Takeaways from “A stoic’s diary”
Picked up this book in Kindle format. It’s written by author Dipanshu Rawal and this being his debut book, he has made it free for all to read.
Frankly speaking, I didn’t start reading the book with any expectations in place. I just read it because it was available and the topic was something that I am reading about separately. Since it’s a quick read, even if you already knew the points the author is trying to make, you will not lose much time.
The following are the takeaways for me from the book.
The first and the most frequent question that comes up when we would like to follow Stoicism is, “Is this in my control or not?”. If it isn’t, there is no point in feeling bad/good about it. If it is, time to buckle up and get to work.
Important qualities to ensure we take maximum benefits of Stoic based thinking are,
- Self-introspection
- Unbiased opinion about things in life
It’s not about not having emotions. It’s about realizing where there is a meaning in having emotions and where there isn’t.
Having expectations on things that are not under our control will disturb our ground level (of energy). This will lead to either an excited state (if it results in something positive) or a depressed state (if it results in something negative). And in turn, since we are talking about something out of our control, we will literally not be able to do anything. Hence, it’s important not to get entangled into this.
Everything is temporary — I cannot accept it as a blanket statement since I am grappling with the application of this statement to some situations in my life. It’s easier to consider and accept the statement in case of things/opportunities such as mobile I lost or a job I like but I had to resign. However, it is very difficult to accept the same in the case of losing people/relations.
Without a plan or without knowing what you want, it’s very difficult to accomplish the task in a set amount of time. Take it analogous to what happens if we go to a grocery store with and without having a list.
External things aren’t the problem. It’s the way we receive them that will determine how we feel about it. For example, if we expected something and it didn’t happen, we aren’t feeling sad because it didn’t happen rather we are feeling sad because we expected it to happen but it didn’t.
Meditation is all about calming down the ever running thoughts so that your brain will finally be able to take a break. Without the break, you will be fixated on just your target and will not be able to see anything else. Missing out on these things will lead to missing out on genuine opportunities and will be harmful in the long run.
