Marcus Aurelius was an emperor. He had access to every comfort the ancient world could provide. He chose, repeatedly and deliberately, to forgo most of them.
He slept on a simple bed. He ate plainly. He wore ordinary clothes when the occasion permitted. He trained physically in conditions that were harder than necessary. He is recorded as having practised cold water bathing, not as a health regimen but as a discipline.
He was not doing penance. He was not performing austerity for an audience. He was doing something more specific: maintaining his ability to function without conditions he could not always guarantee.
What Voluntary Discomfort Is For
Seneca described the practice with characteristic directness. Set aside a number of days during which you will eat the simplest food, wear the roughest clothing, and ask yourself: is this the condition I feared? The point was not the suffering. The point was the discovery that the suffering was manageable, that you were capable of more than your habits suggested, and that the comforts you had been relying on were not, in fact, necessary.
The Stoics called this practice askesis, from which we get the word asceticism, though the Stoic version was quite different from the religious mortification of the flesh it later came to describe. Stoic askesis was not about punishment or purification. It was about maintenance.
A man who has never voluntarily gone without something does not know whether he can manage without it. He is, in a practical sense, dependent on conditions remaining stable. The stability of conditions cannot be guaranteed. Therefore, the man who has not tested himself against their absence is carrying a vulnerability he may not be aware of.
The voluntary practice of discomfort removes that vulnerability. Not by making you indifferent to comfort, which would be neither achievable nor desirable. But by demonstrating, repeatedly, that you can function without it when necessary.
The Modern Version
The cold shower has become a popular shorthand for this practice. It has been written about extensively as a performance enhancement technique, a way of building mental toughness, a morning ritual for high achievers.
This is a narrower version of what the Stoics were doing, and in some ways it misses the point. The Stoics were not primarily interested in toughness as a performance metric. They were interested in freedom. The freedom that comes from not being dependent on particular conditions for your sense of wellbeing.
A man who needs a hot shower to feel functional in the morning is, in a small but real way, controlled by that need. The need is not dramatic. It does not significantly limit his life. But it is a data point about the relationship between his internal state and his external circumstances, and the Stoics were interested in that relationship across everything.
The voluntary discomfort practice they recommended was not about cold showers specifically. It was about identifying the things you depend on and testing, periodically, whether that dependence is as solid as it feels.
What You Discover
What you typically discover, when you undertake voluntary discomfort seriously rather than performatively, is that you are more capable than your habits have been suggesting.
The meal you thought you needed turns out to be one you wanted. The comfort you thought was essential turns out to be one you prefer. The conditions you thought you required for concentration or creativity turn out to be ones you are accustomed to, not ones you need.
This is genuinely useful information. It does not mean you should live without what you prefer, or that comfort is somehow wrong. It means that your relationship with your preferences becomes more accurate. You know which things you actually need and which things you have simply stopped questioning.
Marcus Aurelius governed an empire while practising this. Seneca managed vast wealth while writing about voluntary poverty. They were not arguing for destitution. They were arguing for clarity, for the ability to look clearly at your situation and know the difference between what you need and what you have simply accumulated.
The Practice
The practice does not have to be dramatic. Seneca recommended a few days at a time, not a lifetime. A week of eating simply. A night without the usual comforts. A day without the devices you depend on. The specific content matters less than the honesty of the engagement.
The question you are asking, through the practice, is simple. Is this thing I think I need actually necessary? What am I like without it?
The answers are usually more interesting than you expect. And the man who knows them is, in a practical sense, freer than the one who has never asked.
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