Learnings from The Daily Stoic — 03–2017
I think “The Daily Stoic” is a great resource for our busy everyday-life. I read in it every morning to get my mind in the right setting. The following are my thoughts and learnings from February 2017. I hope you can find some value in them. If all they do is make in interested in the subject and pick up the book, then my mission is accomplished.
My road to a more peaceful mind
01
Everybody can be a philosopher. He or she just needs to ask the right question and search for answers.
I like how Ryan Holiday phrased it:
“Perhaps we could say that we begin our journey into philosophy when be become aware of the ability to analyze our own minds.”
The key here is to loon inwards:
- How is my soul?
- How is my mind?
- And how can those things be shaped in the right way?
02
“Above all, it is necessary for a person to have a true self-estimate, for we commonly think we can do more than we really can.” — Seneca
Ego is the Enemy
If I overestimate where I stand in the world, if I think too highly of me and I can’t find my proper place, it won’t take long until I get hurt by someone else’s opinion of me.
I have to establish an accurate self-estimate to balance myself to the right position.
03
The “narrative fallacy” Nassim Taleb warns us about in his book The Black Swan is the fact that we are pretty good at telling stories about the past by looking back from the present to those events. Therein lie great dangers because we fool ourselves easily by constructing a “second-hand truth” that isn’t necessarily that way it happened. It’s more often than not the case that we edited some details in that story.
04
I want to question my first impressions, but it is hard to build that much awareness about everything that’s going on around me. Inevitably, when I start at a very basic level and work from there, I develop a habit which will turn into a deep skill one day.
“Self-awareness is the ability to evaluate the self objectively. It’s capacity to question our instincts, patterns, and assumptions.” — Ryan Holiday
Here’s a lesson I wrote as an annotation in the book:
I catch myself saying or thinking that I have a sound level of self-awareness. I still believe that it is greater than that of a lot of other people. However, there are so many nuances that I need to consider when evaluating self-awareness, I don’t think I am anywhere near I thought I would be, or I want to be.
05
“Yesterday’s the past, tomorrow’s the future, but today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present.” — Bil Keane
I love this quote!
I remind myself every day that the only thing we have is that one moment in time and then it’s gone. I want to value what I have right now. I can’t change what already happened, so I stop the wishful thinking about a different past.
A little self-talk: “Oh, you can’t wait for the future to arrive?! Well then, what if it turns out completely different than you’ve hoped? Wouldn’t that be devastating?!”
I try to live in the present moment instead, even though not thinking about the near future all the time is incredibly hard (for me).
I must be mindful of my thoughts and actions.
06
It doesn’t matter where you go. You can’t leave your personality behind. I feel lucky not to want to run away from anything. I’ve given up on the notion that it will work.
So, when I think I need a break, why don’t I just take one?!
I can go to a different room, turn off all devices, and just breath for a few minutes. Or I could take a walk in the park.
Peace of mind comes only from inside.
07
“How does your ruling reason manage itself? For in that is the key to everything. Whatever else remains, be it in the power of your choice or not, is but a corpse and smoke.” — Marcus Aurelius
I was unaware of it at the time, but not too long ago I started to connecting the dots: what if everything is connected?
Mind, Body, Soul…
It makes total sense to me. The soul guides the mind which guides the body. Teach it a proper framework, and the puzzle of life solves itself.
When I know what I can and can’t control, nothing can harm me. When I know that consuming the right data puts me in a state where I can perform at a higher level than all I need to do is to make sure my body is up to the task. This is very superficial and over-simplified version of my personal framework that I create for myself.
08
Structuring my day helps me. When I know what I need to get done at any given day, I find myself more at ease once I’m done with everything which gives me breathing room for the rest of the day or the day after.
I wrote about life being a problem of design, not of circumstance before.
Call To Action
If you like what you’ve just read it would mean the world to me if you hit that 💚 or a share this article, so your friends can find it too. Thank you for your time and support!
