Meditations

2026-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

Marcus Aurelius ruled the most powerful empire on earth. Emperor of Rome. And every night he sat down and wrote notes to himself about how to be a better person. He never meant for anyone to read them. That’s exactly what makes the book so good. It’s not advice for you. It’s a man arguing with himself.

There’s no system here. No chapters, no plan. Just fragments, written across years in army camps and palaces. You can open it anywhere and find something useful. Less like a philosophy book. More like a notebook that survived 1,800 years by accident.

I came to this one as an audiobook, in Spanish, a few sections at a time. It’s the rare book that works better in fragments than in one sitting. A few minutes a day, one idea to sit with, then back to it tomorrow.

Control What You Can, Ignore the Rest #

This is the core of the whole book. Some things are up to you: your judgments, your effort, your reactions. Most things are not: other people, your reputation, the past, the outcome. Confuse the two and you suffer.

“External things are not the problem. It’s your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now.”

Marcus ran wars, plagues, and people who turned on him. He couldn’t control any of it. What he could control was how he met it. That’s not a comforting idea. It’s a demanding one. It puts the work back on you.

The Obstacle Is the Way #

Most people treat problems as interruptions to the good life. Marcus treats them as the material of it. The thing blocking your path becomes the path.

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”

A difficult colleague teaches patience. A setback teaches you to keep going. You don’t need easier circumstances. You need to use the ones you have. Every obstacle is practice for the virtue it demands.

Remember You Will Die #

Marcus comes back to death constantly. Not out of fear. As a tool. Knowing you’ll die soon makes it obvious which things matter and which don’t.

“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”

Old anger, status games, needing to be right: all of it shrinks when you remember the clock. Death isn’t the enemy of a good life here. It’s the editor. It cuts the noise.

Other People Are the Test #

Marcus dealt with liars, fakes, and fools every single day. His response wasn’t to withdraw. It was to expect it, and to keep doing his work anyway.

“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly.”

They act badly out of ignorance, not malice. You were made to work with them, like two hands or two rows of teeth. Getting angry at people for being people is wasted energy.

The Present Is the Only Thing You Own #

The past is gone. The future hasn’t arrived. The only moment you can act in is this one. Marcus keeps pulling himself back to it.

“Give yourself a gift: the present moment.”

You can’t lose what you don’t have, and you only ever have now. Worrying about the future and regretting the past both steal from the single thing that’s actually yours. Do the next right thing, here, today.

Key Takeaways #

Separate what you control from what you don’t. Your judgments are yours. The outcome isn’t.
Problems are the material, not the interruption. What blocks the way becomes the way.
Death clarifies. Remembering it cuts the noise and shows what matters.
People will be difficult. Do your work anyway. Don’t become what annoys you.
Only the present is yours. The past and future are borrowed worry.

Two thousand years later, none of it feels dated. The empire is gone. The problems are identical. That’s the strange comfort of this book: a man with absolute power discovered the same thing the rest of us do. The only thing you ever really run is yourself.

The Art of Being Happy

2026-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Schopenhauer is probably the most famous pessimist in philosophy. He believed suffering is the default state of existence and that desire only leads to more desire. So a book about happiness from this guy? Sounds like a contradiction. It’s not. It’s actually one of the most practical things he ever wrote.

These 50 rules were never published during his lifetime. They were put together from his manuscripts and notes after he died. Less like a lecture. More like honest advice.

Avoid Envy, Cultivate Gratitude #

Schopenhauer’s point is blunt: happiness depends more on what you avoid than on what you chase. Envy, comparison, and excessive ambition cause more pain than anything they promise to deliver.

“We seldom think of what we have, but always of what we lack.”

His advice? Focus on what you already have instead of obsessing over what others have. Sounds obvious, right? But Schopenhauer says most people do the exact opposite. Instinctively. And it makes them miserable.

Your Inner World Matters Most #

For Schopenhauer, what’s inside you matters way more than what’s around you. Money, status, reputation: all fragile. Your temperament? That stays with you.

He breaks the sources of happiness into three buckets:

What you are: health, character, intellect.
What you have: property, possessions.
What you represent: reputation, status.

The first bucket dominates the other two. A rich person with a bad temperament will still be miserable. A healthy person with a clear mind can be happy with very little.

Want Less, Suffer Less #

Here Schopenhauer sounds a lot like the Stoics and the Buddhists. The engine of dissatisfaction? Desire. The trick isn’t getting everything you want. It’s wanting less.

“Wealth is like sea-water: the more we drink, the thirstier we become.”

This isn’t asceticism for its own sake. It’s a practical strategy: reduce the surface area for disappointment. The less you need, the less that can go wrong.

Stop Living in the Future #

A recurring theme: the danger of living entirely for tomorrow. Planning and hoping pull you out of the present, which is the only place where happiness can actually be experienced.

Many people reach old age and realize they spent their whole lives preparing to live rather than actually living. Schopenhauer saw this happening all around him in the 19th century. It’s only gotten worse.

Key Takeaways #

Happiness is about subtraction, not addition. Reduce envy, excessive ambition, and dependency on others.
Your inner life wins. Health, character, and temperament determine happiness far more than money or status.
Desire multiplies itself. Wanting less is a more reliable path to contentment than getting more.
The present is all you have. Living for the future is a form of self-deception.
Solitude is a strength. Not everyone deserves your time and energy.

A short, sharp book. Schopenhauer’s pessimism doesn’t make him joyless. It makes him realistic. And from that realism comes advice you can actually use.

Chemaclass - self-improvement

Meditations

Control What You Can, Ignore the Rest #

The Obstacle Is the Way #

Remember You Will Die #

Other People Are the Test #

The Present Is the Only Thing You Own #

Key Takeaways #

The Art of Being Happy

Avoid Envy, Cultivate Gratitude #

Your Inner World Matters Most #

Want Less, Suffer Less #

Stop Living in the Future #

Key Takeaways #