Today's Meditation(s): Meditations, 8.43 (Hicks and Hicks) From one of the most powerful men in the world.  And these are the desires he wants for himself. I try to follow such desires.  To strip away adding conclusions to what happens. To acknowledge what is going on, without shirking or shrinking. To think of my fellows first. To make their needs important to me.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 8.41 (Hicks and Hicks) Love my fate. Desire what happens to happen. Nothing else could have been. Nothing needed be.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 8.39 (Hicks and Hicks) And one tired to rule them all. Physical ailments assail me today. I've avoided complaint to a degree, but I still grumbled to my wife. If only self-control was the right tool to assuage my pains.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 8.36 (Hicks and Hicks) Only now imposes on the world. Always now. Not as important as I think it is. It's just a moment. It's just met moment. Not even shared, truly.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 8.14 (Hicks and Hicks) How can I wish for a world without fools? Such a thing cannot exist. I waste my time and effort in pursuit of it, generating only frustration and vexation. Be understanding. Accept faults graciously.  Help correct where I can. Accept and withdraw when I cannot. Be kind throughout.

Today's Meditation(s): You swear you were just in your twenties and now, here you are, looking at an invite to your twenty-year reunion. You remember those early months of the pandemic like it was yesterday, except it wasn’t just yesterday, it was six years ago.The 2020s are more than halfway done. The century is more than 25 percent done!  ~ The Daily Stoic 260417 I was just thinking this morning, before I read TDS, about how time flies. How I was two-thirds way through the drive to work before I noticed it was Friday and the week had disappeared.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations, 8.35 (Hicks and Hicks) At least it can be a lesson....

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 8.29 (Hicks and Hicks) It's never as easy as Marcus et al. make it sound. Just decide. Just change. Just reject. Just nothing. It's hard. Recognition comes first. Tough to see passion from the inside. Tough to discover the mind fog when it has you blanketed under darkness. Tough to strip away illusion, assumptions, mistakes, urges and find reality. Then comes analysis. What, exactly, is the issue? What is my impulse or passion demanding? Why does it seem like the only, the best, reaction ? What will it take to turn it into action . Now, to do it. To convince myself, despite seeming evidence, that this is not the right way to act. That I must pause, reconsider, develop, and execute a better plan. Not one of these steps is easy in the moment. But they are 8mportant.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations, 8.26 (Hicks and Hicks) That's just four things.... I do these. Not so well. Should do better But I am working on finding my faults, accepting that they are faults, and trying to make them better. Searching them out. Asking for help. Meaning it.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 8.25 (Hicks and Hicks) We are butt dust.... We return and recycle. To be taken up again into whatever needs our atoms next. Dirt. Plant. Animal. Water. Air. Rock. Who knows? Who cares? I certainly won't.

Today's Meditation(s): Stop bothering them. Stop making your worries their problem. If you want to serve them, be steady. Be present. Be someone they can talk to. Daily Dad 260410 I try to be. I listen I talk. I care. I challenge. I advise I sit in silence. 8 tell stories. I discuss things. I answer questions. I try not to dump my worries on them, though I also try to make sure they understand that serious things happen and what's important is how we respond.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations, 8.22 (Hicks and Hicks) Be good now. Ahora mismo.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 8.21 (Hicks and Hicks) Wrong time. Wrong place. That's why we're alone. That's why there's nobody out there.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 8.19 (Hicks and Hicks) Primal Scream feels personally called out.* What is my purpose? Is this a mission statement exercise? I'm here to help humanity be.. ... To be virtuous? Yes. To focus on my command center, my reason? Yes. To follow Nature? Yes. But what is my specific purpose? Be a good person. Raise good kids. Be a good husband. Be a good friend. Be a good coworker. Be a good neighbor.  Be a good stranger. Help people. Be kind. ===== * I wonder, on the off chance that anyone besides AI finds this, if future historians wonder about that one? Or are we so thoroughly recorded and documented that it'll be obvious?

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 8.18 (Hicks and Hicks) We are all the stuff of stars. I will be recycled into new things, just as I was made, and am continually remade, from things prior.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 8.16 (Hicks and Hicks) It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to . . . accept instruction readily. Sadly, this is all too often incorrect. Myself included. It's hard to accept I'm wrong. It's tough to admit,  openly admit, I'm misinformed or my logic is faulty or my thoughts simply don't match reality. I try to accept correction gracefully. It doesn't always work.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 8.15 (Hicks and Hicks) I remind myself of this dictum often. How am I wishing to live in a world where uncaring people don't exist? Where boors and the inconsiderate are extinct? Or that inconveniences and accidents do not occur? As soon expect to wake in a world of candyfloss clouds and marmalade skies. These people, these things, these situations. . .  they do exist and I must deal with them at any time.  So stop wasting time, effort, energy, and brainpower to thwart the stars.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 8.9 (Hicks and Hicks) It's hard to love my fate. Harder still to love it enough not to grumble. Not even inside my head? Not even there. It shouldn't matter that the life I would grumble about is not in a Palace. By reason they are the same. Even if I expand the scope beyond reason, the Palace is likely a bit more. . . .   everything than my life. Including more stress and more anxieties. And more responsibilities.

Today's Meditation(s): They are loud. They are messy. They don’t listen. They hate bedtime. They fight with their siblings. They break their stuff…they break your stuff. They are kids. This is what they do. Why are you surprised by it? Why do you fight it? Not only is it what you signed up for, it doesn’t last. Each time, each example—however overwhelming or frustrating in the moment—is bringing you one step closer to the last time, bringing you closer to the empty nest, to the quiet house, to that day when, as we’ve said, you’ll be jealous of the person you are right now. ~ The Daily Dad 260403 (emphasis added) I see these days slipping away. None of my kids are kids now. Some all-but-grown, some on the cusp. All fighting to find an identity. I catch myself resenting their request for time or attention and work to extinguish that impulse. I remind myself to say YES. I get off my ass and go be with my child. And sometimes I don't. On occasion, I do not. On occasion, I choose ...

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 8.8 (Hicks and Hicks) I told my son this just the other day: never stop learning, never stop improving yourself. Even if I can't be as good as I wish in XYZ, I can always be better at things internal to me. Kindness  Trust  Generosity of mind, heart, resources Understanding Forgiviness Assistance Instruction Listening and attention Care Gentleness Love Any of these can be better at any time. I'll never be so good that I can't improve, that I can't find a way to treat my fellow humans as important, as people, as ends in themselves.

Today's Meditation Meditations , 8.7 (Hicks and Hicks) Reason clearly. Help others.  Change what I can. Love what I cannot. That's only four things. Easy peasy....  Concentrating on a limited set of precepts lets me focus my energy, more easily discovering the Tao of the moment. Not that it will be easy. Choices can still be grueling. Options can still force me to exclude something I desperately want or need or which is patently good in favor of an option better still or more important. It. Can. Still. Suck . . . challenging me to embrace my fate and the state of the world around me. A lesson I truly need to work on.

Today's Meditation: Meditations , 8.5 (Hicks and Hicks) Being a good person, following Nature, pursuing virtue . . . . I can still be kind. I can still be gentle. Still quiet, respectful, and dignified.  I can use my philosophy to be better in all ways, especially those which help me treat others well and help my community.

Today's Meditation: Meditations , 8.4 (Hicks and Hicks) The world is as it is. I can accept this and make my way, doing what I can, or I can reject it, "kick against the pricks," and see where that gets me. When I fight Nature, I've lost my way. Equanimity will always be over the horizon when I refuse to accept the truth of the world and insist on my own way. Would that ugly and vicious people did not exist. Would that accidents and delays did not happen. Would that disappointment and frustration stopped plaguing our lives But it does. They do. They will. Live according to Nature and accept the world as it is. There is peace.

Today's Meditation: Meditations , 8.1 (Hicks and Hicks) Not praise. Not sex. Neither food nor wine nor drugs. Not adrenaline or travel or rest. Being good feels best, is best. Be good. Be just. Be temperate. Be courageous. Be kind. Be wise.

Today's Meditation: Meditations , 7.73 (Hicks and Hicks) Do it because  it's right and be happy wrih that. I've done right. I've kept my word. I've lived up to my ideals. I've cleared my conscience. I've been true to who I want to be. I've been the person I want my kids to emulate. How should this not be enough?