Ryan Holiday

But then when we come across a passage in book six, it begins to make more sense.

When you need encouragement, he writes, think of all the qualities of the people around you.

This one's energy, this one's modesty, another's generosity, and so on.

Nothing is as encouraging as when the virtues are visibly embodied in the people around us.

when we're practically showered with them.

It is good, he says, to keep this in mind.

Marcus Aurelius was writing to encourage himself during trying times.

He was doing so by thinking about the people he admired and who had inspired him.

He was showering himself in their virtue so that he might be improved by their association.

And as far as we can tell, it worked because he was a good man despite facing incredible temptations and pressures.

And this example is, of course, rather timely.

We should not just be reading meditations, but engaging in it, reflecting on it, journaling on it, using it to become a better person.

We've been doing Meditations Month here, and we've been doing a deep dive on how to read meditations.

We built out this sort of annotated guide, book club, exploration, explanation of meditations.

It's a bunch of modules, videos, podcasts,

discussions with me on how to get the most out of this book, how to use it in this moment.

And we're going to be doing a Q&A as part of it.

We'd love to have you join us.

If you grab the guide, you'll get access to this live Q&A with me.

We're going to be doing this deep dive into meditations and reflecting on what it means to be a Stoic today.