Marcus Aurelius helped me survive grief and rebuild my life | Aeon Ideas

I was suddenly widowed, with two small children. But Marcus Aurelius taught me that good fortune is what I make for myself

Marcus Aurelius in the Capitoline Museum, Rome. Photo by Antonello Nusca/Gamma-Rapho/Getty ‘When I was a child, when I was an adolescent, books saved me from despair: that convinced me that culture was the highest of values.’ From The Woman Destroyed (1967) by Simone de Beauvoir It’s a common misconception that to be a Stoic is to be in possession of a stiff upper lip, to be free from the tumultuous waves of one’s emotions. But what this interpretation of Stoicism gets wrong is that our emotions, even the most painful ones, need not be our enemies if we can learn to think of them as our…

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