Or “What Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations tell us that applies to the financial independence campaign”.
This post gets straight to the point, so if you read the quotes and analysis/background/my story, I’ve put the explanation at the end. If you don’t want to deal with my reflections, it’s skim-read friendly.
1. You need a purpose
People who labour all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse toward are wasting their time – even when hard at work
Marcus Aurelius Meditations book 2.7
Marcus talks about logos (a concept somewhere between spirit, nature, destiny and reason for living) quite a lot, and in this section he was talking about fighting your logos or choosing to ignore it, when really you should be leaning into it.
For me, this applies to people who think that financial independence is the end goal of this financial independence campaign. As if “hey, I’m FI! I retired early!” is the end in itself.
It really isn’t, and if you’re pushing for FIRE without any idea of what you’d like to do with that freedom then you’re labouring without purpose. Hard at work, fighting and saving and investing… why?
I wrote a post on my Why of FI a while ago. I guess my reasons have changed a bit and will continue to change over time, but I do at least have a reason. I’d encourage you to do the same, and so would our dear dead emperor.
2. There’s a benefit to urgency
Not just that every day more of our life is used up and less and less of it is left, but this too: if we live longer, can we be sure our mind will still be up to understanding the world..? …So we need to hurry
Marcus Aurelius Meditations book 3.1
This is the key reason for FIRE instead of simply maximising your income and enjoying the comforts of lifestyle inflation. If you have a big plan that needs more of your time than could be made available while working, FIRE is one way to do it.
Logically, if I were to retire in my sixties and try to sail around and have adventures, things would be much harder. Whereas if I get my bum in gear now, take a few hits and break the back of what I need, I can really maximise my adventure while still being young and fit enough to enjoy it.
3. Stick with the basics
‘If you seek tranquility, do less’… Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better. Because most of what we say and do is not essential.
Marcus Aurelius Meditations book 4.24
An early mistake that I made (and a lot of people make on the FIRE forums) is to over-optimise an investment strategy and get way too bogged down in portfolio planning.
In reality: getting something invested in a “good enough” plan and getting started now is much better than faffing about and trying to over-optimise. You can optimise later when you’re making meaningful progress.
This is why I used – and haven’t shut down the account with – a robo-investor platform when I moved to the Channel Islands. It was far better to start putting money away somewhere than to delay because I hadn’t found a trustworthy low-cost platform yet that serviced my home location. I later learned that Lloyds Sharedealing services the Channel Islands and was a lot cheaper, so I now pay into that, but I don’t think it was a mistake to use Wealthify to rack up an investment pot.
4. Don’t worry too much about the future
Not to be overwhelmed by what you imagine, but just do what you can and should.
Meditations book 5.36
I do what is mine to do; the rest doesn’t disturb me. The rest is inanimate, or has no logos, or it wanders at random and has lost the road.
Meditations book 6.22
Two quotes! Aren’t we lucky?
Actually, that’s unfair. Marcus writes about this idea a lot, I just liked these two snippets equally.
Try not to get too caught up in market movements, economic crises and the like. You can’t control them. Just push on, invest in assets whenever you can, cut expenses where possible and grow your income where able.
5. It’s OK to ask for help
Don’t be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you’ve been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So What?
Meditations book 7.7
I have a couple of friends who have been lucky enough to inherit money from grandparents. They both – separately – mentioned that they felt a bit guilty taking the money.
They shouldn’t.
There’s a particular stream of thinking that suggests if you accept an inheritance or family wealth of some kind, you’re not a self-made person. In reality, no-one is self-made, it’s a myth. What matters is that you take this gift, are grateful, and don’t waste it.
I highly doubt that I’ll benefit from any inheritance. My family aren’t exactly adept at building wealth. Maybe my partner will, but I don’t count on it. I wouldn’t judge someone just because their relatives made a gift of their accumulated capital when they died. It’s a kind thing to do, so good for them.
6. Enjoy the moment, be grateful for what you have now
Treat what you don’t have as nonexistent. Look at what you have, the things you value most, and thing how much you’d crave them if you didn’t have them.
Meditations book 7.27
Gratitude gets challenged by the financial independence campaign.
You start with very little, where every small setback will knock off a solid chunk of your progress towards FIRE. So you finally build up a £1,000 emergency pot, and contribute £100 per month into investments. At that time, you’re wishing that you’d gotten as far as that magical £100k net worth mark that allegedly makes everything better.
Then you get to £100k in net worth, and you wish it was £100k in investments.
Then you hit £100k in investments, but realise that a lot of that is locked away in pensions. You can’t really access those, so you wish is was £100k in liquid assets.
Then you get to £100k in non-pension liquid assets, but you’re splitting those with your partner, so it doesn’t feel like it’s really £100k…
You get the picture.
At each stage, Past You would’ve killed to be Present You. The progress you make should be enjoyed! Each step is a substantial increase in peace of mind and a large degree of progress from where you were before.
7. Be independent
Then isn’t it better to do what’s up to you – like a free man – than to be passively controlled by what isn’t, like a slave or beggar?
Meditations book 9.40
At first glance, this quote looks kind of like a build-on from No.4 above. However, in this context, Marcus was talking about praying to the gods for help and wondering why they don’t physically intervene in your life.
His argument is that they don’t work by intervention, they work by empowerment. So you shouldn’t pray for financial independence, you should pray that you have the discipline to save, the wisdom to invest and the resourcefulness to grow your income. That kind of thing.
I’m secular I guess; I wouldn’t see much benefit in praying to gods, but of course our dear dead Roman lived in a time of gods and spirits.
The concept still survives, though. It’s better to take ownership of your situation and responsibility for your own plan, development and progress than to complain that fate hasn’t handed you instant wealth or some lucrative opportunity. You should at least do something to improve your situation.
8. Don’t worry about what others think
It doesn’t matter how good a life you’ve led. There’ll still be people standing around the bed who will welcome the sad event.
Meditations book 10.36
Marcus is old by the time he starts noting Meditations, so we can forgive his constant melancholy. I heard somewhere that the average life expectancy of a Roman Emperor is 50-odd, and these are the elite of Roman society who – because they have to be Emperor to be counted in the sample size – exclude any infant mortality. Death was pretty much present everywhere and understandably your average Roman couldn’t do a lot about it other than do what they could while they still could.
Well, Marcus’ point here is that while you should try your best to do good (he discusses what this means earlier) and try to live with your logos rather than fighting it, someone somewhere will always think you’re a total dick.
This is true for financial independence, too. When you get there, someone who knows you will almost certainly think you’re a complete bastard for having the option to retire early, because they don’t have that option themselves. You will be told you’re immoral, that your wealth should be taxed away from you, even though you played the game with the same resources they had.
People tend to forget the blood, sweat and tears that go into every success when they see the results, and financial independence is no different. Just do your best.
I’d never advocate for being completely selfish in your investment decisions.
For example, buying properties and then suddenly upping the rent by a large margin would be unethical behaviour that I wouldn’t be willing to do myself.
I invest in ESG funds, which aren’t perfect but I’m trying here. I maintain a regular charity subscription even though that’s money that should be invested, because I’m fortunate enough to have an income surplus.
What set this journey off
A couple of weeks ago I listened to The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan Holiday on Spotify. Audiobooks are quite good gym listening, and this one was pretty cool.
Ryan is the creator of The Daily Stoic, and of course the book was about the applicability of Stoicism. If you’re a podcast person, you’ve probably heard of Ryan through Tim Ferriss’ own podcasts.
I wanted to explore more of the ideas myself, so I followed Ryan’s blog and looked up the suggested reading on his website. The list was given in the book, but because I was in the gym listening to him narrate that part I forgot most of the recommendations.
If you click on that link, ignore Ryan’s serial-killer face staring at your in the background to the website. The work is good, I promise.
Meditations was a book I’d tried to read before, but the translation I’d downloaded wasn’t exactly riveting reading. Ryan recommends – and I endorse – this version on Kindle Store that’s quite accessible and has explanatory notes for the modern reader. It’s free on Kindle, but that’s an affiliate link so that if you fork out for hard copy I get a few pennies.
Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations in context
Marcus is the famous emperor from the year 2000 film Gladiator who gets snuffed out early by Joaquin Phoenix. However, before Ridley Scott took epic liberties with the story, Marcus was a Roman Emperor who was famous for his love of the Greek Stoic philosophers and whom history remembers fondly as a merciful and gracious ruler.
I believe that stoicism was already pretty antiqued by the time Marcus wrote his bit, but it’s a famous text.
Meditations is a title someone slapped onto Marcus’ notebook of thoughts that he’d written to himself. That last bit is critical: these weren’t really meant to be read by anyone, they’re his own notes written to himself. When you read the translations, you can see this in the structure (or lack of it) of the book.
Fun fact: like most of the Romans, at least in Italy, Marcus spoke Greek. This text was translated from his notes in Greek. There’s quite a lot of evidence to suggest that Greek was the primary language of most Italians at the time and that Latin was more of an official/ political/ legal language.
Final thoughts
I don’t for a second believe that Marcus Aurelius cared about – or even considered – FIRE.
However, it seems that lots of what he thought about and reminded himself of is timeless advice that should be applied to most things we do, the financial independence campaign being no exception.
I was surprised to read Meditations and see just how applicable Marcus’ words were to modern living, to tell the truth. It seems that the human experience hasn’t changed much apart from we live longer and technology is better.
Hopefully you got as much out of reading this post as I did by reflecting on the dead emperor’s words!
My financial independence campaign continues…
