The Daily Stoic - Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living Day 37 November 18th - Four Habits of the Stoic Mind "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 From the Author: "... let's align our minds along these four critical habits: 1. Accept only what is true. 2. Work for the common good. 3. Match our needs and wants with what is in our control. 4. Embrace what nature has in store for us." Accepting only truth, or nothing uncertain, can be quite difficult without total knowledge, and in this day and age there are many things claimed to be true that are obfuscated, whether intentionally, or through lack of understanding/research. You must use critical thinking, as best you can, to determine if a claim is truth, or bad actors are attempting to lead you astray. With misinformation being talked about by media, govt. officials and orgs, and people on social media, it's pretty clear that there is an agenda on who determines the truth. I think many could agree that those who claim for control over what we are fed as truth have something to hide. But that's not to say everything that is condemned by them /is/ truth. Use critical thinking. Number three and four are very much about not striving for control outside and over that which cannot be in our control. Nature is as does. We can only accept what comes, and must not complain, lest we expend our energy complaining instead of using the momentum to steer in a direction that works for us, within our wants, needs, and abilities.

The Daily Stoic - Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living Day 36 November 17th - Judge Not, Lest... "When philosophy is wielded with arrogance and stubbornly, it is the cause for the ruin of many. Let philosophy scrape off your own faults, rather than be a way to rail against the faults of others." -Seneca, Moral Letters, 103.4b-5a From the Author: "Remember, the proper direction of philosophy - of all things we're doing here - is focused inward. To make ourselves better and to leave other people to that task for themselves and their own journey. Our faults are in our control, and so we turn to philosophy to help scrape them off like barnacles from the hull of a ship. Other people's faults? Not so much. That's for them to do. Leave other people to their faults. Nothing in Stoic philosophy empowers you to judge them - only to accept them. Especially when we have so many of our own." First is to acknowledge we have faults, then is to explore the breadth and depth of them, then to recognise how they affect your and those around you. If we can do these things through questioning ourselves, even to dark places, and giving completely honest answers to ourselves, and breaking down that pride that we have of self-perfection, then we can heal, or scrape the barnacles off. One of the biggest faults that many may have is hypocrisy; holding others to standards that we don't hold ourselves to. Whether it's consciously or subconsciously, we will always forgive ourselves before others, if it allows us to absolve ourselves of blame. Which is another fault, along with judgement, that many have, or find themselves falling for. Take responsibility for your journey, but not another's. Have humility and patience while others start what you are already underway on.

The Daily Stoic - Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living Day 35 November 16th - Hope and Fear are the Same. "Hecato says, 'cease to hope and you will cease to fear.' ... The primary cause of both these ills is that instead of adapting ourselves to present circumstances we send out thoughts too far ahead." -Seneca, Moral Letters, 5.7b-8 From the Author: "Hope is gennerally regarded as good. Fear is generally regarded as bad. To a Stoic like Hecato (known as Hecato of Rhodes), they are the same - both are projections into the future about things we do not control. Both are the enemy of this present moment that you are actually in. Both mean you're living a life in opposition to amor fati. It's not about overcoming fears but understanding that both hope and fear contain a dangerous amount of want and worry in them. And, sadly, the want is what causes the worry." The idea that Hope and Fear are the same is a new one to me. But I'm fascinated how it's a blindspot that I didn't realise I had in a sense. In the last few years I've lowered my time preference, and I've often thought about the future, and hoped it could be something amazing. Rather, I should just be staying in the now, realising that I need to do the work today, so that these things may come into fruition, without hope, but with determination, focus and work. I know, without hope, that my future will be bright. I've always said that to myself. I also have no fears for the future because of this. No hope needed, no fear felt.

The Daily Stoic - Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living Day 34 November 15th - Everything Is Change "Meditate often on the swiftness with which all that exists and is coming into being is swept by us and carried away. For substance is like a river's unending glow, its activities continually changing and causes infinitely shifting so that almost nothing at all stands still." -Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.23 From the Author: "Marcus borrows this wonderful metaphor from Heraclitus, who said, 'No man steps in the same river twice.' Because the river has changed, and so has the man. Life is in a constant state of change. And so are we. To get upset by things is to wrongly assume that they will last. To kick ourselves or blame others is grabbing at the wind. To resent change is to wrongly assume that you have a choice in the matter. Everything is change. Embrace that. Flow with it." This one is very similar to November 9th - All is Fluid. But it takes a different look at it. Times where your pursuits go your way, and times when the trials feel against you, will not last. It's better to steel your resolve, ready yourself for impacts, but allow the impacts to come with knowledge that it is change in one way or another. It might offer you solutions, opportunities or rest. Each of these may come in a form that your subjective outlook will determine to be good or bad, easy or difficult, and may sway your energetic rhythm to and fro. But each are a chance for you to learn from, to flow with, and to improve upon, steeling your resolve further, removing subjective from the objective, and see that what ever it is, it just is. Let go of the blame, upset, and resentment of others, events, or change.

The Daily Stoic - Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living Day 31 November 12th - The Strong Accept Responsibility "If we judge as good and evil only the things in the power of our own choice, then there is no room left for blaming gods or being hosile to others." -Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.41 From the Author: "As the president of our own lives - and knowing that our powers begin and end with our reasoned choice - we would do well to internalize this same attitude (Of President Truman - "The Buck Ends Here" - you have no one to blame but yourself, no one to pass the buck to). We don't control things outside that sphere, but we do control our attitudes and our responses to those events - and that's plenty. It's enough that we go into each and every day knowing that there is no one to pass the buck to. It ends with us." I wrote a post on Twitter a year or two ago (I'm not much of a poster, so it was a spur of the moment thought that I needed to get out) in regards to taking responsibility, and that I'm seeing more and more that people of all ages no longer take responsibility for many things in their lives, and rather outsource these things to others. Whether it's authorities, people they see as better equipped than them, for lack of interest or time to find the answers and confidence to take into their own hands their lives. The post was very much centered on health at that stage, and that people will not take responsibility for what they eat, drink, or what they put on their bodies, and blame illness on factors out of their control (there are very few of these I honestly believe), or other people 'making them sick'. They then go to the doctor, who's education consisted of very short period on diet, and possibly nothing on light environment or other energetic aspects. These doctors do not treat root cause most often, and prescribe pills in many cases. This is outsourcing health because one cannot take responsibility. Another is finances. We're seeing through Bitcoin how we can take responsibility in a greater way of our finances, but I fear that self custody is going to be an uphill battle, since people seemingly don't understand the importance of taking responsibility. I think a fear of many is that if they fuck something up for themselves, they can't claim miscommunication, mistreatment, or misallocation and absolve themselves of the mistake. It takes real courage to admit mistakes, to learn and grow from them. It takes humility, too, to face up and tell someone you were wrong. But when it comes to your own self, humility is admitting you don't know, and finding answers for yourself, testing and verifying things (such as a carnivore diet for health), and courage is taking the steps to take control of your life and removing those safety nets that don't help, but rather hinder and reduce the freedom and quality of life you may have.