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”
Basketball is a great activity to help you be more mindful.
Stress is something everybody deals with as everyone has hard times in life.
The majority of the time, however, stress and anxiety build up because of what we think will happen, not what will happen.
As the great stoic philosopher Epictetus said:
“Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems.”
Here’s the best advice I’ve received on how to deal with my anger.
I have always been a short-tempered person.
Ever since I was a young child, when someone or something ticked me off, I would burst into an angry fit.
For example, if I couldn’t beat a level in a game by the third try, I screamed and hit the table.
Or if I couldn’t solve a math problem, I screamed and swore at my textbook and (very occasionally) threw it against the wall.
And after every fit, my mom told me I had to get rid of my anger. I didn’t know how or exactly what this meant, but I tried it anyway.
It was my mom telling me to do something, after all.
However, it didn’t work. I still got angry and I still erupted. Continue reading “It’s Okay To Get Angry: Wisdom From a Roman Emperor”
Here are 9 lessons I learned from Stoicism.
For the past few years, I’ve been studying and trying to apply Stoicism to my life.
It started when the pandemic happened. It was really stressful for me, causing me to become anxious about certain things and Stoicism helped me ease some of my pains.
After things slowly got back to normal, I started using Stoicism to cure other issues within me, issues that I didn’t realize I possessed until I started learning this philosophy.
So, here are 9 things I learned that I want to share with you: Continue reading “9 Things I Learned From Stoicism”
When I started learning philosophy, I thought it was meant for thinking about abstract ideas. But I was wrong. The main reason for learning philosophy is so that you can live better.
In my teen years, I was fascinated with philosophy.
My dad studied it at university (or he claims to have) and every time I overheard him discuss topics with his friends, I thought it was the most interesting thing ever.
They would talk about religion, the mind, and commentate on society and politics.
They would talk about what is right and what is wrong, and what is true and what is false.
These discussions made me think critically, even though I wasn’t active in them. I would just listen to each person’s point and analyze it in my head.
It was fun and entertaining. Continue reading “Why You Should Study Philosophy”