Daily Stoic

Meditations

How to Be a Stoic

How to Think Like a Roman Emperor

Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic

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

This week’s book:

Discourses and Selected Writings

Disclaimer: I’m not your Supervisor. These are my opinions after reading through these books a few times.

Epictetus was born a slave around 50 ad. His owner was Epaphroditus, a rich freedman who was once a slave of Nero. Though he was a slave Epictetus was sent to study philosophy under Musonius Rufus.

Epictetus was lame and there are some stories it was caused by his master and others that it was caused by disease.

He was a freedman when all philosophers were banished from Rome in 89 by the Emperor Domitian. He then started his school in Greece, and had many students. He did not leave any writings from his lessons, but one of his students, Flavius Arrian, took notes and wrote the Discourses.

Epictetus did not marry, had no children, and lived to be around 80-85. In retirement, he adopted a child that would have been abandoned and raised him with a woman.

He died sometime around AD 135.

He is my favorite Stoic teacher. I love his bare bones and very straight forward approach.

Following is a paragraph-by-paragraph discussion of one of his lessons. Epictetus’s text appears italicized in bold, my replies are in normal text.

To those who are vexed at being pitied Part III

O miserable man, will you not see what you are saying about yourself? What sort of a person are you in your own eyes? What sort of a person in thinking, in desiring, in avoiding; what sort of a person in choice, preparation, design, and the other activities of men? Yet you are concerned whether the rest of mankind pity you?—Yes, but I do not deserve to be pitied.—And so you are pained at that? And is the man who is pained worthy of pity?—Yes.—How, then, do you fail to deserve pity after all? By the very emotion which you feel concerning pity you make yourself worthy of pity. 20What, then, says Antisthenes? Have you never heard? “It is the lot of a king, O Cyrus, to do well, but to be ill spoken of.”[1] My head is perfectly sound and yet everybody thinks I have a headache. What do I care? I have no fever, and yet everybody sympathizes with me as though I had: “Poor fellow, you have had a fever for ever so long.” I draw a long face too, and say, “Yes, it truly is a long time that I have been in a bad way.” “What is going to happen, then?” As God will, I reply, and at the same time I smile quietly to myself at those who are pitying me.

I can accept when other people feel bad for me. Even when they feel bad about the things that are outside of my control and their feeling bad does nothing to improve the situation. If I went to them in these moments and explained they were wasting their breath and not really offering any real help, then I would be an asshole. I do try to deflect, when my mom died and my coworkers were telling me how sorry they were, I would say thank you, but it’s a part of life once you get to this age.

What, then, prevents me from doing the same thing in my moral life also? I am poor, but I have a correct judgement about poverty. Why, then, am I concerned, if men pity me for my poverty? I do not hold office, while others do. But I have the right opinion about holding office and not holding it. Let those who pity me look to it,[2] but as for myself, I am neither hungry, nor thirsty, nor cold, but from their own hunger and thirst they think I too am hungry and thirsty. What, then, am I to do for them? Shall I go about and make proclamation, and say, “Men, be not deceived, it is well with me. I take heed neither of poverty, nor lack of office, nor, in a word, anything else, but only correct judgements; these I possess free from hindrance, I have taken thought of nothing further”? And yet, what foolish talk is this? How do I any longer hold correct judgements when I am not satisfied with being the man that I am, but am excited about what other people think of me?

Trying to show off that things don’t bother me as much as most people seem to when I am in the right frame of mind, would be me being an asshole again. Saying “I don’t need your pity, I am in control of my reactions” would be an inappropriate reaction. It would be worse if I did it with the goal of impressing them with how strong I am. I can accept pity in the spirit it was offered and be gracious about it.

25But others will get more than I do, and will be preferred in honor above me.—Well, and what is more reasonable than for those who have devoted themselves to something to have the advantage in that to which they have devoted themselves? They have devoted themselves to office, you to judgements; and they to wealth, you to dealing with your sense-impressions. See whether they have the advantage over you in what you have devoted yourself to, but they neglect; whether their assent is more in accord with natural standards, whether their desire is less likely to achieve its aim than is yours, whether their aversion is less likely to fall into what it would avoid, whether in design, purpose, and choice they hit the mark better, whether they observe what becomes them as men, as sons, as parents, and then, in order, through all the other terms for the social relations. But if they hold office, will you not tell yourself the truth, which is. that you do nothing in order to get office, while they do everything, and that it is most unreasonable for the man who pays attention to something to come off with less than the man who neglects it?

I try not to compare my progress in life with others. The things that are important to other people are not so important to me. In my office, I am not as well off as most of the others. Most of them have spouses that work full time and drive new cars. They have separate bank accounts, I don’t understand how that works if it is a true partnership. My wife hasn’t worked in 30 years and I have a 25 year old truck, a 15 year old Camry, and a 24 year old Saab. However, when I come home, the house is clean and I know dinner will be ready at 6:30. While it would be nice to have even half of my paycheck added to our income, I like my life so much better this way.

I have been able to continue going to the gym and can currently do 2 pull ups. Not a lot for a man that used to do 20, but more than the 0 I could do 4 weeks ago. I am also starting to lose a little weight, but it is a slow process, especially since in the 18 months or so I was not working out, I did not change my diet except to quit drinking protein powder with milk. I don’t eat a lot of junk food, but I am not especially diligent about avoiding it either. I have to remind myself that it took a long time to get this fat, so it will take a long time to lose it. On the bright side, after not being able to work out for so long, I am enjoying it and am finally starting to feel stronger,