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”
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.”