Welcome to The Stoic Ledger, a daily money meditation from one of the Stoic sages.

45/365: Marcus Aurelius on holding standards

The standards we have are ours alone.

The Stoic way is to abstain from sticking these standards to others. To avoid judgement of others’ spending habits, financial failures, pursuit of wealth, investment decisions.

And not only to abstain from judgement, but to be tolerant of the things they do.

We can’t control what others do. Only our actions remain under our control, and these actions are what our strict standards must govern.