temptation. It’s easy to be clever online. Easy to be snide when someone cuts in front of you in traffic. Much harder to to be kind, “not sneering or hypocritical.” But that’s the practice. To resist the impulse for cheap wins, and instead build character through small acts of respect.
That line has helped me more times than I can count—in business negotiations, in breakups, even in arguments with close friends where the urge to “win” was nearly overwhelming. Justice, in those moments, meant resisting the easy jab and opting for truth spoken cleanly.
And then there’s temperance—perhaps, the least sexy of the four virtues, but arguably the most needed. The world doesn’t sell temperance. It sells indulgence, then guilt, then more indulgence. But Epictetus was clear: “No man is free who is not master of himself.” Freedom isn’t having whatever you want. It’s not being ruled by what you want.
I’ve tested this. I’ve lived months of excess—too much travel, too much hustle, too much seeking. And I’ve felt the hangover—not just physical, but spiritual. The sense that I’d drifted from who I was trying to become. Stoicism pulled me back to moderation, not as punishment but as clarity. “That which is too little for luxury, is abundantly enough for nature,” Seneca said. It’s such a small shift in perspective, but it changes everything. You start to live with a longer view. You savor more and consume less.
Courage, finally, is the glue. It binds the others in the real world, where ideas meet resistance. To show up when you’re depressed. To speak up when you know you’ll be unpopular. To love again after loss. Courage doesn’t always look like battle cries and broken barriers. Sometimes it looks like writing the thing no one asked for. Sometimes it’s just getting out of bed and keeping your word.
When I left behind a conventional career path, it wasn’t a romantic leap. It was terrifying. I doubted myself hourly. But that’s when this Aurelius quote rang true: “Do not becuase a thing is hard for you yourself to accomplish, imagine that it is humanly impossible: but if a thing is humanly possible and appropriate, consider it also to be within your own reach.” What Stoicism taught me is that courage isn’t the absence of fear. It’s the decision to act anyway, guided by virtue, not comfort.
All of this makes Stoicism sound like a philosophy of grit. And in many ways, it is. But it’s also one of joy. Not the manic joy of endless novelty, but the deeper joy of integrity. Of feeling, even briefly, that your thoughts, words, and actions are aligned. That you’re not pretending. That you’ve stopped outsourcing your peace to people who never promised you any.
Virtue, today, doesn’t mean being perfect. It means being deliberate. It means pausing before the impulse, choosing clarity over chaos, kindness over ego, truth over convenience. I didn’t become a better person overnight. But I did begin asking better questions. What am I here to do? What kind of person do I want to be when no one’s watching? What would Marcus do with this hour?
That’s what Stoicism gave me—and still gives me. A way to live in a noisy world without being shaped by its worst habits. A way to center myself not on outcomes, but on values. A way to navigate uncertainty not with fear, but with virtue.
And that’s enough.
What would Marcus Aurelius say?
Unsure what to do next in your career? Struggling to move on from a failed relationship? Searching for more meaning in life?
Marcus Aurelius can tell you how to face your challenges in a more Stoic way.
Simply ask your question, and Marcus Aurelius will answer.
