Work is Therapy

You know that feeling you get when you haven’t been to the gym in a few days? A bit doughy. Irritable. Claustrophobic. Uncertain. Others get a similar feeling when they've been on vacation for too long or right after they first retire. The mind and the body are there to be used—they begin to turn on themselves when not put to some productive end.

It’s sad to think that this kind of frustration is an everyday reality for a lot of people. They leave so much of their potential unfulfilled because they have jobs where they don’t really do much or because they have too much time on their hands. Worse is when we try to push these feelings away by buying things, going out, fighting, creating drama indulging in the empty calories of existence instead of finding the real nourishment.

The solution is simple and, thankfully, always right at hand. Get out there and work.

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Wants Make You A Servant

In the modern world, our interactions with tyranny are a bit more voluntary than they were in ancient times. We put up with our controlling boss, though we could probably get a different job if we wanted. We change how we dress or refrain from saying what we actually think? Because we want to fit in with some cool group. We put up with cruel critics or customers? Because we want their approval. In these cases, their power exists because of our wants. You change that, and you’re free.

The late fashion photographer Bill Cunningham occasionally declined to invoice magazines for his work. When a young upstart asked him why that was, Cunningham’s response was epic: “If you don’t take money, they can’t tell you what to do, kid.”

Remember: taking the money, wanting the money proverbially or literally makes you a servant to the people who have it. Indifference to it, as Seneca put it, turns the highest power into no power, at least as far as your life

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Things Happen in Training

By seeing each day and each situation as a kind of training exercise, the stakes suddenly become a lot lower. The way you interpret your own mistakes and the mistakes of others is suddenly a lot more generous. It’s certainly a more resilient attitude than going around acting like the stakes of every encounter put the championship on the line.

When you catch an elbow or an unfair blow today, shake off the pain and remind yourself: I’m learning. My sparring partner is learning too. This is practice for both of us—that’s all. I know a bit more about him or her, and from my reaction, they’re going to learn a little bit more about me too.

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You Are The Project

Professionals don’t have to justify spending time training or practicing their work. It’s what they do, and practice is how they get good at it. The raw materials vary from career to career, just as the locations and duration vary depending on the person and the profession. But the one constant is the working of those materials, the gradual improvements and proficiency. According to the Stoics, your mind is the asset that must be worked on most—and understood best.

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What Is In Keeping With Your Character?

It is easy to get wrapped up in our own opinions of things. It’s as if we’re adhering to invisible scripts following instructions or patterns we don’t even understand. The more you question these scripts and the more you subject them to the rigorous test of your education, the more you’ll be your own compass. You’ll have convictions and thoughts that are your own and belong to no one else.

Character is a powerful defense in a world that would love to be able to seduce you, buy you, tempt you, and change you. If you know what you believe and why you believe it, you’ll avoid poisonous relationships, toxic jobs, fair-weather friends, and any number of ills that afflict people who haven’t thought through their deepest concerns. That’s your education. That’s why you do this work.

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Washing Away The Dust Of Life

It is almost impossible to stare up at the stars and not feel something. As cosmologist Neil de Grasse Tyson has explained, the cosmos fills us with complicated emotions. On the one hand, we feel an infinitesimal smallness in comparison to the vast universe; on the other, an extreme connectedness to this larger whole.

Obviously, given that we’re in our bodies every day, it’s tempting to think that’s the most important thing in the world. But we counteract that bias by looking at nature at things much bigger than us. A line from Seneca, which has since become a proverb, expresses Marcus’s insight well: Mundus ipse est ingens deorum omnium templum (The world itself is a huge temple of all the gods).

Looking at the beautiful expanse of the sky is an antidote to the nagging pettiness of earthly concerns. And it is good and sobering to lose yourself in.

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Be The Person You Want To Be

An archer is highly unlikely to hit a target she did not aim for. The same goes for you, whatever your target. You are certain to miss the target if you don’t bother to draw back and fire. Our perceptions and principles guide us in the selection of what we want but ultimately our actions determine whether we get there or not.

So yes, spend some time real, uninterrupted time thinking about what’s important to you, what your priorities are. Then, work toward that and forsake all the others. It’s not enough to wish and hope. One must act and act right.

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There’s Nothing Wrong With Being Wrong

Someone once attempted to argue with the philosopher Cicero by quoting something he had said or written. This person claimed Cicero was saying one thing now but had believed something different in the past. His response: “I live from one day to the next! If something strikes me as probable, I say it; and that is how, unlike everyone else, I remain a free agent.”

No one should be ashamed at changing his mind that’s what the mind is for. “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” Emerson said, “adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” That’s why we go to such lengths to learn and expose ourselves to wisdom. It would be embarrassing if we didn’t end up finding out if we were wrong in the past.

Remember: you’re a free agent. When someone points out a legitimate flaw in your belief or in your actions, they’re not criticizing you. They’re presenting a better alternative. Accept it!

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Righteousness is Beautiful

Contemporary notions of beauty are ridiculous. Our standards for what’s attractive are incredibly un-Stoic in that we prize and extol things people have almost no control over—high cheekbones, complexion, height, piercing eyes.

Is it really beautiful to win the genetic lottery? Or should beauty be contingent on the choices, actions, and attributes we develop? An even keel, a sense of justice, a commitment to duty. These are beautiful traits—and they go much deeper than appearances.

Today, you can choose to be without prejudice, to act with justice, to keep an even keel, to be in control of yourself—even when that means dedication and sacrifice. If that’s not beautiful, what is?

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What’s Truly Impressive

Think of all you know about the lifestyles of the rich and the famous. That so-and-so bought a home for so many millions. That so-and-so travels with their own barber. That so-and-so owns a pet tiger or an elephant. The exact same gossip and notoriety was popular in Roman times. Certain Romans were known for the thousands of sesterces they spent on their koi ponds. Others were notorious for orgiastic parties and sumptuous feasts. The works of Roman poets such as Juvenal and Martial abound with tidbits about these types.

The conspicuously wealthy earn and ultimately get what they want out of spending: their reputation. But what an empty one! Is it really that impressive to spend, spend, spend? Given the funds, who wouldn't be able to do that? Marcus Aurelius courageously sold off some of the imperial furnishings to pay down war debts. More recently, José Mujica, the former president of Uruguay, stood out for giving 90 percent of his presidential salary to charity and driving a twenty-five-year-old car. Who can do stuff like that? Not everyone. So who’s the more impressive?

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Making Your Own Good Fortune

That is the more productive notion of good luck? One that is defined by totally random factors outside your control, or a matter of probability that can be increased—though not guaranteed—by the right decisions and the right preparation? Obviously, the latter. This is why successful yet mysteriously “lucky” people seem to gravitate toward it.

According to the wonderful site Quote Investigator, versions of this idea date back at least to the sixteenth century in the proverb “Diligence is the mother of good luck.” In the 1920s, Coleman Cox put a modern spin on it by saying, “I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have.” (That saying has been incorrectly attributed to Thomas Jefferson, who said nothing of the kind.) Today, we say, “Luck is where hard work meets opportunity.” Or is it typically flipped?

Today, you can hope that good fortune and good luck magically come your way. Or you can prepare yourself to get lucky by focusing on doing the right thing at the right time and, ironically, render luck mostly unnecessary in the process.

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Don’t Be Inspired, Be Inspirational

It was common in Greek and Roman times, just as it is now, for politicians to pander to their audience. They would lavish effusive praise on the crowd, on their country, on inspiring military victories of the past. How many times have you heard a political candidate say, “This is the greatest country in the history of the world”? As orator Demosthenes pointed out, we’ll gladly sit for hours to hear a speaker who stands in front of some famous or sacred landmark, “praising [our] ancestors, describing their exploits and enumerating their trophies.”

But what does this flattery accomplish? Nothing. Worse, the admiration of shiny accolades distracts us from their true purpose. Also, as Demosthenes explains, it betrays the very ancestors who inspire us. He concluded his speech to the Athenian people with words that Seneca would later echo and still resounds centuries later. “Reflect, then,” he said, “that your ancestors set up those trophies, not that you may gaze at them in wonder, but that you may also imitate the virtues of the men who set them up.”

The same goes for the quotes in this book and for other inspiring words you might hear. Don’t just admire them. Use them. Follow their example.

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Good And Evil? Look At Your Choices

Today, as things happen and you find yourself wondering what they all mean as you find yourself contemplating various decisions, remember: the right thing to do always comes from our reasoned choice. Not whether something is rewarded. Not whether something will succeed, but whether it is the right choice.

Epictetus’s dictum helps us cut through all this with clarity and confidence. Is something good or bad? Is this right or wrong? Ignore everything else. Focus only on your choices.

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Kindness is Always The Right Response

That if the next time you were treated meanly, you didn't just restrain yourself from fighting back what if you responded with unmitigated kindness? What if you could “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you”? What kind of effect do you think that would have?

The Bible says that when you can do something nice and caring to a hateful enemy, it is like “heap[ing] burning coals on his head.” The expected reaction to hatred is more hatred. When someone says something pointed or mean today, they expect you to respond in kind not with kindness. When that doesn’t happen, they are embarrassed. It’s a shock to their system it makes them and you better.

Most rudeness, meanness, and cruelty are a mask for deep-seated weakness. Kindness in these situations is only possible for people of great strength. You have that strength. Use it.

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Fueling The Habit Bonfire

We are what we repeatedly do,” Aristotle said, “therefore, excellence is not an act but a habit.” The Stoics add to that that we are a product of our thoughts (“Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind,” Marcus Aurelius put it).

Think about your activities of the last week as well as what you have planned for today and the week that follows. The person you’d like to be, or the person you see yourself as how closely do your actions actually correspond to him or her? Which fire are you fueling? Which person are you

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Our Well Being Lies in Our Actions

If your happiness is dependent on accomplishing certain goals, what happens if fate intervenes? What if you’re snubbed? If outside events interrupt? What if you do achieve everything but find that nobody is impressed? That’s the problem with letting your happiness be determined by things you can’t control. It’s an insane risk.

If an actor focuses on the public reception to a project whether critics like it or whether it’s a hit, they will be constantly disappointed and hurt. But if they love their performance and put everything they have into making it the best that they’re capable of they will always find satisfaction in their job. Like them, we should take pleasure from our actions in taking the right actions rather than the results that come from them.

Our ambition should not be to win, then, but to play with our full effort. Our intention is not to be thanked or recognized, but to help and to do what we think is right. Our focus is not on what happens to us but on how we respond. In this, we will always find contentment and resilience.

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Guilt is Worse Than Jail

Consider the fugitives who willingly turn themselves in after years on the run. Why would they do that? They were free, one step ahead of the law, but they gave up! Because the guilt and the stress of the fugitive life eventually gets worse than the prospect of lost freedom in fact, it was its own kind of prison.

It’s the same reason why, as a child, you might have confessed to a lie to completely unsuspecting parents. It’s the reason why one partner might voluntarily admit to a crushing infidelity—even though the other partner had no idea. “Why are you telling me this?!” the betrayed shouts as she walks out the door. “Because things have been going so well and I couldn’t take it anymore!”

There are immense costs of doing wrong, not only to society, but to the perpetrator. Look at the lives of most people who reject ethics and discipline, and the chaos and misery that so often follows. This punishment is almost always as bad or worse than whatever society metes out. This is why so many petty criminals confess or voluntarily surrender. They don’t always stick to it, but at the lowest moment, they finally realize: this is no way to live. They want the peace of mind that comes with doing right. And so do you.

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The Chain Method

The comedian Jerry Seinfeld once gave a young comic named Brad Isaac some advice about how to write and create material. Keep a calendar, he told him, and each day that you write jokes, put an X. Soon enough, you get a chain going and then your job is to simply not break the chain. Success becomes a matter of momentum. Once you get a little, it’s easier to keep it going.

Whereas Seinfeld used the chain method to build a positive habit, Epictetus was saying that it can also be used to eliminate a negative one. It’s not all that different than taking sobriety “one day at a time.” Start with one day doing whatever it is, be it managing your temper or wandering eyes or procrastination. Then do the same the following day and the day after that. Build a chain and then work not to break it. Don’t ruin your streak.

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Show, Not Tell, What You Know

Many of the Stoic aphorisms are simple to remember and even sound smart when quoted. But that’s not what philosophy is really about. The goal is to turn these words into works. As Musonius Rufus put it, the justification for philosophy is when “one brings together sound teaching with sound conduct.”

Today, or anytime, when you catch yourself wanting to condescendingly drop some knowledge that you have, grab it and ask: Would I be better saying words or letting my actions and choices illustrate that knowledge for me?

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The Stoic is A Work in Progress

Instead of seeing philosophy as an end to which one aspires, see it as something one applies. Not occasionally, but over the course of a life  making incremental progress along the way. Sustained execution, not shapeless epiphanies.

Epictetus loved to shake his students out of their smug satisfaction with their own progress. He wanted to remind them and now you of the constant work and serious training needed every day if we are ever to approach that perfect form.

It’s important for us to remember in our own journey to self-improvement: one never arrives. The sage the perfect Stoic who behaves perfectly in every situation is an ideal, not an end.

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Learn, Practice, Train

Very few people can simply watch an instructional video or hear something explained and then know, backward and forward, how to do it. Most of us actually have to do something several times in order to truly learn. One of the hallmarks of the martial arts, military training, and athletic training of almost any kind is the hours upon hours upon hours of monotonous practice. An athlete at the highest level will train for years to perform movements that can last mere seconds or less. The two-minute drill, how to escape from a choke hold, the perfect jumper. Simply knowing isn't enough. It must be absorbed into the muscles and the body. It must become part of us. Or we risk losing it the second that we experience stress or difficulty.

It is true with philosophical principles as well. You can’t just hear something once and expect to rely on it when the world is crashing down around us. Remember, Marcus Aurelius wasn't writing his meditations for other people. He was actively meditating for himself. Even as a successful, wise, and experienced man, he was until the last days of his life practicing and training himself to do the right thing. Like a black belt, he was still showing up to the job every day to roll; like a professional athlete, he still showed up to practice each week—even though others probably thought it was unnecessary.

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Quality Over Quantity

There is no prize for having read the most books before you die. Even if you were the most dedicated reader in the world—a book a day, even— your collection would probably never be bigger than a small branch library. You’ll never even come close to matching what’s stored in the servers at Google Books or keep up with the hundreds of thousands of new titles published on Amazon each year.

What if, when it came to your reading and learning, you prioritized quality over quantity? What if you read the few great books deeply instead of briefly skimming all the new books? Your shelves might be emptier, but your brain and your life would be fuller.

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What Kind of Boxer Are You?

The Stoics loved to use boxing and wrestling metaphors the way we use baseball and football analogies today. This is probably because the sport of pankration literally, “all strength,” but a purer form of mixed martial arts than one sees today in the UFC was integral to boyhood and manhood in Greece and Rome. (In fact, recent analysis has found instances of “cauliflower ear,” a common grappling injury, on Greek statues.) The Stoics refer to fighting because it’s what they knew.

Seneca writes that unbruised prosperity is weak and easy to defeat in the ring, but “a man who has been at constant feud with misfortunes acquires a skin calloused by suffering.” This man, he says, fights all the way to the ground and never gives up.

That’s what Epictetus means too. What kind of boxer are you if you leave because you get hit? That’s the nature of the sport! Is that going to stop you from continuing?

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Sweat The Small Stuff

The famous biographer Diogenes Laertius attributes this quote to Zeno but admits that it might have also been said by Socrates, meaning that it may be a quote of a quote of a quote. But does it really matter? Truth is truth. In this case, the truth is one we know well: the little things add up. Someone is a good person not because they say they are, but because they take good actions. One does not magically get one’s act together it is a matter of many individual choices. It’s a matter of getting up at the right time, making your bed, resisting shortcuts, investing in yourself, doing your work. And make no mistake: while the individual action is small, its cumulative impact is not.

Think about all the small choices that will roll themselves out in front of you today. Do you know which are the right way and which are the easy way? Choose the right way, and watch as all these little things add up toward transformation.

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Show Me How To Live

There’s no need to show Seneca. Show yourself. That no matter how many years you’re ultimately given, your life can be clearly and earnestly said to have been a long and full one. We all know someone like that someone we lost too early but even now think, If I could do half of what they did, I’ll consider my life well lived.

The best way to get there is by focusing on what is here right now, on the task you have at hand—big or small. As he says, by pouring ourselves fully and intentionally into the present, it “gentle[s] the passing of time’s precipitous flight.”

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Stop Caring What People Think

How quickly we can disregard our own feelings about something and adopt someone else’s. We think a shirt looks good at the store but will view it with shame and scorn if our spouse or a coworker makes an offhand remark. We can be immensely happy with our own lives until we find out that someone we don’t even like has more. Or worse and more precariously, we don’t feel good about our accomplishments or talents until some third party validates them.

Like most Stoic exercises, this one attempts to teach us that although we control our own opinions, we don’t control what other people think about us least of all. For this reason, putting ourselves at the mercy of those opinions and trying to gain the approval of others are a dangerous endeavor. Don’t spend much time thinking about what other people think. Think about what you think. Think instead about the results, about the impact, about whether it is the right thing to do.

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Where To Find Joy

When dog trainers are brought in to work with a dysfunctional or unhappy dog, they usually start with one question: “Do you take it for walks?” They ask because dogs were bred to do certain tasksto do work  and when deprived of this essential part of their nature, they suffer and act out. This is true no matter how spoiled and nice their life might be.

The same is true for humans. When you hear the Stoics brush aside certain emotions or material luxuries, it’s not because they don’t enjoy them. It’s not because the Stoic life is one bereft of happiness or fun. The Stoics simply mean to help us find our essence—to experience the joy of our proper human work.

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How You Do Anything is How You Do Everything

It’s fun to think about the future. It’s easy to ruminate on the past. It’s harder to put that energy into what’s in front of us right at this moment especially if it’s something we don’t want to do. We think: This is just a job; it isn't who I am. It doesn't matter. But it does matter. Who knows it might be the last thing you ever do. Here lies Dave, buried alive under a mountain of unfinished business.

There is an old saying: “How you do anything is how you do everything.” It’s true. How you handle today is how you’ll handle every day. How you handle this minute is how you’ll handle every minute.

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The First Two Things Before Acting

Imagine, for a second, what Marcus’s life as an emperor must have been like. He would preside over the Senate. He would lead the troops in battle, direct the grand strategy of the army as its highest commander. He would also hear appeals from citizens, from lawyers, from foreign governments. In other words, like most people in power, he was called on to make decisions: all day, every day, decision after decision.

His formula for decision making is a battle-tested method for doing and acting right—literally. Which is why we ought to try to use it ourselves. First, don’t get upset because that will color your decision negatively and make it harder than it needs to be.

Second, remember the purpose and principles you value most. Running potential actions through this filter will eliminate the bad choices and highlight the right ones. Don’t get upset. Do the right thing. That’s it.

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The Law of Right Human Relations

This law helps us define limits of behavioral control with others in third dimension. Let no one assume to forcibly teach, counsel or guide, for we all have the greatest of these we could hope for already within us. While each teacher is in a manner a director, the individual person may only be a means - not - a way of life. A strong action may promote refusal and achieve rejection, or it may encourage one to become dependent on another's will. By not searching for excellence within, one refuses the gifts already there but not recognized or realized. In our relationships we achieve greater results with others by our own fine example and also listening. People answer their own questions if given enough opportunity. The only real control we ever have and need is with self.

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