Earlier this week, while I was treating a patient, I overheard a very interesting conversation on the rehab floor. Nancy and one of our patients were discussing the Roman Empire. To be fair this is not a typical conversation in our office.

Are you curious about how this became the topic of conversation while working on core stability exercises? Well, I was. So I asked them. Nancy said it began when she asked him a simple question... "How often do you think about the Roman Empire?" She turned to me and asked me the same question. 

Evidently, this question is a TikTok trend that has been floating around for a couple of weeks. It seems to center around women asking men how often they think about the Roman Empire, and a surprising number of men think about it frequently.

When Nancy posed the question to me, my initial reaction was to quickly respond that I never think about it. After a moment though I realized that I read a lot of Stoic philosophy. I read two emails every morning from Ryan Holiday largely based on the teaching of Stoic philosophers from the Roman Empire. I have read several other books based on the same school of thought. I would even say that stoicism has provided a lot of the basis for my own personal life philosophy.

So while I may not think about Julius Caeser, or aqueducts, or gladiators, or any of the other things that existed during that time, I can definitely say that the school of thought that came about during that era has had a very profound impact on my life.

So to a certain degree, I guess I do think about the Roman Empire on a regular basis.

How often does the Roman Empire enter your mind?