Just shooting the breeze
The act of accomplishing a thing should be enough.
Why do people need the prestige to be satisfied?
Isn’t the act of accomplishing something, of creating something meaningful enough?
Take NBA legend Kobe Bryant for instance.
In the early years of his professional career, he wanted all of the lights to shine on him.
He wanted credit for every success his team, the Los Angeles Lakers, achieved. Continue reading “Is Prestige Necessary?”
What do you control?
I started practicing stoicism when the pandemic happened a few years ago.
During that time, the whole world shut down and there was a lot of uncertainty. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen and I was worried about my future. I was anxious.
But then I came upon The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and after reading a few of the daily meditations, I learned that I shouldn’t give attention to things I don’t control.
The world events that were going on during the Covid pandemic? I can’t control them.
But I can control my thoughts and feelings about them.
So, why would I allow myself to be weak and fixate on the negatives when I can focus on more productive thoughts?
This lesson on control has extended far past the events of the pandemic. Continue reading “Here’s The One Stoic Principle That’s Helped Me The Most”
“There are more things … likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
Lucius Annaeus Seneca is one of the most discussed Stoics.
His most famous works include Letters from a Stoic and On the Shortness of Life, and they are studied by many philosophers and stoic practitioners.
And if any of the Stoics should get a pass for getting stressed out, it should be Seneca.
Why? Because this man faced a lot throughout his life. But despite the many terrible things he experienced, he remained mindful, and focused on the positives and on what he could control. Continue reading “How Seneca Dealt With Stress and Anxiety”
Here’s how the philosopher-king dealt with the stresses of leading the Roman Empire.
We all suffer from stress.
Whether it be an upcoming presentation, a big decision or financial debt weighing heavy on our minds -all of these situations cause us to feel anxious as we imagine a dreary, negative future.
This was something I had to deal with when I was in my late 20s.
I had a debt problem and couldn’t seem to decrease it. I wasn’t making a lot of money each month and the interest rates kept rising and rising.
I was stressed out and every time the topic of money crept into my mind, I would spiral down a black hole of worry.
I’d tell myself that I was never going to pay it off and start panicking because I felt I was never going to be able to live a financially stable and comfortable life.
I lived in my imagined fears and it prevented me from living in reality, where I could’ve been proactive and found solutions to my problem.
This is why Marcus Aurelius, a Roman Emperor and one of the most famous Stoics, constantly tells us to not fixate on imagined fears because there’s no point in giving something that may or may not happen extra attention.
It’s better, he says, to put your energy into solving the problem.
This was one of the principles he followed as he led the Roman Empire from 161 to 180 AD. Continue reading “How You Could Manage Stress Like Marcus Aurelius”
I’ve always had a big imagination.
I’m surprised I haven’t gotten into trouble with my imagination yet.
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been cooking up these wild, elaborate scenes in my mind and then acting them out.
For example, I was really into mythological Chinese movies when I was younger because there were a lot of martial arts in them.
There were always specific scenes that stuck in my head for days, and I couldn’t stop thinking about them.
But I wasn’t one of those kids that just sat around daydreaming and re-running them in my mind.
Oh, no -I was one of those rare kids who acted out the scenes. And I would add additional dialogue and fight sequences as well. Continue reading “Am I Stupid Or A Creative Genius?”
Why must people tailgate?
You know what really grinds my gears, as Peter Griffin says?
Tailgaters.
Why must some drivers tailgate? The consequences of it are usually always negative.
Like, are you trying to scare me? Are you trying to intimidate me with your big F-150 because my Civic is smaller than your truck?
Or are we playing a game of chicken to see how close you can get to my car without making out with my rear bumper? Because, ya know, oftentimes you can just switch lanes and go around me. It’s not like I’m holding up traffic in the passing lane. Continue reading “I Loathe Tailgaters!”
What would Kevin and Anthony do if they had 24 hours to live?
Kevin and Anthony are eating lunch in the cafeteria. They briefly talked about sports, and after an awkward pause, Kevin started a new topic of conversation by asking Anthony this question:
“So, if you had 24 hours to live, what would you do?”
“Huh… if I had 24 hours to live?” Anthony said.
“Yeah. What would you do?” Kevin asked.
“Man, honestly, the first thing I’d do is buy a shit tonne of drugs and take them. I would pull some Fear and Loathing shit, ya know?”
“Wait, for real? That’s all you want to do? You have 24 hours left to live and all you would do is take a bunch of drugs?” Continue reading “24 Hours To Live”
Here’s the dream I always get when I have an episode of sleep paralysis.
Sleep paralysis is one of the scariest experiences I’ve ever had.
And it’s always the same dream every time I’ve gone through it.
The dream always starts with me and my dad driving through a forest on a rainy night for a camping trip. We always find a dark, eerie cave that we drive into and park at as we wait for the rain to stop.
But after a couple of minutes of waiting in the cave, my body gets stuck.
I can’t move a single limb except for my neck. It always feels like I was bitten by an insect that injected me with a large dose of its paralyzing venom. Continue reading “Paralysis”