Today's Meditation(s): Meditations, 10.30 (Hicks and Hicks) Stop. How many Stoic instructions begin with this simple step? Stop! . . . before I harm my virtue. Stop! . . . before I say that thing that can't be taken back. Stop! . . . before I fuck it up. Take the moment to pause. Step back. Look again. What am I missing? Find Frankl's space between the stimulus and response. Act , rather than re act. Here, it teaches me to be more forgiving and understanding, examining my glass house before I launch my stone.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 10.23 (Hicks and Hicks) My mission is the same no matter where I am: be a good person, do good things, help others, celebrate others, put people first. And my resources are the same no matter where I am: reason, Nature, right focus, right attitude. Keep working on developing those resources. Keep exercising them. Keep practicing with them. Build that mental 'muscle memory' so that my re actions are closer to the actions I want to take, requiring less adjustment, faster adaptation, more natural attunement between my actions and my goals.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 10.18 (Hicks and Hicks) Meditations , 10.18 (Waterfield) An extension of yesterday's musing on time and it's lack among all things, today's passage also leans heavily into that ephemeral nature. Things decay and die. Human works decay and die. I decay and die. It's part of my purpose here. To leave. To 'exit the party' when the time is right rather than overstay my welcome.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 10.17 (Hicks and Hicks) Meditations , 10.17 (Waterfield) This? ALL this? This is nothing. Utterly insignificant on scales of time and extension. Now, no one will notice. Soon, no one will care. So my life has only what meaning I bring to it. Simple. Devastating. Hopeful. Insignificant still. Done , still. So get and do.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 10.16 (Hicks and Hicks) Meditations , 10.16 (Waterfield) My favorite Stoic quote. Keeps me on track. Keeps me focused. Keeps me here, now. Keeps me aware. Keeps me decisive. Keeps me courageous. Keeps me with Nature and Reason.

Today's Meditation(s): He'd have been 17, but I gave him back 14 years ago. This is an indifferent to Stoics. But that's a technical term. It's not I don't — or am not allowed to— care that he's dead. It's not it doesn't hurt. It's not this isn't important. It's keeping myself within rational bounds in my grief. It's acknowledging, without surrending to, my mourning. It's living with it and continuing, if only for my family in those times when I feel maybe my personal existence isn't worth the ticket It's feeling I failed to give my other kids what they deserved (they should have their brother) and this robbed them of so many, so many better , lives. So here I am. And there he is. There he was.

Today's Meditation(s): The most highly paid athletes in the world, the people who have practiced and trained their whole lives, the ones with every incentive and every predisposition necessary—what do they apparently need from their coaches? They need to be reminded over and over again of the basics. They need little mantras and mottos. They need encouragement. They need to hear the coach repeat the team values and rules over and over and over again..... If the pros need to hear it a thousand times, your kids probably need to hear it again. And by ‘it,’ we mean everything—every lesson, every rule, every instruction. And by ‘again,’ we mean essentially an infinite number of times. Not just for sports, but for all the things you want them to understand, for all the things they do. They’re going to need to hear it explained, over and over and over. They’re going to need it simplified, boiled down to its essence. They’re going to need it put up on the wall. They’re going to need to hea...

Today's Meditation(s): Likewise, life is an indifferent, but what we make of life isn’t indifferent. So, when you’re told that even these things are indifferents, that’s not a reason for carelessness; and when you’re urged to take care, that’s not a reason for debasing yourselves and placing value on material things.  Epictetus, Discourses 2.6.1 Indifferents are things without moral import. Not things which have no effect on my life. Discourses  (Waterfield) 2.1. 5-6 The car about to hit me head on? Indifferent to my moral standing. Important to my continued living. The rule is that I should not sacrifice the more important (virtue) for the less (externals). If I can avoid the oncoming car without selling my soul, I may (and probably should) turn, brake, veer, etc. And if I can only save myself by killing another person? There is the test.

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses by Epictetus, 2.2.21a, 2.2.24b-2.2.25a Waterfield:   "Make my mind capable of adapting itself to whatever happens." ...if circumstances test you in a different way, what will you say or do? Remember this general principle, then, and you’ll never be short of advice. Hard:   "Ensure that my mind will be able to adapt itself to whatever come about." If the circumstances should dictate something different, what will you say, what will you do? Keep this general principle in mind, then, and you’ll never be in need of advice. Long:   "Enable my mind to adapt itself to whatever comes." For if circumstances dictate something different, what will you say or what will you do? Bear in mind, therefore, this general principle and you will not be at a loss for a suggestion. Oldfather:  "Well, form my mind so as to accommodate itself to any event." For if circumstances require something else, what will you say or what will y...

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations, 9.10 (Hicks and Hicks) Even if it seems counterproductive now, reason will out. Work to give it the time it needs to let passion pass and let the elephant be swayed. That's an important duty.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations, 9.7 (Hicks and Hicks) Give my reason a chance , I take it. The elephant leads....

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations, 9.6 (Hicks and Hicks) Doing these things will be enough to lead to the tranquility I am searching for. Do them.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations, 9.4 (Hicks and Hicks) No one does evil willingly and knowingly. They are vicious because they misunderstand what virtue is and why it's important. If they knew they'd choose good. 

Today's Meditation(s): Those years feel exhausting when you’re in them. Loud. Sticky. Chaotic. You count down the minutes to bedtime. You look forward to it being quiet. You tell yourself that, one day, things will calm down. And then one day, they do. The house gets quiet. Those little stools disappear. The chaos organizes itself into independence. Now, you miss what you just rushed through. 260514 Daily Dad The days of tiny stools are behind me now. Now, instead, I young adults for whom I do my best to exemplify virtue and teach them thereof. It's so different, but so rewarding to see it take hold. My kids are good people and I'm proud of them.

Today's Meditation(s): It must be bewildering to be a kid. The world is a confusing and illogical place…and so little of it is explained to them at first. And their brains are still developing, to boot. Imagine what things would feel like if you didn’t have object permanence (and kids don’t until they’re around a year old)! Imagine falling asleep in the car or in the stroller and waking up hours later, alone in a pitch-black room. Imagine you’ve never been in a classroom and sat at something called a “desk” for the entire day…and then suddenly this is your life. Imagine learning that, in English, there are three words that sound the same but mean totally different things (“Mary,” “merry,” and “marry”—although this may depend on your accent) and that this is not at all uncommon. Imagine you spent most of your existence in the safe bubble of your parents’ care and then suddenly you’re a teenager and there are real—even life-or-death—consequences to so much of what you want to do. The...

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 8.59 (Hicks and Hicks) Fix it or hush. No complaining about something I can fix but haven't, through inability or laziness.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 8.56 (Hicks and Hicks) What a positive way to view it.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 8.55 (Hicks and Hicks) One of those passages that would drive nonStoics nuts. It's easy to see how someone would interpret this as ignoring the 'harm' caused to third-parties by one's wickedness. All based on a misunderstanding of harm, on thinking harm is anything other than giving up my virtue.