Tag Archives: Marcus Aurelius

Not Unmanly to Cry – Daily Stoic

2 Replies

Ryan Holiday of Daily Stoic has a great new book that just came out: RIGHT THING, RIGHT NOW. He also continues to share his Daily Stoic message free to all. Today’s message can be found here: dailystoic.com/are-you-allowed-to-cry/

Yes, it’s not unmanly to cry. Here’s Holiday’s pearl of wisdom of today:

“A Stoic is invulnerable. A Stoic is tough. A Stoic is emotionless. A Stoic doesn’t—can’t—cry, right? Well, Marcus Aurelius sure seemed to think otherwise.​

Here we have him weeping over the death of a beloved tutor (let the boy be human, Antoninus said when someone tried to stop him). Here we have him breaking down at the thought of becoming emperor. Here we have him crying over the loss of so many during the plague. Here we have him tearing up at the assassinated body of his rival, Avidius Cassius, mourning the murdered opportunity to grant the man clemency.

The point is: Marcus Aurelius didn’t see any contradiction with these shows of emotion. He didn’t think it was unmanly to be sad or to mourn. In fact, the only time we do have Marcus talking about an emotion not being “manly” is in reference to losing your temper. (We have a great Daily Stoic course on “taming your temper,” by the way).

Besides that, the Stoics would say it’s OK to let it out sometimes. Don’t feel bad if that’s what you need. Life can be a bit of a pressure cooker at times, and like an actual pressure cooker, you’ve got to hit the release valve every so often so that the whole thing doesn’t explode in your face. You’re only human. So be human—not just once, but all the time—and let yourself feel.”

I Am Imperfect – Daily Stoic

Leave a reply

Below is another wise reminder from Ryan Holiday who quotes Gandhi, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius on how best to handle critiscim: own our imperfection.

Check out Holiday’s posts and other great offerings at https://dailystoic.com/how-to-not-be-afraid-of-criticism/ and dailystoic.com

How To Not Be Afraid of Criticism

Daily Stoic Emails

No one likes to be found at fault. In fact, this is what many of us walk around fearing–that we’ll be exposed as imposters, we’ll be put on the spot in front of people, we’ll have to admit error. This makes us defensive, it makes us play it safe, and in some cases, it even makes us dishonest.

It’s a cure, you could say, that’s worse than the disease.

Gandhi, once being interviewed by a reporter, dispensed with all that. “I am very imperfect,” he said. “Before you are gone you will have discovered a hundred of my faults and if you don’t, I will help you to see them.” Why would he do such a thing? Perhaps it was because he knew that as a leader, egotism and an outsized sense of one’s abilities was dangerous and destructive. Perhaps he was inoculating himself against the fear in advance–taking away the power of the reporter to control Gandhi’s fate by disclosing up front what might otherwise be investigated (or even misconstrued).

There is a line from Epictetus who, after being criticized, joked “Yes, and he doesn’t know the half of it, because he could have said more.” It’s not that Epictetus had a bunch of bodies buried somewhere, it was that he had also inoculated himself against criticism by being more aware of his flaws–and more concerned about addressing them–than even his enemies.

Why should we be afraid of criticism? As Marcus Aurelius writes, if that criticism is correct and we are in error then the person criticizing us has done us a favor by correcting it. If they are wrong, what do we care? More likely, if we are doing our job right, we should already be well aware of the issue that people are raising and already be fixing it. We should have no sense of ourselves as perfect or above critique. Nor should we be so fragile and vulnerable as to not be able to bear being disliked or disagreed with.