Daily Stoic Week 41

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)

October 15

“Everything turns on your assumptions about it, and that’s on you. You can pluck out the hasty judgment at will, and like steering a ship around the point, you will find calm seas, fair weather and a safe port.”
—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 12.22

Most of my struggles are caused by me. This is a hard truth to acknowledge. If I can learn to choose not to get upset at the world, I will get upset a lot less often. I need to keep a clear head and not assume that everything is out to get me. My laptop was giving me a blue screen and restarting at the cyclic rate last week. I was getting angry at it, but was able to laugh at myself by saying, “Oh yeah, yell at it, that will help”. I wasn’t able to fix the laptop, but I was able to fix my outlook about the laptop.

 

October 16

“Some people with exceptional minds quickly grasp virtue, or produce it within themselves. But other dim and lazy types, hindered by bad habits, must have their rusty souls constantly scrubbed down. . . . The weaker sorts will be helped and lifted from their bad opinions if we put them in the care of  philosophy’s principles.”
—SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 95.36–37

For the most part, I grasp virtue rather quickly. This is not true in all aspects of my life. Even when I was a young and single partyer, I was never a dirt bag. When it comes to controlling my anger, I can make myself dim and lazy pretty quickly. Following Stoic principles has really helped to get the rust off of my soul. It’s still nasty in spots, but not as bad as it used to be.

 

October 17

“A benefit should be kept like a buried treasure, only to be dug up in necessity. . . . Nature bids us to do well by all. . . . Wherever there is a human being, we have an opportunity for kindness.”
—SENECA, ON THE HAPPY LIFE, 24.2–3

I try to help other people when I can. Sometimes this entails helping my wife’s friends with mechanical work or assisting the random person that has a flat tire on the road outside my house. I also do my best to assist people at work and train new mangers with maintaining their account. It goes the same with trying to be a good example on handling adversity and not getting upset about things outside of control.

 

October 18

“There’s nothing worse than a wolf befriending sheep. Avoid false friendship at all costs. If you are good, straightforward, and well meaning it should show in your eyes and not escape notice.”
—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 11.15

I have had false friends through the years. I have tried not to be one myself, and am usually successful at letting people know my true feelings and not pretending to be nice. Once my wife said I was rude when we were on a date night and a guy I barely knew sat down with us. I told him we were out together and I would appreciate it if he would leave. I thought that was less rude than him inviting himself to join us. I also thought it was less rude than pretending to be nice and then eventually snapping at him when I couldn’t take it anymore. My brother takes this to a new level. Once a husband of one of his wife’s co-workers was hinting about getting together some weekend, my brother said, “No offense buddy, but I have enough people on my Christmas card list”. I’ve told my wife that I am not as bad as him and she mutters something about a low bar.

 

October 19

“Since habit is such a powerful influence, and we’re used to pursuing our impulses to gain and avoid outside our own choice, we should set a contrary habit against that, and where appearances are really slippery, use the counter force of our training.”
—EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 3.12.6

Bad habits are hard to break. It is easy to keep doing the same thing just because you are used to doing that. Luckily, the same is true of good habits. As long as I can keep doing the correct things and controlling my anger, it can build on itself and make the future obstacles easier to overcome. It’s hard to establish good habits, but in the long run it works for the better.

 

October 20

“You have proof in the extent of your wanderings that you never found the art of living anywhere—not in logic, nor in wealth, fame, or in any indulgence. Nowhere. Where is it then? In doing what human nature demands. How is a person to do this? By having principles be the source of desire and action. What principles? Those to do with good and evil, indeed in the belief that there is no good for a human being except what creates justice, self-control, courage and freedom, and nothing evil except what destroys these things.”
—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 8.1.(5)

How do I find peace of mind? As long as I keep with my principles and avoid evil, it is easy. No matter how rich I am, no matter how much travel and superficial pleasures I indulge in, there is no real good for me that compares to living well internally. I can have freedom in an unfree world if my mentality is in my control and not dependent on external forces.

 

October 21

“Such behavior! People don’t want to praise their contemporaries whose lives they actually share, but hold great expectations for the praise of future generations—people they haven’t met or ever will! This is akin to being upset that past generations didn’t praise you.”
—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 6.18

This is a reminder that life is short and the amount of people who will remember me after I die is small. My memory will be gone after my grandkids die, if I ever have any. This might be a macabre thought, but it is true for the vast majority of people. Thinking of how many people from the past that I recognize by name and it’s not a long list. Even if I was somehow remembered by everyone in the future, I wouldn’t know it.

 

Music today is George Jones.

 

He was an alcoholic asshole for a lot of his life, and if he couldn’t sing he would have died in obscurity and probably hated by everyone who knew him.

Luckily for him, he was born with an amazing singing voice.

 

 

 

I think this song was him trying to reconcile with his past mistakes

 

This one was his biggest hit, but he almost didn’t record it because “Nobody’ll buy that morbid son of a bitch.”