Our life is what our thoughts make it.

— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Written by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, without any intention of publication but only as a kind of personal diary, Meditations presents a lot of ideas that remain relevant to people of any era.

Faced with the challenges of ruling the Roman Empire, Aurelius wrote to reflect not only on leadership, but on life, death, virtue, and how one should live. Today, his notes have become one of the most iconic works in Stoic philosophy.

Doing things with intention

One idea mentioned in Meditations is the importance of doing things with intention. As we go about our lives, we tend to do things on autopilot — not giving much thought to what we’re doing at the moment. This happens so naturally that an entire day can just go by without us realizing it.

Aurelius often reflects on how every moment should be lived deliberately, with purpose. If we’re going to go ahead and do something, let it be because we’ve chosen to — not just for the sake of doing it.

Perspective on Life

The biggest takeaway I have gotten from reading the book is realizing just how small we are in the grand scheme of things. Our lives are just one among billions of human beings who have ever lived on Earth. It is only a brief moment that we have in this world before our own time ends and the universe continues to live on.

We spend so much time of our lives complaining or getting angry over trivial things that it feels ridiculous in hindsight. Especially online, so much content exists solely to provoke outrage — and we let it ruin our day without a second thought.

To end, Meditations was a meaningful but also fun read and I highly recommend it to anyone who wishes to take a step back and just ponder about life.