Practical Stoicism: Exercises for Doing the Right Thing Right Now

by Grey Freeman

Mastering one's self is largely about mastering this tendency we have to skip from task to task, trying on our work like coats at a department store and waiting for one to grab our fancy. There is always something shinier right over there. And yet, if our mind is always on the next thing, then it is never on what we are actually doing. And if our mind is not engaged in the only moment where we exist, this one, then we might as well have never existed. We were never "there".

One should, instead, approach every task as if it mattered, as if it were important. Else, why have you chosen to do it? And if you have decided that a thing is to be done, then work at it as if it could be the very last impression you leave on this planet. Who knows what will happen next? If this was to be your last moment on Earth, would you want to spend it half-heartedly tending the garden of your life while checking your Twitter stream?

Better we should grasp every task we choose to do with both hands, and not let go until we have completed the work to our full satisfaction. Engage with the work - experience it. Live in the moment forcefully enough to remember it happened.

Death comes while you are washing dishes, let him find you scrubbing them spotless. If he comes while you are driving to work, let him find you with both hands on the wheel. And, if he finds you in your bed, go with him satisfied that you have used your allotted minutes well.

How shameful it is to behave toward food in this way we may learn from the fact that we liken them to unreasoning animals rather than to intelligent human beings. (Musonius Rufus, On Food)

It is the reasoning faculty that sets us above the animals, and when we set it aside, its lack that makes us no better.

Self-mastery is not a state one achieves. It is a skill one hones.

The faults of others are not your concern.

They don’t impact anything important in you, and their correction is not under your control. Further, you are not free of fault yourself.

He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone... (Jesus of Nazareth, KJV John 8:7)

So much of what vexes us only has significance because we have chosen to give it significance. Remembering where we and our petty concerns fit into the global scheme of things may change how we view our challenges.

anything that must be done in secret is better not done at all.

It is irrelevant how ill-prepared you feel you might be for the challenges you face. It simply doesn't matter if you don't want the role you find yourself playing. That's the one you have. You can fill that role well or you can do so poorly, but you will fill it regardless.

The world is filled with children who whine and complain bitterly about the roles thrust upon them, as if the universe should, somehow, bend reality to pave a more gentle path for them. You should, instead, seek to be the adult in the room, the calm voice of practicality who notes that, fairness aside, here we are. All that matters is what we do next.

You cannot walk another's path. You are in no position to judge his fault. Rather than wasting energy on being offended and scandalized, consider instead your own imperfections. These, at least, are not hidden from you.

There are four principal aberrations of the superior faculty against which you should be constantly on your guard, and when you have detected them, you should wipe them out and say on each occasion thus: this thought is not necessary; this tends to destroy social union; this which you are going to say comes not from the real thoughts — for you should consider it among the most absurd of things for a man not to speak from his real thoughts. But the fourth is when you shall reproach yourself for anything, for this is an evidence of the diviner part within you being overpowered and yielding to the less honorable and to the perishable part, the body, and to its gross pleasures. (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations XI.19)

Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies. (Friedrich Nietzsche, Human All Too Human)

My formula for what is great in mankind is amor fati: not to wish for anything other than that which is; whether behind, ahead, or for all eternity. Not just to put up with the inevitable – much less to hide it from oneself, for all idealism is lying to oneself in the face of the necessary – but to love it. (Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, 10)

Fate, in the form of the challenges it incessantly spawns, is what makes us strong. A universe in which we do not need to overcome challenge, where we do not actively seek it, is one where we grow weak and our lives are bland and ordinary. Our daily struggles are what gives us backbone. Every time we get rained on, or fired, or insulted, or robbed, we get a chance to respond with virtue. And, if we do, we gain resilience, fortitude, and wisdom.