Daily Stoic Week 35

The Daily Stoic

The Practicing Stoic

Meditations

How to Be a Stoic

If you have anger issues, this one is a great tool (h/t mindyourbusiness)

 

September 3

“We must undergo a hard winter training and not rush into things for which we haven’t prepared.”
—EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 1.2.32

If I have trained hard enough, the actual event is made much easier. When I was on active duty, my workouts were always harder than our Physical Fitness Test, for this reason, outside of being injured a few times,  I was always able to score a first class using the young man scoring system. The same went for combat training. Now I am more concerned with my mental training to handle difficulties and frustrations. As I train my mind by seeking out difficulties, they become easier to deal with. They are still there and I am not always successful at not getting frustrated and angry when that mentality helps nothing and often actively hinders what I am trying to do.

 

September 4

“I judge you unfortunate because you have never lived through misfortune. You have passed through life without an opponent—no one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you.”
—SENECA, ON PROVIDENCE, 4.3

This reminds me of Fear Factor. Many times a contestant would say, “That’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done!”. To which Joe Rogan would reply, “What kind of life have you had?”. Personally, I have never been through Marine Corps Recon training or the equivalent, but I have been through some difficult training and have had to fight through fatigue and pain in order to complete the mission. I always wonder if you’ve never been tested, how do you know where your limits are? Another thing from Fear Factor that always amused me was when soft people would be getting ready for a challenge and they honestly believed they would not quit because it was a matter of wanting it bad enough. There is a point where your body says NO, regardless of how bad you want it. Training and challenging yourself physically and mentally can push that point further away, but it will always be there.

 

September 5

“Remember, then, if you deem what is by nature slavish to be free, and what is not your own to be yours, you will be shackled and miserable, blaming both gods and other people. But if you deem as your own only what is yours, and what belongs to others as truly not yours, then no one will ever be able to coerce or to stop you, you will find no one to blame or accuse, you will do nothing against your will, you will have no enemy, no one will harm you, because no harm can affect you.”
—EPICTETUS, ENCHIRIDION, 1.3

I sometimes wonder why Stoicism isn’t more popular. Passages like this are part of the reason I am sure. This statement does not help to make people dependent on the government and it is a reminder that no one is responsible for my happiness but me.  As long as I have no desires outside of my control, I am free. When I am controlled by a desire for something totally outside of my control, I am controlled by outside forces.

 

September 6

“You can bind up my leg, but not even Zeus has the power to break my freedom of choice.”
—EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 1.1.23

If I ever wind up in prison, I will do my best to remain mentally free. The same attitude applies to being financially free. No matter the external forces, I need to remember that my internal choices are all that matter when I start stressing out about things that I don’t control. I hurt my back 6 weeks ago and was unable to workout or run until this week. I was getting upset, because I had just started to feel like I was back in shape. Ran on Monday and it was slow, but since I ran at my normal effort for a 30 minute run getting upset would not help. Ran again on Wednesday and while still slower than before, it was faster than Monday. Next week I go back to my 4x a week running and start the gym back up. I know it will be  a struggle to not compare my old numbers with the ones I will get, but doing that keeps me free from self induced disappointment.

 

September 7

“Consider who you are. Above all, a human being, carrying no greater power than your own reasoned choice, which oversees all other things, and is free from any other master.”
—EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 2.10.1

I am trying to live this way. I still have a boss at work, but nothing I have to do goes against my conscience. When we had DEI training, I sat through it and submitted honest feedback on how insulting and simple minded it was. Because it was my reasoned choice to submit these, I felt able to deal with the consequences, but so far there have been no repercussions.

 

September 8

“No one is crushed by Fortune, unless they are first deceived by her . . . those who aren’t pompous in good times, don’t have their bubbles burst with change. Against either circumstance, the stable person keeps their rational soul invincible, for it’s precisely in the good times they prove their strength against adversity.”
—SENECA, ON CONSOLATION TO HELVIA, 5.4b, 5b–6

I try not to be crushed by fortune, even as I am the most prosperous I have ever been. I realized a couple weeks ago that I paid as much in taxes last year as I made as a young LCpl (E-3) with 2 kids and a stay at home wife. Looking back to that time, I am not substantially happier now then then, but I have been lucky enough to maintain our happiness through all of the changes in our lives. In some ways there are more problems with more money (larger house costs more to maintain, my old truck cost a boatload to restore), but my wife is very understanding and has a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy with how much I spend on “The Other Wife” although lately she calls it “The Trophy Wife”.

 

September 9

“But there is no reason to live and no limit to our miseries if we let our fears predominate.”
—SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 13.12b

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned that my mother put her life on hold after chemo, because she was “waiting for the scan”. She got the final results back yesterday and she is cancer free. Unfortunately she is a few months behind on physical therapy and her diet was horrible while she was waiting, so she is even more overweight now than she was before chemo. That is not taking into consideration the sleepless nights and crappy days because she was stressed out. I will live as well as I can and let tomorrow worry about itself.

 

Today’s music is from Death Angel. I had heard this one:

It was good, but I wasn’t a huge fan.

Then my buddy’s girlfriend in mainland Japan sent him a video tape of Japanese MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball and we both fell in love with this song:

 

We went and bought the CD the next weekend, I believe. It has some really good songs including 2 acoustic ones that were still heavy. We used to repeat something my dad had told me once, “heavy metal bands have no talent” when we listened to those 2.

 

 

Seemingly Endless Time came up on shuffle while I was running, and then I listened to the whole album for the first time in a long time. It holds up very well.