A regular morning exercise that opens the day: the tuning of the ruling part before contact with affairs and persons. For the Stoics, the morning meditation is the place of reason's programming intervention, where the evening (examinatio sui, in Seneca) is the place of retrospective accounting. In the morning the philosopher prepares himself; in the evening he judges himself. The aim of the morning meditation is to enter the day with a choice already made: what is the goal, what are the likely temptations, what is the answer to each.

Immediately upon waking, not yet turning to business, take several minutes for three steps: (1) recall the day's goal — to act according to nature, that is, rationally and socially; (2) perform the anticipation of difficulties — which people and events you will meet, and what the right reaction is in advance; (3) repeat the key teachings — that the only true good lies in virtue (agathon/kakon), that the external does not harm us (no-harm-to-virtuous), that rational beings are kindred (syngenes). It is permitted to write — Marcus's own Meditations are apparently in part such a record.