It is 10:40 on a Tuesday. Your manager changes the deadline in front of six people, in the tone of a man who thinks you should have known. Your neck gets hot. You say, "Sure." Then you spend three days arguing with him in the car, in the shower, and at 2 a.m.
Marcus Aurelius had days like that for twenty years, with higher stakes. He was emperor of Rome from 161 to 180 AD. He dealt with flatterers, schemers, slow officials and ungrateful allies. In 175, one of his own generals, Avidius Cassius, declared himself emperor. Marcus kept a private notebook through all of it. We call it the Meditations, and a good part of it is advice to himself on how to deal with other people.
Here is what he actually did.
Expect them before they show up
Book 2 opens with a morning routine. In George Long's old translation it reads: "Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial."
He was writing as a commander with a court full of people who wanted something from him. He wasn't complaining. He was checking the weather before he went out. He names the faults plainly, so he isn't naive. He just doesn't let them ambush him.
He goes on to give himself two reasons for patience. These people act this way because they are confused about what is good. And they are still part of the same human family, so he has no business hating them.
Here is what that looks like now. Much of the sting from a difficult person is surprise. You expected a reasonable adult, and you got something else. So you take it personally. If you have already told yourself at 7 a.m. that someone arrogant will turn up today, then at 10:40 he is just the forecast coming true. You will still be annoyed. You won't be blindsided.
It takes about thirty seconds, standing at the kettle or in the parking lot.
Find out where the hurt is happening
Marcus took a key idea from the Stoic teacher Epictetus. Roughly, it is that what upsets us is less the event than the judgment we make about it. Marcus applied that to people. Someone else's behavior is their business. The trouble starts with the story we tell about it.
He was not excusing anyone. He was asking where the injury is. As he saw it, roughly, the anger and grief we feel over an act usually cost us more than the act did.
Try the camera test:
- Write down what a camera would have recorded. "He changed the deadline, rudely, in front of six people."
- Write down everything you added in the ten seconds afterward. "He wants me to look incompetent. The team thinks less of me. I'm being walked over."
- Compare the two lists.
Most men find the second list is much longer. One man we know did this on the train. At the bottom of his list he found a line he hadn't known was in there: "my father would never have put up with this." Howard, the manager, had changed a deadline. The rest was old business.
That is not a reason to ignore what people do. It tells you which part is yours to fix. Marcus also wrote a list of nine things to remember when someone offends you. One of them is to picture the person at home, with their own pressures and fears. It is hard to stay furious at someone you can picture eating cereal alone at midnight.
Teach them, or put up with them
When the person is in front of you, Marcus gave himself a short rule. In Long's translation, Book 8, section 59: "Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then or bear with them."
In his world, that came from a Stoic belief that people are built to cooperate, like hands and feet. You don't have to share that belief to use the rule. It leaves you two useful moves:
- Teach. If there is a real chance they will hear you, say the thing calmly and without contempt. "The delay was on the supplier's side, and I have the emails. Can we correct it with the client?"
- Bear. If they won't hear it, because they are defensive, drunk, or on the fifth round, let it go and get back to your own work. Do it on purpose, not through gritted teeth.
What doesn't help is the third thing most of us do, which is neither. We don't speak, and we don't let it go. We carry it home and stew.
This is not a call to swallow everything. Teaching sometimes means saying something hard. A man who never speaks up isn't being philosophical. He is being careful in the wrong direction.
The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like the wrong doer. (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.6)
In Marcus's time, revenge was a normal part of politics. When Cassius's rebellion collapsed, an ancient account says Marcus had the general's captured letters burned unread. That way he could not learn who had backed the rebel, and he would not be tempted to punish them. He was not a saint. He ruled an empire built on war and slavery, and nobody needs to defend all of that. But the habit is worth borrowing. Today it looks like not matching the rudeness, not going cold for a month, and not building a case against someone in your head. You can set a boundary, or leave a job, without letting the other man turn you into someone you don't want to be.
One limit matters here. This advice is for ordinary friction: rude bosses, irritating in-laws, a coworker who never stops. If someone is threatening you, abusing you, or making you afraid, patience is the wrong tool. Tell someone who can act, whether that is HR, a counselor, a helpline, or the police.
Try it this week
Five days. Each takes a few minutes.
- Day 1. At the kettle, say it: "Today I'll meet someone difficult. They are confused about what matters. They are still part of the same world I am." Do it again on days 2 through 5.
- Day 2. Pick the one person who gets to you most. Run the camera test on the last thing they did. Write both lists.
- Day 3. Spend five minutes picturing that person's life outside work. What might they be carrying? You don't have to excuse anything. You are only filling in the picture.
- Day 4. In one real moment, ask yourself: teach or bear? Pick one, and do it calmly. Use a line like "I'd like to talk about this afterward" or "Thanks, I'll think about that."
- Day 5. In the evening, notice whether you replayed it. If you did, write down what you added this time. Don't grade yourself. Marcus lost his temper too, which is why he wrote the same reminders again and again.
No one can promise this will change the other person. The point is to change how much of your week they get.
If you want the full method, Marcus Aurelius on Difficult People in 40 Minutes walks through all nine of the reminders Marcus wrote down in Book 11 and shows which ones tend to fit which kind of person. It covers the hardest cases: a boss you can't avoid, family, someone who betrayed you, someone you love who has changed. It names three traps that catch even steady men. It also explains why Marcus called sincere kindness invincible, and why he meant something tougher by that than it sounds.
