210705 What I learned in my studies this morning

How many days fall

Outside my notice? Passing

Without being lived? 

Daily Stoic:

If a Roman emperor needs a pep talk to get out of bed, maybe it's ok I'm sometimes sluggish to rise. 

If I had fuck you money, I'd still have to choose to get out of bed when it's warm and inviting and enchanted with the need for just a few minutes more.... 

Though my days would be free to relax or play or work as I wished, as some point I'll still have decisions to be made that I don't want to make. Actions to be taken that I don't want to do. 

I understand, a little, that the money isn't what makes me happy or dejected. Money is a means to an end. It allows me to afford necessities and to fulfill dreams. My dreams and performing the work necessary achieve them, are what makes me happy. 

Having fuck you money won't help if all I do is increase my desires exponentially. No matter how much money I have, if I cannot control my thoughts and wants, I will never be satisfied. 

Given that, it follows that if I can change my desires and rein in my wants now, at this level, I can find satisfaction in my current circumstances. (AND in the event things pan out and I eventually earn my fuck you money.) 

Which is better? 

1) Plan and plan and struggle to obtain fuck you money, sacrificing my current life (family / friendships / balance) under the promise of better years to come, and, once I gather enough, I find my hedonic treadmill working overtime to undermine the satisfaction I feel with these new worldly goods; or 

2) Continue to pursue my goals and dreams — goals and dreams carefully curated to coordinate with my values and with reality — while learning to accept life as it is and recognizing that that I'm allowed to be serene and calm in the interim? 

I prefer the second route. It allows me to find peace today as well as tomorrow. No need to wait. I can make this change now. 

Today's Meditation:

From A Calendar of Wisdom by Leo Tolstoy

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

Chapter 22: Practicing Stoicism

7. Practicing austerity. The Stoics practiced occasional penury during good times to help them understand and prepare for times when their fortunes reversed.

Seneca, a man at one point richer than most anyone else in the empire, even the emperors themselves, practiced sleeping in the rough and not eating at least once a month.

Irvine, in his Stoic practice, regularly sets his environment to be colder than he would prefer (under dressing for the weather, no heater in the car, etc.) and advancing his yoga practice past his current physical limits.

But that's only part of the process.

Besides physical discomfort, Stoics also suggest students practice mental discomfort. Finding the edges of what they are comfortable with and moving beyond them.

Maybe it's something small like tackling a task you've been putting off because you aren't sure how to accomplish it. So you suck it up and begin. Just start and force yourself past the fear which was holding you back. That also is an act of Stoic preparation for potential hard times to come.

Overcoming obstacles, physical and mental, is Stoicism in practice. Any time you can push through that uncomfortable sense of anxiety, you will find that the next time a similar situation comes up, you will remember this success and realize that you can make it through this, too.

Imagine you have a recital. You are going to be in front of a crowd, doing something to entertain them. You've never done this before. It's frightening.

Our minds have an interesting habit leftover from our pre-civilization evolution: they often interpret attacks on our ego as attacks on ourselves. 

The mind won't make a distinction between this activity which will bruise your ego and one which saw your cave-ancestor fleeing from a predator. It dumps the same chemicals into your system. It lines up the same imaginary outcomes ("I'll die if I embarrass myself in front of these people!"). It follows all the same patterns evolution set up to protect us from literal death when all we are actually facing is, perhaps, a minor cases of embarrassment.

Here's the kicker: every single time you overcome such an obstacle, through rationality and mental discipline or just through stubbornness and perseverance, you make the next obstacles that much smaller and easier to beat.

This is Stoicism in practice. And practicing this is Stoicism.