Category: Stoics

Sunday morning Stoic: Postpone nothing

Eric Johnson

“There is indeed a limit fixed for us, just where the remorseless law of Fate has fixed it; but none of us knows how near he is to this limit. Therefore let us so order our minds as if we had come to the very end. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s account every day.” –Seneca

We all know sad stories of people whose lives ended suddenly, of children taken by illness or accident, of good men and women gone too soon, their lives artlessly unfinished.

Real life is not a novel or a movie. There is no guarantee of a tidy ending with satisfying closure and a happy exit from the stage.

Reality is indifferent to your story, to your sense of justice, to the poetry you are crafting as the artist of your life.

This indifference, if I pause to comprehend it, is the most terrifying thing I know. 

There are no guarantees, and my hopes for my own story ultimately have little power over circumstances beyond my control, over the capriciousness of fate.

But I do have power over how I respond to what reality brings my way today. 

Tomorrow is not promised. But I can make the best of today. I can stop deferring dreams and postponing plans. 

Make this day remarkable, a day worth talking about. 

Live while you can. Craft your life one day at a time.

There is good in everything

Eric Johnson

“There is good in everything, if only we look for it.” –Laura Ingalls Wilder

via Ryan Holiday

There is good in everything?

You certainly have the choice to find the good in even the worst circumstances.

Don’t resist what is. Love, somehow, even the heartbreak and tragedy that comes your way. Use everything—every setback, every obstacle—to learn and grow and to continually improve.

Steve Martin and teenage heartbreak and the consolation of life’s routine

Eric Johnson

On my long drive yesterday I listened again to one of my favorite audiobooks, Steve Martin’s Born Standing Up.

When Martin was describing his teen years, he mentioned this conversation with an older coworker in his job at Disneyland:

“One day I was particularly gloomy, and Jim asked me what the matter was. I told him my high school girlfriend (for all of two weeks) had broken up with me. He said, ‘Oh, that’ll happen a lot.’ The knowledge that this horrid grief was simply a part of life’s routine cheered me up almost instantly.” –Steve Martin, from his book Born Standing Up

I remember being crushed by teenage heartbreak. It lingered like a cloud over me for way too long.

If only I had a Jim to tell me it was no big deal; heartbreaks are part of life; they’ll happen a lot.

Maybe I would have cheered up a lot quicker. (Or maybe not.)

Now, I regularly have young people seek my counsel about the uncertainties in their lives. “What path should I take?” “Why don’t I have answers to my hard questions?”

I want to tell them—and sometimes I do—”You will never be certain. Ever.”

That sentiment should be reassuring, right? If you don’t have it figured out, don’t fret because you never will. This horrid confusion is simply part of life’s routine.

I’m 51-years-old, and I am not close to having my life figured out. I’m totally winging it. (You are, too.)

I used to think there would come a point in my life when I would have “arrived”, when I would be sure and supremely confident and oh so wise.

Now I’m sure that point is perpetually receding into the horizon of my life.

I look at people two or three decades older than me and see just as much uncertainty.

Quarter-life crisis. Mid-life crisis. Late-life crisis.

You will face a lot fewer crises if you’re not expecting that your life will eventually resolve into blissful certitude.

The secret to happiness is low expectations, or at least realistic expectations. Expect heartbreak and uncertainty and loss and failure, and when you encounter them they won’t seem so dismal.

This is not pessimism. This is honesty. This is steeling yourself to meet life head on and make the most of whatever comes. And heartbreak and loss and uncertainty are coming.

But so is joy and delight and kindness and opportunities to grow and embrace all that your unscripted shot at life has to offer.

Step back and see that whatever gloom you’re facing is merely temporary. Everything is temporary. This is life’s routine, and you get to be a part of it. How grand.

Cheer up and get back at it.

Sunday night Stoic: When you wake up in the morning

Eric Johnson

Meditations 2.1:

“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions.”

Sunday night Stoic: Count each separate day as a separate life

Eric Johnson

“One who daily puts the finishing touches to his life is never in want of time…. begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.” –Seneca

Aiming to have a good life is noble, but overwhelming in its scope. 

Nothing can be done about your past, and the future rolls up to meet you filled with possibilities and mystery and, most often, worries, most of which, of course, are mere phantoms.

But if you live your life in day-sized measures, excellence is manageable. 

Aim to make tomorrow—just tomorrow—as excellent as you can, to be as awesome as you can be for just one day. 

Take stock as you go to bed. Don’t be discouraged if you’re disappointed in yourself. Just observe and learn and put the finishing touches on the day. And then start over the next day, and the next, and the next.

Be the artist of your days. Craft your life one day at a time.

Sunday morning Stoic: Life is neither good nor bad

Eric Johnson

“Life is neither good nor bad; it is the space for both good and bad.” –Seneca

Life is the canvas. You are the artist.

Life is the blank page. You are the author.

Life is the stage. You get to perform on it.

You create yourself in response to whatever comes. 

There is much that you have no control over. Unburden yourself from trying to control what is not yours to control.

But you can craft your response to whatever good or bad presents itself to you in the tiny and vast space of your life.

Sunday morning Stoic: Make your exit with grace

Eric Johnson

Meditations 12.36:

“You’ve lived as a citizen in a great city. Five years or a hundred—what’s the difference? The laws make no distinction.And to be sent away from it, not by a tyrant or a dishonest judge, but by Nature, who first invited you in—why is that so terrible?

Like the impresario ringing down the curtain on an actor:

“But I’ve only gotten through three acts …!”

Yes. This will be a drama in three acts, the length fixed by the power that directed your creation, and now directs your dissolution. Neither was yours to determine.

So make your exit with grace—the same grace shown to you.”

These are the last lines, appropriately, of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, his private journal that has become my most frequently read book.

It’s the book I give away most often now, too. When I give it away I wonder if others will find the delight in it that I do. It was written by a Roman emperor, of all people, and has no plot or narrative arc or even logical connections between paragraphs.

But I’ve received genuinely enthusiastic responses from some who seemed surprised to have been so taken with this ancient and slightly odd book of wisdom.

A young friend recently sent me a photo of her copy of Meditations on the beach with her and let me know she was on her third reading of it in just a couple of months.

Another friend sent me a thank you note that said reading it had been a source of encouragement during a challenging time in her life.

Your mileage may vary. There are portions that read like gibberish. But I regularly come across simply stated but profound insights that connect instantly and shine a light on reality and common sense in ways I’ve rarely seen.

I will continue, for now, to dip into it weekly and start back over at the beginning when I make it to that final line again.

Sunday night Stoic: Fraction of infinity

Eric Johnson1 Comment

Meditations 12.32:

“The fraction of infinity, of that vast abyss of time, allotted to each of us. Absorbed in an instant into eternity.The fraction of all substance, and all spirit.

The fraction of the whole earth you crawl about on.

Keep all that in mind, and don’t treat anything as important except doing what your nature demands, and accepting what Nature sends you.”

I continue to be drawn to perspectives showing me how small I am, how little I matter in time and space.

Our default state is to think of the universe as our universe. We experience reality, of course, primarily from our first-person vantage point.

But our portion of all that is and was and will be is an infinitesimal fraction. And that delights me and unburdens me and makes trivial all the things we inflate to be “important”.

What’s important is fulfilling your nature, no matter how tiny you may be in the very big picture.

Be excellent. Accept what comes. Do what you can with what you’ve got. Enjoy the life you have in the brief moment you’re here.

Sunday night Stoic: Don’t let anything deter you

Eric Johnson

Meditations 12.1:

“Everything you’re trying to reach—by taking the long way round—you could have right now, this moment. If you’d only stop thwarting your own attempts. If you’d only let go of the past, entrust the future to Providence, and guide the present toward reverence and justice. 

Reverence: so you’ll accept what you’re allotted. Nature intended it for you, and you for it.

Justice: so that you’ll speak the truth, frankly and without evasions, and act as you should—and as other people deserve.

Don’t let anything deter you: other people’s misbehavior, your own misperceptions, What People Will Say, or the feelings of the body that covers you (let the affected part take care of those). And if, when it’s time to depart, you shunt everything aside except your mind and the divinity within … if it isn’t ceasing to live that you’re afraid of but never beginning to live properly … then you’ll be worthy of the world that made you.

No longer an alien in your own land.

No longer shocked by everyday events—as if they were unheard-of aberrations.

No longer at the mercy of this, or that.”

Accept what is. Resistance is futile. 

And have the courage to do the right thing. Always. 

So simple. So hard. 

This gem of a book never fails to both comfort and challenge.

Sunday morning Stoic: Right now

Eric Johnson

Meditations 11.7:

“It stares you in the face. No role is so well suited to philosophy as the one you happen to be in right now.”

Nothing is better for your growth and potential improvement than whatever circumstances you find yourself in right now. 

Even if those circumstances seem to suck. Especially, actually.

There’s no going back to fix what is. 

The only way forward is facing things as they are. 

Love, as best you can, what is. 

Act, even, as if you had intentionally chosen whatever circumstances you find yourself in. Consider whatever you’re facing to be part of your master plan to bring out the best in you.

Use the materials offered to you by life as it is right now to strengthen your mind and propel you forward. 

Sunday night Stoic: Perspective

Eric Johnson

  
Meditations 10.17: 

“Continual awareness of all time and space, of the size and life span of the things around us. A grape seed in infinite space. A half twist of a corkscrew against eternity.”

For every grain of sand on earth there are at least 10,000 stars in the visible universe.

The universe is more than 13 billion years old. 

I’ll be fortunate to live 70 years.

I am small. My time is fleeting.

But I am here, right now. 

Live your life.

Stephen Colbert on radical acceptance and steering toward fear

Eric Johnson1 Comment

Stephen Colbert will be taking over David Letterman’s old slot on The Late Show soon. This GQ profile of Colbert by Joel Lovell is so good.

The writer goes much deeper than Colbert’s take on comedy and television. Colbert’s father and two of his brothers were killed in a plane crash when he was a 10-year-old. He ended up channeling that pain in a profound way.

From the article:

He said he trained himself, not just onstage but every day in life, even in his dream states, to steer toward fear rather than away from it. “I like to do things that are publicly embarrassing,” he said, “to feel the embarrassment touch me and sink into me and then be gone. I like getting on elevators and singing too loudly in that small space. The feeling you feel is almost like a vapor. The discomfort and the wishing that it would end that comes around you. I would do things like that and just breathe it in.” He stopped and took in a deep yogic breath, then slowly shook his head. “Nope, can’t kill me. This thing can’t kill me.”… And then he said, “Obviously there’s something defensive about it. What you’re doing is sipping little bits of arsenic so that you can’t be poisoned by the rest of your discomfort. You’re Rasputin-ing your way through the rest of your life.”

This is classic Stoicism. Face the pain. Embrace the obstacle.

He had an improv teacher who challenged students to “love the bomb”, to relish failure and use it as fuel to make you better.

And Colbert took that lesson well beyond the mere embarrassment of screwing up on stage:

 “ ‘You gotta learn to love the bomb,’ ” he said. “Boy, did I have a bomb when I was 10. That was quite an explosion. And I learned to love it. So that’s why. Maybe, I don’t know. That might be why you don’t see me as someone angry and working out my demons onstage. It’s that I love the thing that I most wish had not happened.”

“I love the thing that I most wish had not happened.” –Stephen Colbert

Why resist what has happened? Time travel is not an option. Radical acceptance is.

It’s been ten years since my mother died. I can’t say so clearly, as Colbert does, that “I love the thing that I most wish had not happened.” But I can be grateful for what I had in my 41 years with my mom and what I still hold on to, not only from memories of her but also from how her loss has challenged me and hopefully given me gifts and graces and perspective that I otherwise would not have.

The article concludes powerfully:

“ ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’ ” he said again. His eyes were filled with tears. “So it would be ungrateful not to take everything with gratitude. It doesn’t mean you want it. I can hold both of those ideas in my head.”

The next thing he said I wrote on a slip of paper in his office and have carried it around with me since. It’s our choice, whether to hate something in our lives or to love every moment of them, even the parts that bring us pain. “At every moment, we are volunteers.”

The kind of life you lead

Eric Johnson

“You are scared of dying—and, tell me, is the kind of life you lead really any different than being dead?” –Seneca

Ouch. 

Tough love from Seneca.

And I had one of those days today. I didn’t do a lot of living in the past 24 hours. I just muddled through and don’t have much to show for it. I didn’t cause any harm or make life worse for anyone, but I don’t have any highlights to make this day particularly worth remembering.

It was better than being dead, though.

Note to self: If you regularly remind yourself that someday, you indeed will be dead, you just might add a little more life and meaning to days that otherwise might get muddled through. Actively lead your life so you can truly live your life. 

ht @RyanHoliday

Sunday night Stoic: Think on these things

Eric Johnson

I’ve been listening to the audiobook version of the late Christopher Hitchens’s autobiography, Hitch-22: A Memoir. Hitchens was notable for his eloquence and strongly stated opinions on controversial topics.

He was no man of faith, but tells in his memoir that he chose the scripture reading for his father’s funeral. It was Phillipians 4:8:

“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”

I was reminded of what an excellent verse it is. And it could just as easily look like a line pulled straight from Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. It has a clear Stoic shine to it.

This line from Paul’s letter would be a fine bit of scripture for anyone’s memorial service.

When I was a young man, I wrote a personal mission statement that began with this line:

“Pursue truth no matter the cost.”

I regularly have fallen short of that audacious aim. Often the cost of such a pursuit is more than I’m willing to pay. But that pursuit challenges me even more now.

I’m no scientist or activist. I’m not on any heroic, risk-filled quest to right wrongs. But I still care deeply about being true and honoring honest inquiry and letting go of comfortable fictions that only obscure reality.

I want to retain the curiosity that compels discontent with mere conventional wisdom and popular opinion.

I want to fill my mind with what is true and honest and just and pure and lovely.

These are the things most worthy of our attention.

Sunday night Stoic: From above

Eric Johnson


Meditations 9.30:

“To see them from above: the thousands of animal herds, the rituals, the voyages on calm or stormy seas, the different ways we come into the world, share it with one another, and leave it. Consider the lives led once by others, long ago, the lives to be led by others after you, the lives led even now, in foreign lands. How many people don’t even know your name. How many will soon have forgotten it. How many offer you praise now—and tomorrow, perhaps, contempt. That to be remembered is worthless. Like fame. Like everything.”

Up close our lives seem immense and neverending. Our problems and worries and regrets consume us and block the view of reality, which, of course, dwarfs our little worlds.

If you could see from above and from beyond, though, imagine your perspective.

Two arrows: Pain and suffering

Eric Johnson

Screen Shot 2015-07-29 at 4.23.55 PM

Tim Ferriss has an interview with Jane McGonigal* on his podcast that’s worth listening to. She’s an expert in the value of playing games, and hearing her made me go load Tetris on my phone.

(*Also see her TED Talks: Gaming can make a better world and The game that can give you 10 extra years of life.)

In their conversation, though, this quote was discussed:

“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

It’s not from the Buddha, and I couldn’t find a definitive source to credit. But it is very Buddhist. And Stoic.

From the Buddhist teaching in the Sallata Sutha:

“When touched with a feeling of pain, the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person sorrows, grieves, & laments, beats his breast, becomes distraught. So he feels two pains, physical & mental. Just as if they were to shoot a man with an arrow and, right afterward, were to shoot him with another one, so that he would feel the pains of two arrows.”

From Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations (4.49):

“So remember this principle when something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune.” 

Between stimulus and response there is a gap. In that gap you get to choose your response. The stimulus may cause pain, but you can choose to respond in a way that doesn’t add suffering on top of the pain.

We cannot control what happens. We can control our response to what happens.

Easier said than done, I know. But this is worth remembering whenever you’re confronted with pain of any sort.

Sunday morning Stoic: The shortest route

Eric Johnson

Meditations 4.51:

“Take the shortest route, the one that nature planned—to speak and act in the healthiest way. Do that, and be free of pain and stress, free of all calculation and pretension.”

Direct, clear, healthy. 

Speak the truth. Do what’s right. 

If you say “It’s complicated”, consider that might just be code for pain and stress and possibly calculation and pretension. 

Overthinking and delay prolong the pain. 

Do what you know to be right. 

Take the shortest route.