Modeling is typically followed by the “mental rehearsal” of behavior change: picturing yourself acting more like your role models or imagining yourself following their advice. This often takes several attempts. Think of it as trial-and-error learning. Imagine yourself coping with the challenges you expect to face and exhibiting the virtues you want to learn. You’ll probably find it more helpful to picture yourself improving in small increments rather than immediately mastering the whole situation. That’s known as the benefit of “coping imagery” over “mastery imagery.” Don’t try to run before you can walk by setting unrealistic goals. Just rehearse a few simple changes in your behavior to get started. Small changes can often have big consequences anyway.
When teaching people to employ Stoic practices, I’ve found it helpful to have a simple framework for daily Stoic practices. It involves a “learning cycle” with a beginning, middle, and end, which then repeats each day. In the morning you prepare for the day ahead; throughout the day you try to live consistently in accord with your values; and in the evening you review your progress and prepare to repeat the cycle again the next day. I’ll refer to the Stoic exercises used at the beginning and end of each day as the morning and evening meditations. Having a daily routine like this makes it much easier to be consistent in your practice.
This framework also fits in neatly with our discussion of modeling and mentoring. During your morning meditation, consider what tasks you have to complete and what challenges you must overcome. Ask yourself, “What would my role model do?” and try to imagine them dealing with the same situations you’re about to face. Mentally rehearse the virtues you want to exhibit. Throughout the day, try continually to be self-aware, as if a wise mentor or teacher is observing you. We call this “Stoic mindfulness” today, but the Stoics meant something similar by prosoche, or paying attention to yourself. Keep an eye on how you use your mind and body, particularly the value judgments you make in different situations, and watch out for subtle feelings of anger, fear, sadness, or unhealthy desires, as well as bad habits.
During your evening meditation, review how things actually went, perhaps going over the key events of the day two or three times in your mind’s eye. What would your imaginary mentors say? What advice might they give you about doing things differently next time? This is your opportunity to learn from experience and prepare for the morning, when you’ll plan your behavior and rehearse things again in an ongoing cycle of self-improvement. You might ask yourself, for example, “What would Marcus Aurelius say about how I fared today?”
The ancients did something similar. Galen said that his own daily routine involved contemplating a famous poem about philosophy called “The Golden Verses of Pythagoras.” Seneca and Epictetus mention it as well, and it may have influenced other Stoics. Galen recommends reading its verses twice, first silently and then aloud. He suggests that we call to mind each day the areas for improvement that our mentor has helped us identify. We should do this as frequently as possible but at the very least, he says, “at dawn, before we begin our daily tasks, and toward evening, before we are about to rest.”
Regarding the morning meditation, Galen says that as soon as you rise from bed and begin considering each of the tasks ahead, you should ask yourself two questions:
1. What would the consequences be if you acted as a slave to your passions?
2. How would your day differ if you acted more rationally, exhibiting wisdom and self-discipline?
Marcus discusses how to prepare for the day ahead at least four times in The Meditations. He mentions that the Pythagoreans used to contemplate the stars each morning, thinking of their consistency, purity, and nakedness as symbolic of man living with wisdom, virtue, and simplicity. He likewise tells himself on awakening that he is rising to fulfill his potential for wisdom and not just to be a puppet of bodily sensations, swayed by pleasant feelings or turned aside by discomfort. He tells himself to love his nature and his capacity for reason, and to do his best to live accordingly. As we’ll see later, he also gives himself very specific advice about how to deal with difficult people without becoming frustrated or resentful.26
This famous passage from “The Golden Verses,” which Epictetus quoted to his students, describes the evening meditation:
Allow not sleep to close your wearied eyes,
Until you have reckoned up each daytime deed:
“Where did I go wrong? What did I do? And what duty’s left undone?”
From first to last review your acts and then
Reprove yourself for wretched acts, but rejoice in those done well.27
You can ask yourself these three very simple questions:
1. What did you do badly? Did you allow yourself to be ruled by irrational fears or unhealthy desires? Did you act badly or allow yourself to indulge in irrational thoughts?
2. What did you do well? Did you make progress by acting wisely? Praise yourself and reinforce what you want to repeat.
3. What could you do differently? Did you omit any opportunities to exercise virtue or strength of character? How could you have handled things better?
As we’ve seen, young Stoics being observed or questioned by a trusted mentor became deeply mindful of their thoughts and actions. To some extent, knowing that you are going to cross-examine yourself at the end of the day can have a similar effect. It forces you to pay more attention to your conduct throughout the day. Marcus reminded himself of a pithy saying from Heraclitus: “We ought not to act and speak as if we were asleep.”28 We need to make an effort to awaken our self-awareness, in other words. Following this daily routine, in a sense, helps us to do that by acting like a mentor to ourselves.
This regimen will make you more aware of your thoughts, feelings, and actions. You can also foster self-awareness by questioning yourself regularly throughout the day in the way the Stoics describe. For example, Marcus frequently examines his own character and actions, perhaps posing the sort of questions a Stoic mentor might have asked. He asks himself, in different situations, “What use am I now making of my soul?”29 He probed his own mind, scrutinizing the fundamental values he was taking for granted. “Whose soul do I now have?” he would ask. “Am I behaving like a child, a tyrant, a sheep, a wolf, or am I fulfilling my true potential as a rational being? For what purpose am I currently using my mind? Am I being foolish? Am I alienated from other people? Am I letting myself be dragged off course by fear and desire? What passions are there right now in my mind?” You might also ask yourself, “How’s this actually working out?” Sometimes it’s necessary to interrupt the things you’re doing out of habit so that you can ask yourself whether they’re actually healthy or unhealthy for you in the long run.
The Stoics employed the Socratic method of questioning, the elenchus, which exposes contradictions in the beliefs of the person being questioned—a bit like the cross-examination of a witness in a court of law. They believed above all that the wise man is consistent in both his thoughts and actions. Foolish people, by contrast, vacillate, driven by contradictory passions, which flutter from one thing to another like butterflies. That’s why we often hear the Stoics praising the wise man for remaining “the same” no matter what he faces—even his facial expression and demeanor remain consistent come rain or shine. Marcus quite probably underwent this sort of questioning from Rusticus and his other Stoic tutors as part of the Stoic therapy. One of the main things it tends to highlight is any contradiction between the values we use to guide our own lives, or the things we desire, and the values we use to judge other people, or what we find praiseworthy and blameworthy. Therapists today would call this a “double standard.”