210527 What I learned in my studies this morning

Baby steps done well

Shape the course of my life's flow. 

Find the path. Move on.

From The Daily Stoic: 

The journey of a thousand miles... 

I make small improvements each day — try to, at least — whether it's being more attentive to my wife, or taking the extra moment with the kids, or resisting the urge to nibble on a sweet. Every little bit helps. 

Today's Meditation:

From A Guide to the Good Life by William B. Irvine 

Chapter 11: Insults — On Putting Up with Put-Downs 

More lessons in letting insults pass through us, leaving us untouched.

If they are contemptible, be pleased. If whoever is insulting us is a bad person, unworthy of our respect or, worse, worthy of our scorn, then we should be glad they disapprove of our actions. Wouldn't that be a good indicator we're on the right path?

Imagine them to be overgrown children. Just as a mother would be foolish to accept Insults from her toddler as real or meaningful, we can remain calm in the face of scorn by seeing them as children who do not understand the world and, more specifically, are too immature to judge us or our actions. 

Remember what is up to us. Keep in mind that "nothing is good or bad save thinking make it so."  If we value or inner peace, safeguard it with the knowledge that even if no other practice takes the sting from someone's words, we even then have a final ability which will preserve our tranquility: our upset is an internal choice. Choose to let it flow around us, like water past a rock, unmoved, and we can withstand any torrent of invective no matter how virulent. 

“Remember,” says Epictetus, “that what is insulting is not the person who abuses you or hits you, but the judgment about them that they are insulting.” As a result, he says, “another person will not do you harm unless you wish it; you will be harmed at just that time at which you take yourself to be harmed.”