A coworker makes a sharp comment in a meeting, and you replay it in your head until dinner. A friend leaves your text unanswered for two days, and you start wondering what you did wrong.
Most of this comes from one bad assumption. We treat other people’s words and actions as a verdict on our worth, even though those words usually tell you more about the speaker’s mood that day.
Marcus Aurelius ruled the Roman Empire and still had to contend with court plots and a revolt led by one of his most trusted generals. His private notebook, now known as Meditations, was never meant for anyone else to read, but it has helped millions of readers in their thinking.
He wrote it to talk himself back into a steady frame of mind. Five of the principles in those pages are especially useful if you tend to take things personally.
1. Separate What You Can Control From What You Can’t
“If anything external vexes you, take notice that it is not the thing which disturbs you, but your notion about it, which notion you may dismiss at once if you please.” Marcus Aurelius.
The Stoics split the world into two groups: things that you control and things that don’t. Another person’s opinions sit in the second group, right next to their tone of voice.
Your judgment sits in the first. Marcus places the pain inside that judgment, which is good news, because it’s the one part you’re allowed to change.
The next time someone criticizes or dismisses you, sort it into the column of things you don’t control before you react. What they said goes in that pile. The meaning you’re about to attach to it goes in another, and only that second pile is yours to work on.
You can’t edit a comment after it leaves someone’s mouth. You can decide it doesn’t get to run your afternoon.
2. Recognize That Offense Requires Your Agreement
“Take away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, ‘I have been harmed.’ Take away the complaint, ‘I have been harmed,’ and the harm is taken away.” Marcus Aurelius.
Stoics taught that an event carries no charge until we judge it. A rude remark is a handful of words, and it only becomes an insult once you accept it as a true statement about yourself.
Rude behavior still deserves a response sometimes, and you’re free to call it out or walk away. The goal is to keep the other person’s words from taking over your emotional state while you decide.
Try swapping the thought “they disrespected me” for “they said something, and I get to decide what it means.” It sounds almost too simple to matter.
In practice, that small pause turns a reflex into a choice. A lot of comments go flat once you stop agreeing to be hurt by them. Some lose their grip in a few seconds, and a few take a week.
3. Expect Human Imperfection
“Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil. But I who have seen the nature of the good that it is beautiful, and of the bad that it is ugly.” – Marcus Aurelius.
Book 2 of Meditations opens with Marcus bracing himself for the day ahead. He tells himself he’ll run into people who are meddling, arrogant, dishonest, and ungrateful, among other unflattering traits.
It reads like a gloomy morning routine, yet it worked as preparation. Rudeness lands softer when you see it coming. Much of the hurt we feel comes from expectations we never say out loud. We assume people will be fair and reasonable, and then we feel ambushed when they aren’t.
Expecting some carelessness from others takes the aim out of it. The driver who cuts you off in traffic has no idea who you are, and neither does the cashier who sighs when you take too long to pay.
4. Treat Bad Behavior as Ignorance
“I can neither be injured by any of them, for no one can fix on me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him.” – Marcus Aurelius
Marcus believed people do wrong mostly because they don’t know any better. Someone who lashes out is often scared or stressed, or just worn down.
Seeing it this way changes how the conflict feels. Anger assumes the other person picked you as a target. Understanding leaves room for the idea that they’re fighting something you can’t see from where you’re standing.
When someone treats you badly, ask what might be pushing them. A harsh boss may be getting squeezed by his own boss, and a snappy relative may be lying awake at 3 a.m. worrying about money.
None of this excuses the behavior. You don’t have to keep accepting mistreatment, but you can stop reading every outburst as a review of your character.
5. Stop Letting Outside Approval Set Your Worth
“How strange it is, that every one loves himself above all others, yet attaches less weight to his own view of himself, than to that of other men.” – Marcus Aurelius.
Marcus spotted an odd contradiction in people. We trust our own judgment on almost everything, then let whoever happens to be watching decide what we’re worth.
Taking things personally often means someone else’s opinion outweighs your own. Once their approval becomes the yardstick, a single critical remark can feel like a threat to how you see yourself.
A better approach is to check your conduct against standards you actually hold. Telling the truth and doing the work properly are good places to start. If you met those standards, another person’s disapproval becomes information. You can weigh it or toss it and get on with your day.
Conclusion
Marcus wrote Meditations for himself, partly while on military campaigns far from Rome. The problems he wrote about still show up in office meetings and family group chats nearly two thousand years later.
You can’t control what other people say. You can control how you judge it and how long you let it hang around. Start with the pause. The next time a comment gets under your skin, count to five before deciding what it means. Do it for a month. Keep a note of how many of those comments you’re still thinking about by the weekend.