Book 5 of Marcus Aurelius's Meditations starts by telling you to get out of bed. When you get up unwillingly, he says, remind yourself, “I am rising to the work of a human being.” The other 35 entries deal with what gets in the way of that work: other people, comfort, mood and the shortness of life. The thread running through it is that the work is yours to do, and what an obstacle means is yours to decide.
What Book 5 is
The Meditations is a private notebook, not a book written for readers. Marcus wrote it in Greek, in fragments, addressed to himself, and the surviving text is divided into twelve books. Book 5 is one of them. If you want all twelve in one place, the Meditations summary covers the whole work.
Every quotation below comes from George Long's 1862 translation, which is in the public domain. Long's English is old-fashioned (“thou”, “thy”), but it is accurate to the sense and easy to check. Passages are numbered the usual way, 5.1, 5.2 and so on, so you can find them in any edition.
The morning and the work (5.1 to 5.5)
Book 5 opens with an argument against staying in bed. Marcus imagines the objection himself, “But it is necessary to take rest also”, and answers that nature sets limits on rest as well. Then he turns it round: people will go without food or sleep for their craft, their money or a little glory, so why not for the work of a human being?
Entry 5.2 is a single sentence:
How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every impression which is troublesome or unsuitable, and immediately to be in all tranquillity.
Meditations 5.2, trans. George Long
It reads as a boast, but Marcus is writing to himself. Take it as a reminder of what he is aiming at, not a report of what he achieved. In 5.3 he tells himself to be “not diverted by the blame which follows from any people, nor by their words”, and in 5.5 he drops the excuse that he lacks talent. Whatever his natural gifts, he says, “Show those qualities then which are altogether in thy power”, and he lists them: “sincerity, gravity, endurance of labor, aversion to pleasure, contentment with thy portion and with few things, benevolence, frankness”.
Failure and the habits of the mind (5.9 to 5.16)
Entry 5.9 is about what to do after you have fallen short of your own principles:
when thou hast failed, return back again, and be content if the greater part of what thou doest is consistent with man’s nature
Meditations 5.9, trans. George Long
Philosophy, he adds, should not be treated as a strict master. It is closer to the sponge and plaster you apply to a sore eye. In 5.11 he gives himself a check to run at any moment: “About what am I now employing my own soul?”
Entry 5.16 explains why the check matters:
Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of thy mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.
Meditations 5.16, trans. George Long
He follows it with the thought that “where a man can live, there he can also live well”, even in a palace. For an emperor, that is a pointed thing to write down.
Judgement and obstacles (5.17 to 5.20)
This is the stretch most people come to Book 5 for. Entry 5.17 is blunt: “To seek what is impossible is madness: and it is impossible that the bad should not do something of this kind.” Expecting difficult people to behave well is a plan that fails on schedule.
Entry 5.19 states the idea the rest depends on:
Things themselves touch not the soul, not in the least degree; nor have they admission to the soul, nor can they turn or move the soul: but the soul turns and moves itself alone
Meditations 5.19, trans. George Long
Then 5.20 applies it to people who block you. Marcus grants that they “may impede my action”, but says they are no impediment to his disposition, because “the mind converts and changes every hindrance to its activity into an aid”. You will often see this passage boiled down to a slogan about the obstacle becoming the way. Those slogans are modern compressions. They are not Long's wording, and the idea is Marcus's but the catchy English is not.
Other people (5.22 to 5.28)
Marcus is practical about wrongdoing by others. In 5.25 he writes, “Does another do me wrong? Let him look to it.” His own task is to act well with what he has been given.
Entry 5.28 is the one to read if you tend to get angry with people for being who they are. He asks, “What good will this anger do thee?”, and offers a different move: where the other person has reason, “show him his error, admonish him.” Anger is not part of the method. For more on this theme, see the page on Stoic quotes on anger.
Time, death and reputation (5.23 to 5.33)
Two entries do most of the work here. In 5.23 Marcus says that “substance is like a river in a continual flow”, and asks how anyone can be so puffed up or so plagued by things that “vex him only for a time, and a short time.” In 5.33 he turns the same view on himself:
Soon, very soon, thou wilt be ashes, or a skeleton, and either a name or not even a name; but name is sound and echo.
Meditations 5.33, trans. George Long
The point is not gloom. Later in the same entry he says that “to have good repute amid such a world as this is an empty thing”, and asks what is enough until the end comes. His answer is to do good to people and keep to tolerance and self-restraint. The page on memento mori goes further into this habit of remembering death.
The close (5.34 to 5.36)
The book ends on a question Marcus asks about trouble: “If this is neither my own badness, nor an effect of my own badness, and the common weal is not injured, why am I troubled about it”. It is a useful test. Is the problem my fault, and does it harm anyone else? If neither, he asks why he should be troubled at all.
The last entry, 5.36, gives the book its final image. The old man, when he leaves, asks back his foster-child's top, “remembering that it was a top”. Marcus wants the same sense of proportion about losses in matters that do not touch character.
Where Book 5 asks a lot of you
A sceptical reader will find three places worth slowing down. In 5.8 Marcus says to “accept everything which happens, even if it seem disagreeable”, and his reason is that the universe is ordered for the good of the whole. You can borrow the practice of acceptance without signing up to that cosmology, but he does not offer it that way. In 5.18 he writes, “Nothing happens to any man which he is not formed by nature to bear.” Treat that as a discipline of expectation, not a fact about the world, because some things people suffer are very hard to bear.
The third is 5.26, on bodily sensation. Marcus says: “let not the ruling part of itself add to the sensation the opinion that it is either good or bad”. That is a stance about judgement, not medical advice, and it is no substitute for help with pain or distress.
How to use Book 5
Read one entry in the morning, starting with 5.1. Before the day begins, write down one thing that is in your power today (the list in 5.5 is a good prompt), one person who is likely to be difficult, and the judgement you mean to hold if they are (5.19). In the evening, ask yourself Marcus's question from 5.11 once, and leave it there.
If you only read part of the book, read 5.1, 5.19, 5.23, 5.33 and 5.36, in that order. The rest is easier to follow once you have those in mind.
Sources
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 5, translated by George Long (1862, public domain). Background on Marcus (emperor 161 to 180 CE) and on the Meditations as a private journal: Donald Robertson, How to Think Like a Roman Emperor.
If you want structured practice, the 7-Day Stoic Challenge is free. Nine audio lessons and a 42-page workbook.