Stoic Meditations

I recently purchased the book The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Steven Hanselman. It has a year's worth of daily passages meant to offer wisdom from the famous stoics of antiquity. I have been reading one a day for two weeks, and the experience has been very enriching. I'd like to try dictating them here in the hope that someone find them as edifying as I have. I may miss a day or two sometimes, but I'll catch up.

If you want to open any of the passages for discussion or have questions about anything, feel free to send a personal message or comment below!

If you want to provide more anonymous, non-attributional feedback, positive or negative, you can also reach me at my Sarahah Account

Thanks, and I hope this resonates!

One in the Force,

Reacher

"Tranquility can't be grasped except by those who have reached an unwavering and firm power of judgment - the rest constantly fall and rise in their decisions, wavering in a state of alternately rejecting and accepting things. What is the cause of this back and forth? It's because nothing is clear and they rely on the most uncertain guide - common opinion."
In Seneca's essay on tranquility, he uses the Greek word euthymia, which he defines as "believing in yourself and trusting that you are on the right path, and not being in doubt by following the myriad footpaths of those wandering in every direction." It is this state of mind, he says, that produces tranquility.

Clarity of vision allows us to have this belief. That's not to say we're always going to be 100 percent certain of everything, or that we even should be. Rather, it's that we can rest assured we're heading generally in the right direction - that we don't need to constantly compare ourselves with other people or change our mind every three seconds based on new information.

Instead, tranquility and peace are found in identifying our path and in sticking to it: staying the course - making adjustments here and there, naturally - but ignoring the distracting sirens who beckon us to turn toward the rocks.

The Daily Stoic: 365 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance and the Art of the Living by Ryan Holiday is an excellent resource and one that I use as part of my daily practice.

Stoicism is a practical philosophy for life that can be applied by anyone willing to give it a go. It is a daily pursuit. In addition the advantages have been well documented. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy borrows much from the Stoics. More and more psychologists are picking it up along with mindfulness as modalities for treating conditions such as depression, anxiety and grief as well as substance abuse.

Over the last two years I have taken part in Stoic Week which usually runs in October. Everyday a different theme is explored and participants are invited to apply Stoic practices. There is also a four week course which runs through http://modernstoicism.com/ .

Excellent books to read on modern Stoicism include:
A Guide to the Good Life (The ancient art of Stoic Joy) by William Irvine
How to be a Stoic: Ancient wisdom for modern living by Massimo Pigliucci
Stoicism and the Art of Happiness by Donald Robertson

Then of course there are the required readings:

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Letters from a Stoic by Seneca
The Discourses by Epictetus

In my view Marcus Aurelius was the First Real World Jedi! Truly inspirational character and someone whose writings inspires me to be a better person.

Combined with the Jedi practices of meditation, physical exercise, study, application and service the Stoic philosophy is a perfect match for the Jedi philosopher.

I found stoicism about a year ago and I love the pragmatic philosophy. I hadn't found this one yet. Thanks for the tip!

"So in he majority of other things, we address circumstances not in accordance with the right assumptions, but mostly by following wretched habit. Since all that I've said is the case, the person in training must seek to rise above, so as to stop seeking out pleasure and steering away from pain; to stop clinging to living and abhorring death; and in the case of property and money, to stop valuing receiving over giving."
A worker is asked: "Why did you do it this way?" The answer, "Because that's the way we've always done things." The answer frustrates every good boss and sets the mouth of every entrepreneur watering. The worker has stopped thinking and is mindlessly operating out of habit. The business is ripe for disruption by a competitor, and the worker will probably get fired by any thinking boss.

We should apply the same ruthlessness to our own habits. In fact, we are studying philosophy to break ourselves of rote behavior. Find what you do out of rote memory or routine. Ask yourself: Is this really the best way to do it? Know why you do what you do - do it for the right reasons.

"I am your teacher and you are learning in my school. My aim is to bring you to completion, unhindered free from compulsive behavior, unrestrained, without shame, free, flourishing, and happy, looking to God in things great and small - your aim is to learn and diligently practice all these things. Why then don't you complete the work, if you have the right aim and I have both the right aim and right preparation? What is missing?...The work is quite feasible, and is the only thing in our power...Let go of the past. We must only begin. Believe me and you will see."
Do you remember, in school or early in your life, being afraid to try something because you feared you might fail at it? Most teenagers choose to fool around rather than exert themselves. Halfhearted, lazy effort gives them a ready-made excuse: "It doesn't matter. I wasn't even trying."

As we get older, failure is not so inconsequential anymore. What's at stake is not some arbitrary grade or intramural sports trophy, but the quality of your life and your ability to deal with the world around you.

Don't let that intimidate you, though. You have the best teachers in the world: the wisest philosophers who ever lived. And not only are you capable, te professor is asking for something very simple: just begin the work. The rest follows.

"Pass through this brief patch of time in harmony with nature, and come to your final resting place gracefully, just as a ripened olive might drop, praising the earth that nourished it and grateful to the tree that gave it growth."
There are some stunningly beautiful turns of phrase in Marcus's Meditations - a surprising treat considering the intended audience (just himself). In one passage, he praises the "charm and allure" of nature's processes, the "stalks of ripe grain bending low, the frowning brow of the lion, the foam dripping from the boar's mouth." We should thank private rhetoric teacher Marcus Cornelius Fronto for the imagery in these vivid passages. Fronto, widely considered to be Rome's best orator besides Cicero, was chosen by Marcus's adopted father to teach Marcus to think and write and speak.

More than just pretty phrases, they gave him - and now us - a powerful perspective on ordinary or seemingly unbeautiful events. It takes an artist's eye to see that the end of life is not unlike a ripe fruit falling from its tree. It takes a poet to notice the way "baking bread splits in places and those cracks, while not intended in the baker's art, catch our eye and serve to stir our appetite" and find a metaphor in them.

There is clarity (and joy) in seeing what others can't see, in finding grace and harmony in places others overlook. Isn't that far better than seeing the world as some dark place?

"A podium and a prison is each a place, one high and the other low, but in each place your freedom of choice can be maintained if you so wish."
The Stoics all held vastly different stations in life. Some were rich, some were born at the bottom of Rome's rigid hierarchy. Some had it easy, and others had it unimaginably hard. This is true for us as well - we all come to philosophy from different backgrounds, and even within our own lives we experience bouts of good fortune and bad fortune.

But in all circumstances - adversity or advantage - we really have just one thing we need to do: focus on what is in our control as opposed to what is not. Right now we might be laid low with struggles, whereas just a few years ago we might have lived high on the hog, and in just a few days we might be doing so well that success is actually a burden. One thing will stay constant: our freedom of choice - both in the big picture and small picture.

Ultimately, this is clarity. Whoever we are, wherever we are - what matters is our choices. What are they? How will we evaluate them? How will we make the most of them? Those are questions life asks us, regardless of our station. How will you answer?

"Your principles can't be extinguished unless you snuff out the thoughts that feed them, for it's continually in your power to reignite new ones...It's possible to start living again! See things anew as you once did - that is how to restart life!"
Have you had a bad couple weeks? Have you been drifting away from the principles and beliefs that you hold dear? It's perfectly fine. It happens to all of us.

In fact, it probably happened to Marcus - that may be why he scribbled this note to himself. Perhaps he'd been dealing with difficult senators or having difficulties with his troubled son. Perhaps in these scenarios he'd lost his temper, became depressed, or stopped checking in with himself. Who wouldn't?

But the reminder here is that no matter what happens, no matter how disappointing our behavior has been in the past, the principles themselves remain unchanged. We can return and embrace them at any moment. What happened yesterday - what happened five minutes ago - is the past. We can reignite and restart whenever we like.

Why not do it right now?

"Ask yourself the following first thing in the morning:

• What am I lacking in attaining freedom from passion?
• What for tranquility?
• What am I? A mere body, estate-holder, or reputation? None of these things.
• What, then? A rational being.
• What then is demanded of me? Meditate on your actions.
• How did I steer away from serenity?
• What did I do that was unfriendly, unsocial, or uncaring?
• What did I fail to do in all these things?"

Many successful people have a morning ritual. For some, it's meditation. For others, it's exercise. For many, it's journaling - just a few pages where they write down their thoughts, fears, hopes. In these cases the point is not so much the activity itself as it is the ritualized reflection. The idea is to take some time to look inward and examine.

Taking that time is what Stoics advocated more than almost anything else. We don't know whether Marcus Aurelius wrote his Meditations in the morning or at night, but we know he carved out moments of quiet alone time - and that he wrote for himself, not for anyone else. If you're looking for a place to start your own ritual, you could do worse that Marcus's example and Epictetus's checklist.

Every day, starting today, ask yourself these same tough questions. Let philosophy and hard work guide you to better answers, one morning at a time, over the course of a life.

"I will keep constant watch over myself and - most usefully - will put each day up for review. For this is what makes us evil - that none of us looks back upon our own lives. We reflect upon only that which we are about to do. And yet our plans for the future descend from the past."
In a letter to his older brother Novatus, Seneca describes a beneficial exercise he borrowed from another prominent philosopher. At the end of each day he would ask himself variations of the following questions: What bad habit did I curb today? How am I better? Were my actions just? How can I improve?

At the beginning or end of each day, the Stoic sits down with his journal and reviews: what he did, what he thought, what could be improved. It's for this reason that Marcus Aurelius's Meditations is a somewhat inscrutable book - it was for personal clarity and not public benefit. Writing down Stoic exercises was and is also a form of practicing them, just as repeating a prayer or hymn might be.

Keep your own journal, whether it's saved on a computer or in a little notebook. Take time to consciously recall the events of the previous day. Be unflinching in your assessments. Notice what contributed to your happiness and what detracted from it. Write down what you'd like to work on or quotes that you like. By making the effort to record such thoughts, you're less likely to forget them. An added bonus: you'll have a running tally to track your progress too.

"Let's pass over to the really rich - how often the occasions they look just like the poor! When they travel abroad they must restrict their baggage, and when haste is necessary, they dismiss their entourage. And those who are in the army, how few of their possessions they get to keep..."
The author F. Scott Fitzgerald, who often glamorized the lifestyles of the rich and famous in book like The Great Gatsby, opens one of his short stories with the now classic lines: "Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me." A few years after this story was published, his friend Ernest Hemingway teased Fitzgerald by writing, "Yes, they have more money."

That's what Seneca is reminding us. As someone who was one of the richest men in Rome, he knew firsthand that money only marginally changes life. It doesn't solve the problems that people without it seem to think it will. In fact, no material possession will. External things can't fix internal issues.

We constantly forget this - and it causes us so much confusion and pain. As Hemingway would later write Fitzgerald, "He thought [the rich] were a special glamorous race and when he found they weren't it wrecked him as much as any other thing that wrecked him." Without a change the same could be true of us.

"From Rusticus...I learned to read carefully and not be satisfied with a rough understanding of the whole, and not to agree too quickly with those who have a lot to say about something."
The first book of Marcus Aurelius's Meditations begins with a catalog of gratitude. He thanks , one by one, the leading influences in his life. One of the people he thanks is Quintus Junius Rusticus, a teach who developed in his student a love of deep clarity and understanding - a desire to not just stop at the surface when it comes to learning.

It was also from Rusticus that Marcus was introduced to Epictetus. In fact, Rusticus loaned Marcus his personal copy of Epictetus's lectures. Marcus clearly wasn't satisfied with just getting the gist of these lectures and didn't simply accept them on his teacher's recommendation. Paul Johnson once joked that Edmund Wilson read books "as though the author was on trial for his life." That's how Marcus read Epictetus - and when the lessons passed muster, he absorbed them. They became part of his DNA as a human being. He quoted them at length over the course of his life, finding real clarity and strength in words, even amid the immense luxury and power he would come to possess.

That's the kind of deep reading and study we need to cultivate as well, which is why we're reading just one page a day instead of a chapter at a time. So we can take the time to read attentively and deeply.

What's left to be prized? This I think - to limit our action or inaction to only what's in keeping with the needs of our own preparation...it's what the exertions of education and teaching are all about - here is the thing to be prized! If you hold this firmly, you'll stop trying to get yourself all the other things...If you don't, you won't be free, self-sufficient, or liberated from passion, but necessarily full of envy, jealousy, and suspicion for any who have the power to take them, and you'll plot against those who do have what you prize... But by having some self-respect for your own mind and prizing it, you will please yourself and be in better harmony with your fellow human beings, and more in tune with the gods - praising everything they have set in order and allotted you."
Warren Buffett, whose net worth is approximately $65 billion, lives in the same house he bought in 1958 for $31,500. John Urschel, a lineman for the Baltimore Ravens, makes millions but manages to live on $25,000 a year. San Antonio Spurs star Kawhi Leonard gets around in the 1997 Chevy Tahoe he's had since he was a teenager, even with a contract worth $94 million. Why? It's not because these men are cheap. It's because the things that matter to them are cheap.

Neither Buffett nor Urschel nor Leonard ended up this way by accident. Their lifestyle is the result of prioritizing. They cultivate interests that are decidedly below their financial means, and as a result, any income would allow them to pursue the things they most care about. It just happens that they became wealthy beyond any expectation. This kind of clarity - about what they love most in the world - means they can enjoy their lives. It means they'd still be happy even if the markets were to turn or their careers were cut short by injury.

The more things we desire and the more we have to do to earn or attain those achievements, the less we actually enjoy our lives - and the less free we are.

"Erase the false impressions from your mind by constantly saying to yourself, I have it in my soul to keep out any evil, desire or any kind of disturbance - instead, seeing the true nature of things, I will give them only their due. Always remember this power that nature gave you."
Anyone who has taken a yoga class or been exposed to Hindu or Buddhist thought has probably heard of the concept of a mantra. In Sanskrit, it means "sacred utterance" - essentially a word, a phrase, a thought, even a sound - intended to provide clarity or spiritual guidance. A mantra can be especially helpful in the meditative process because it allows us to block out everything else while we focus.

It's fitting, then, that Marcus Aurelius would suggest this Stoic mantra - a reminder or watch phrase to use when we feel false impressions, distractions, or the crush of everyday life upon us. It says, essentially, "I have the power within me to keep that out. I can see the truth."

Change the wording as you like. That part is up to you. But have a mantra and use it to find the clarity you crave.

There are three areas in which the person who would be wise and good must be trained. The first has to do with desires and aversions - that a person may never miss the mark in desires nor fall into what repels them. The second has to do with impulses to act and not to act - and more broadly, with duty - that a person may act deliberately for good reasons and not carelessly. The third has to do with freedom from deception and composure and the whole area of judgment, the assent our mind gives to its perceptions. Of these areas, the chief and most urgent is the first which has to do with the passions, for strong emotions arise only when we fail in our desires and aversions."
Today, let's focus on the three areas of training that Epictetus laid out for us.

First, we must consider what we should desire and what we should be averse to. Why? So that we want what is good and avoid what is bad. It's not enough to just listen to your body - because our attractions often lead us astray.

Next, we must examine our impulses to act - that is, our motivations. Are we doing things for the right reasons? Or do we act because we haven't stopped to think? Or do we believe that we have to do something?

Finally, there is our judgment. Our ability to see things clearly and properly comes when we use our great gift from nature: reason.

These are three distinct areas of training, but in practice they are inextricably intertwined. Our judgment affects what we desire, our desires affect how we act, just as our judgment determines how we act. But we can't just expect this to happen. We must put real thought and energy into each area of our lives. If we do, we'll find real clarity and success.

Take a good hard look at people's ruling principle, especially of the wise, what they run away from and what they seek out."
Seneca has said, "Without a ruler to do it against, you can't make crooked straight." That is the role of wise people in our lives - to serve as a model and inspiration. To bounce our ideas off and test our presumptions.

Who that person will be for you is up to you. Perhaps it's your father or your mother. Maybe it's a philosopher or a writer or a thinker. Perhaps WWJD (What would Jesus do?) is the right model for you.

But pick someone, watch what they do (and what they don't do), and do your best to do the same.

"At every moment keep a sturdy mind on the task at hand, as a Roman and a human being, doing it with strict and simple dignity, affection, freedom, and justice - giving yourself a break from all other considerations. You an do this if you approach each task as if it is your last, giving up every distraction, emotional subversion of reason, and all drama, vanity, and complaint over your fair share. You can see how mastery over a few things makes it possible to live an abundant and devout life - for, if you keep watch over these things, the gods won't ask for more."
Each day presents the chance to overthink things. What should I wear? Do they like me? Am I eating well enough? What's next for me in life? Is my boss happy with my work?

Today, let's focus just on what's in front of us. We'll follow the dictum that New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick gives his players: "Do your job." Like a Roman, like a good soldier, like a master of our craft. We don't need to get lost in a thousand other distractions or in other people's business.

Marcus says to approach each task as if it were your last, because it very well could be. And even if it isn't, botching what's right in front of you doesn't help anything. Find clarity in the simplicity of doing your job today.

"If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters - don't wish to seem knowledgeable. And if some regard you as important,
distrust yourself."
One of the most powerful thing you can do as a human being in our hyperconnected, 24/7 media would say is: "I don't know." Or, more provocatively, "I don't care." Most of society seems to have taken it as a commandment that one must know about every single current event, watch every episode of every critically acclaimed television series, follow the news religiously, and present themselves to others as an informed and worldly individual.

But where is the evidence that this is actually necessary? Is the obligation enforced by the police? Or is it that you're just afraid of seeming silly at a dinner party? Yes, you owe it to your country and your family to know generally about events that may directly affect them, but that's about all.

How much more time, energy, and pure brainpower would you have available if you drastically cut your media consumption? How much more rested and present would you feel if you were no longer excited and outraged by every scandal, breaking story, and potential crisis (many of which never come to pass anyway)?

"Many are harmed by fear itself, and many may have come to their fare while dreading fate.
"Only the paranoid survive," Andy Grove, a former CEO of Intel, famously said. It might be true. But we also know that the paranoid often destroy themselves quicker and more spectacularly than any enemy. Seneca, with his access and insight into the most powerful elite in Rome, would have seen this dynamic play out quite vividly. Nero, the student whose excesses Seneca tried to curb, killed not only his own mother and wife but eventually turned on Seneca, his mentor, too.

The combination of power, fear, and mania can be deadly. The leader, convinced that he might be betrayed, acts first and betrays others first. Afraid that he's not well-liked, he works so hard to get others to like him that it has the opposite effect. Convinced of mismanagement, he micromanages and becomes the source of the mismanagement. And on and on - the things we fear or dread, we blindly inflict on ourselves.

The next time you are afraid of some supposedly disastrous outcome, remember that if you don't control your impulses, if you lose your self-control, you may be the very source of the disaster you so fear. It has happened to smarter and more powerful and more successful people. It can happen to us too.