Marcus Aurelius on getting out of bed

“If we design workplaces that permit people to find meaning in their work, we will be designing a human nature that values work”
– psychologist Barry Schwartz

“Given the smallest excuse, one will not work at all”
– John Steinbeck 

Marcus Aurelius wrote in his Meditations:

At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?” 

So you were born to feel “nice”? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands?

You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you.

When they’re really possessed by what they do, they’d rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts.

Is helping others less valuable to you? Not worth your effort?

And in another Meditation:

When you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, remember that your defining characteristic— what defines a human being — is to work with others. Even animals know how to sleep. And it’s the characteristic activity that’s the more natural one — more innate and more satisfying. 

I still can’t decide how I feel about Marcus Aurelius. On one hand, all his moralizing and motivation amount to an exercise of willpower — the belief that if you just want enough, exercise enough white-knuckled self-denial, gut it out — then you’ll arrive at virtue. And both psychology and spiritual direction call that repression, a sure ticket to self-loathing and despair. The first seven chapters of Romans lay out the consequences of attempting to Just Say No to sin and get better by working harder.

But on the other hand, for the person whose trust for righteousness is in the grace and participation of the Holy Spirit, some of these stoic counsels of self-persuasion seem worth chewing on. And that’s what a meditation is, so, mission accomplished, Marcus Aurelius.