Marcus Aurelius at 3 a.m.

In a tent on the edge of a Roman frontier, the most powerful man in the world sat awake at three in the morning.

He had a war to manage. He had advisers who were lying to him. He had a body that had been hurting more lately. He had a son he was beginning to suspect would not be a good emperor after him. He had every reason, in other words, to be awake at three in the morning.

He could have lain there worrying. Most men in his position did. Instead, he reached for a small notebook he kept by the cot, and he wrote.

What he wrote, that night and many other nights, became the Meditations — the most-read self-help book of the last two thousand years, written by a man who never intended anyone else to read it.

The line from his notebook that I keep returning to:

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive — to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

He wrote this not on his best day. He wrote this on a difficult dawn, in a difficult war, in a difficult body, in a difficult life.

What the story is for

The Stoics did not pretend life was easy. Marcus had every external blessing — empire, wealth, power — and every internal struggle. He still had to talk himself, almost daily, into showing up.

He did this not by changing his circumstances. He did this by changing what he chose to think about, when he had a choice.

At 3 a.m., when nothing can be solved, you have one freedom left: where to put your attention. You can put it on the spiraling worry about the meeting at 10. Or you can put it on the small fact that you are alive, breathing, capable of thought, in a warm-enough room, with most of your life still ahead of you.

The first does nothing for the meeting. The second does nothing for the meeting either. But the second, over time, builds a different person.

A small practice

The next time you wake at 3 a.m. and the mind starts running, try this:

Don't reach for the phone. Don't try to think the problem to a solution. Just say silently:

I am alive. I am breathing. The mind is racing. I do not have to follow it.

Notice the body in the bed. Notice that you are not, in this moment, in danger. Most things at 3 a.m. cannot be solved. Most things at 3 a.m. are also not as big as they will feel.

Marcus, in his notebook, wrote what he needed in order to show up the next day. He was not unusually wise. He was unusually committed to writing down what he needed when he needed it.

You can do this too. A small notebook by the bed. Three sentences. Begin tonight.

The 3 a.m. mind, given a sentence to hold, often releases its grip.

You will sleep again, eventually. The morning will arrive. The notebook will have helped.