“For if a person shifts their caution to their own reasoned choices and the acts of those choices, they will at the same time gain the will to avoid, but if they shift their caution away from their own reasoned choices to things not under their control, seeking to avoid what is controlled by others,…
My Year Without Beer
My coworkers and I formed a reading group with the stated purpose of setting and achieving goals. At the center of the group was the book The 12 Week Year, by Brian Moran and Michael Lennington. While by no means a prerequisite, I highly recommend reading The 4 Disciplines of Execution before taking on The…
Clarity: January 10, 2022
“The essence of good is a certain kind of reasoned choice; just as the essence of evil is another kind. What about externals, then? They are only the material for our reasoned choice, which finds its own good or evil in working with them. How will it find the good? Not by marveling at the…
Clarity: January 9, 2022
“Some things are in our control, while others are not. We control our opinion, choice, desire, aversion, and, in a word, everything of our own doing. We don’t control our body, property, reputation, position, and, in a word, everything not of our own doing. Even more, the things in our control are by nature free,…
Clarity: January 8, 2022
“We must give up many things to which we are addicted, considering them to be good. Otherwise, courage will vanish, which should continually test itself. Greatness of soul will be lost, which can’t stand out unless it disdains as petty what the mob regards as most desirable. Seneca, Moral Letters, 74.12b-13 I think most people…
Clarity: January 7, 2022
“The proper work of the mind is the exercise of choice, refusal, yearning, repulsion, preparation, purpose, and assent. What then can pollute and clog the mind’s proper functioning? Nothing but its own corrupt decisions.” Epictetus, Discourses, 4.11.6-7 In the book The Daily Stoic they note repulsion as rejecting negativity and lies. I equated it more…
Clarity: January 6, 2022
“A person who doesn’t know what the universe is, doesn’t know where they are. A person who doesn’t know their purpose in life doesn’t know who they are or what the universe is. A person who doesn’t know any one of these things doesn’t know why they are here. So what to make of people…
Clarity: January 5, 2022
“Let all your efforts be directed to something, let it keep that end in view. It’s not activity that disturbs people, but false conceptions of things that drive them mad.” Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind, 12.5 This makes me think of vision statements or at the very least the need for the long view. It’s…
Clarity: January 4, 2022
“All you need are these: certainty of judgment in the present moment; action for the common good in the present moment; and an attitude of gratitude in the present moment for anything that comes your way.” Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.6 I feel like the words “certainty of judgment” imply a certainty of being correct. I…
Clarity: January 3, 2022
“How many have laid to waste to you life when you weren’t aware of what you were losing, how much was wasted in pointless grief, foolish joy, greedy desire, and social amusements–how little of your own was left to you. You will realize you are dying before your time!” Seneca, On the Brevity of Life,…