Stoic affirmations
Stoic morning affirmations, in the Stoics’ own words
The Stoics left no morning affirmations, but Marcus Aurelius wrote two morning exercises: in book II he tells himself he will meet the busybody and the ungrateful, and in book V he rises, unwillingly, to the work of a human being. Seneca adds that each day should be ordered as if it closed the series, so that a man who can await the morrow without apprehension is secure in his own possession of himself.
In the texts
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations, II, 1
Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil.
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations, V, 1
In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present,--I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for which I was brought into the world?
Seneca · Letter 12, §8
Hence, every day ought to be regulated as if it closed the series, as if it rounded out and completed our existence.
Seneca · Letter 12, §9
That man is happiest, and is secure in his own possession of himself, who can await the morrow without apprehension.
Book II of the Meditations, in George Long’s 1862 translation, opens on a morning. Marcus Aurelius tells himself that he will meet the busybody, the ungrateful, the arrogant, the deceitful, the envious and the unsocial, and that all of them act from ignorance of what is good and evil. The passage does not predict a good day. It describes the day as it is likely to be, then draws the consequence: no one can fix on him what is ugly, and he cannot be angry with a kinsman, since men are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids (Sympatheia). The whole book has its page: Book II.
Book V begins at the same hour, seen from the bed. When he rises unwillingly, Marcus keeps one thought present: he is rising to the work of a human being. The objection follows in his own voice, that lying in the bed-clothes is more pleasant, and he answers it with the plants, the little birds, the ants, the spiders and the bees, each putting its part of the universe in order. Nature has fixed bounds to rest, he concedes, and he goes beyond them. His diagnosis is blunt: he does not love himself, for if he did, he would love his own nature and her will (Living according to nature). See Book V.
Seneca gives the morning another weight in his twelfth letter, in Gummere’s 1917 translation. Every day ought to be regulated as if it closed the series and completed our existence. The man who can await the morrow without apprehension is, in his words, happiest and secure in his own possession of himself (Memento mori). The letter is on Letter 12.
Read together, the passages are less a morning routine than a morning judgment: what the day will probably bring, what a human being is for, and what it would mean if this day were the last.
Why this is not a positive affirmation
A morning affirmation usually has the reader say that the day will go well. Marcus Aurelius writes the opposite: he expects to meet ungrateful and deceitful people, and he prepares a judgment about them rather than a mood. None of the passages above promises anything about the day; they state what the day may contain and what follows if one reasons correctly about it.
Seneca’s letter works the same way. Ordering each day as if it closed the series is not a pleasant sentence to repeat; it is a reckoning with time, and the security it describes comes from having lived the day, not from saying that one has.
Terms in the glossary
- Sympatheia — συμπάθεια (sympatheia)
- Living according to nature — ὁμολογουμένως τῇ φύσει ζῆν (homologoumenōs tēi physei zēn) / secundum naturam vivere (latin)
- Memento mori — memento mori (latin)
In Stoïque, the life theme “Habit” opens the passages on this subject, each with its reference. The theme is part of Stoic+.