The Daily Stoic
I’ve been fascinated by Stoicism for a while now and it really seems to resonate with me. Since I started reading about it, there were a few approaches I had naturally taken up and some that have been invaluable to my life. I see it as a practice rather than something you learn. You’ve got to constantly remind yourself of this way of thinking because it is so difficult to change our ways. I just finished Ryan Holiday’s book, The Daily Stoic and it was a great help. The book was made to be read over the course of a year. You read a page a day and each page has a quote from a philosopher, Ryan’s explanation and interpretation of it. I usually started my day by reading a page and it helped me approach my day on my terms. I didn’t start it in January, which is why I finished it now. Here are a few of my meditations from the book.
The book is divided into three themes with each month being a topic within that theme. The themes are The Discipline of Perception, The Discipline of Action and The Discipline of Will.
The Discipline of Perception
January: Clarity
February: Passions and Emotions
March: Awareness
April: Unbiased Thought
The Discipline of Action
May: Right Action
June: Problem Solving
July: Duty
August: Pragmatism
The Discipline of Will
September: Fortitude and Resilience
October: Virtue and Kindness
November: Acceptance/ Amor Fati
December: Meditation on Mortality
The passages that really stood out to me were usually the ones that made me feel like I need the most reminding. Topics like unbiased thought, duty, pragmatism, acceptance, and mortality. Each section is important to become a well-rounded Stoic, but everyone struggles in different areas of this pursuit. These are mine and these passages helped remind me to react differently from how I usually do.
April’s theme of unbiased thought struck a chord with me. I feel like I tend to judge too quickly and I’m trying to stop this. I learnt many useful lessons from this month and the most important ones to me were, being wary of what you let in, trust, but verify, prepare for negativity, expect to change your opinions, humility in learning, and it’s ok to be wrong. These were all very important lessons and reminders for me. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying; we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. It’s important to remember this because we can control what we consume and let in, which can range from positivity and growth to negativity and gossip. Stoicism has so many useful tricks and another one is preparing for negativity. This doesn’t mean that you’re a negative person and expect the worst, you’re just prepared for it. You’re realistically optimistic, but you’ve mentally prepared for bad scenarios. This helps things not be a complete surprise and if they were to happen, you can approach the solutions calmly and attentively. Having this mindset has helped me stay calm in many situations. If I have mentally prepared for the situation, I’m not as surprised by it and it doesn’t throw me as it may throw some people.
“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions.” – Marcus Aurelius Meditations 2.1
July and the section on Duty was another one I enjoyed. It’s oriented around dealing with the decisions you make and understanding that you are in complete control of your decisions. This means that we shouldn’t be complaining about our circumstances because we’ve chosen them. We have a duty to see through the decisions and commitments that we’ve made. The reminders that stood out for me were: do your job, turn ‘have to’ into ‘get to’, doing the right thing is enough, a leader leads, every noble deed is voluntary, what do you want on your tombstone, and check your privilege.
I could elaborate on every one of these, but it would be way too much to take in. Even just reading those headings acts as good reminder to me. That focusing on doing the right thing and not what you’ll get out of it is all that matters. Being grateful for our circumstances and working towards something you want to do for yourself is also important. If you lead an honest life with good intentions and hard work, you will be happy and achieve what you want to achieve.
“The task of a philosopher: we should bring our will into harmony with whatever happens so that nothing happens against our will and nothing that we wish for fails to happen.” – Epictetus, Discourses, 2.14.7
The last section I’ll talk about today is acceptance. This is something that a lot of people struggle with, and I feel I’m only just beginning to get good at it. Everything seems difficult when it isn’t going our way, but that’s because we have the mindset of changing things for our convenience. If we were to accept the way things are and work within those parameters things may get a lot easier. This section speaks about, a higher power, how to be powerful, never complain, never explain, attachments are the enemy, and you’re going to be ok.
These are reminders about a similar idea, we don’t have control over external factors, and we need to accept that. Once we’re able to accept that we don’t have control over a lot of things it makes it easier to accept them when they happen. This also helps illuminate what exactly is in our control and the ability to differentiate them. I’ve still got so much to learn about Stoicism, but I feel like it has helped me approach situations more calmly and be more level-headed in general. I find myself questioning why I did something or even why people may do things the way they do. It has taught me to think deeper and helped me understand that I am fully responsible for how my life pans out.
“Our rational nature moves freely forward in its impressions when it:
1) accepts nothing false or uncertain;
2) directs its impulses only to acts for the common good;
3) limits its desires and aversions only to what’s in its own power;
4) embraces everything nature assigns it.”
Marcus Aurelius’, Meditations, 8.7