How To Concentrate Like a Roman

<p>There is so much on our plate. We have emails to respond to. Calls to make. There is that meeting in a couple hours. The folks we met with yesterday are waiting on an answer or a decision we promised we’d make. Twitter beckons. So do our hopes and dreams. </p><p>And yet as many directions as we find ourselves pulled in, it’s safe to assume that Marcus Aurelius was under even more tension. Make no mistake: The ancient world was not some quiet, peaceful place. It too was filled with crises and distractions, gossip, and ambitious goal-setting. All the temptations we face today have their analogs in the past—plus things were scarier, deadlier, and more precarious. </p><p>So we should listen <a href='https://dailystoic.com/meditations-marcus-aurelius/?utm_source=convertkit&amp;utm_medium=convertkit&amp;utm_campaign=like-a-roman'>to the command that Marcus gave himself after one of those trying days</a>, when he was struggling to stay focused. “Concentrate every minute like a Roman— like a man—” he wrote, “on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice.”</p><p>And he wasn’t just chiding himself to do some impossible thing. There was a method to this concentration, he said. What was it? <em>Do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life. </em>(<a href='https://dailystoic.com/memento-mori?utm_source=convertkit&amp;utm_medium=convertkit&amp;utm_campaign=like-a-roman'>That’s the power of Memento Mori</a>). The key, Marcus said, was to not let your emotions override your mind and to give yourself a strong purpose (aimlessness is an enabler of distraction). </p><p>You can do that. You have the power to concentrate like a Roman. You can know how to do this thing in front of you. You can treat it right. And most important, you <em>should.</em> Because it may well be the last thing you do in your life.</p>