The Daily Stoic

Text in black are quotes; text in green are my notes. I sometimes write in Spanish.

• The philosophy asserts that virtue (meaning, chiefly, the four cardinal virtues of self-control, courage, justice, and wisdom) is happiness, and it is our perceptions of things—rather than the things themselves—that cause most of our trouble. #

• The single most important practice in Stoic philosophy is differentiating between what we can change and what we can’t. #

• If we can focus on making clear what parts of our day are within our control and what parts are not, we will not only be happier, we will have a distinct advantage over other people who fail to realize they are fighting an unwinnable battle. #

• BE RUTHLESS TO THE THINGS THAT DON’T MATTER #

• the more you say no to the things that don’t matter, the more you can say yes to the things that do. #

• Control your perceptions. Direct your actions properly. Willingly accept what’s outside your control. #

• won’t. To the Stoics, oiêsis (false conceptions) are responsible not just for disturbances in the soul but for chaotic and dysfunctional lives and operations. #

• Have you taken the time to get clarity about who you are and what you stand for? Or are you too busy chasing unimportant things, mimicking the wrong influences, and following disappointing or unfulfilling or nonexistent paths? #

• Epictetus is reminding you that serenity and stability are results of your choices and judgment, not your environment. If you seek to avoid all disruptions to tranquility—other people, external events, stress—you will never be successful. Your problems will follow you wherever you run and hide. But if you seek to avoid the harmful and disruptive judgments that cause those problems, then you will be stable and steady wherever you happen to be. #

• This morning, remind yourself of what is in your control and what’s not in your control. Remind yourself to focus on the former and not the latter. Before lunch, remind yourself that the only thing you truly possess is your ability to make choices (and to use reason and judgment when doing so). #

• In the afternoon, remind yourself that aside from the choices you make, your fate is not entirely up to you. #

• remember what is inside our control. According to the Stoics, the circle of control contains just one thing: YOUR MIND. #

• Ask yourself: Is this really the best way to do it? Know why you do what you do—do it for the right reasons. #

• As someone who was one of the richest men in Rome, he knew firsthand that money only marginally changes life. #

• External things can’t fix internal issues. #

• The more things we desire and the more we have to do to earn or attain those achievements, the less we actually enjoy our lives—and the less free we are. #

• “I have the power within me to keep that out. I can see the truth.” #

• “If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters—don’t wish to seem knowledgeable. And if some regard you as important, distrust yourself.” #

• The busier we get, the more we work and learn and read, the further we may drift. #

• “Keep this thought handy when you feel a fit of rage coming on—it isn’t manly to be enraged. #

• The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength.” #

• We should be the ones in control, not our emotions, because we are independent, self-sufficient people. #

• And on and on—the things we fear or dread, we blindly inflict on ourselves. #

• “We have the power to hold no opinion about a thing and to not let it upset our state of mind—for things have no natural power to shape our judgments.” #

  • Tener menos opiniones facilita mucho la vida. No tienes por qué decidir un lado de una disputa y defender tu punto de vista siempre. Podrías simplemente decir: No lo sé, no tengo suficiente información o simplemente no me interesa el tema.

• It’s making sure that your mind is in charge, not your emotions, not your immediate physical sensations, not your surging hormones. #

• Life (and our job) is difficult enough. Let’s not make it harder by getting emotional about insignificant matters or digging in for battles we don’t actually care about. #

• “It is the privilege of the gods to want nothing, and of godlike men to want little.” #

• Our reaction is what actually decides whether harm has occurred. #

• “Don’t set your heart on so many things,” says Epictetus. Focus. Prioritize. Train your mind to ask: Do I need this thing? What will happen if I do not get it? Can I make do without it? #

• “Above all, it is necessary for a person to have a true self-estimate, for we commonly think we can do more than we really can.” #

• “No slavery is more disgraceful,” he quipped, “than one which is self-imposed.” #

• Listen and connect with people, don’t perform for them. #

• because our senses are often wrong, our emotions overly alarmed, our projections overly optimistic, we’re better off not rushing into conclusions about anything. #

• “Above all, keep a close watch on this—that you are never so tied to your former acquaintances and friends that you are pulled down to their level. If you don’t, you’ll be ruined. . . . You must choose whether to be loved by these friends and remain the same person, or to become a better person at the cost of those friends . . . if you try to have it both ways you will neither make progress nor keep what you once had.” #

  • Las amistades de la infancia son invaluables. Pero si has cambiado desde entonces y tienes que fingir ser quien eras antes para mantenerlas, entonces es mejor dejarlas ir.

• “Slavery resides under marble and gold.” #

• No one can lose either the past or the future, for how can someone be deprived of what’s not theirs?” #

• “You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet.” #

• We can’t blame other people for making us feel stressed or frustrated any more than we can blame them for our jealousy. The cause is within us. They’re just the target. #

• “For there are two rules to keep at the ready—that there is nothing good or bad outside my own reasoned choice, and that we shouldn’t try to lead events but to follow them.” #

• “Wherever you go, there you are.” #

• There are two ways to be wealthy—to get everything you want or to want everything you have. #

• We’re still free to use our instincts, but we should always, as the Russian proverb says, “trust, but verify.” #

• Be doubly careful to honor what you do not know, and then set that against the knowledge you actually have. #

• what feels right right now doesn’t always stand up well over time. #

• “Throw out your conceited opinions, for it is impossible for a person to begin to learn what he thinks he already knows.” #

• Be cheerful, not wanting outside help or the relief others might bring. A person needs to stand on their own, not be propped up.” #

• Choose the right inference from someone’s actions or from external events, and it’s a lot more likely that you’ll have the right response. #

• But what if we let these opinions go? Let’s try weeding (ekkoptein; cutting or knocking out) them out of our lives so that things simply are. Not good or bad, not colored with opinion or judgment. Just are. #

• On the other hand, the “good” that the Stoics advocate is simpler and more straightforward: wisdom, self-control, justice, courage. No one who achieves these quiet virtues experiences buyer’s remorse. #

• Your attention is one of your most critical resources. Don’t squander it! #

• “If anyone can prove and show to me that I think and act in error, I will gladly change it—for I seek the truth, by which no one has ever been harmed. The one who is harmed is the one who abides in deceit and ignorance.” #

• No one should be ashamed at changing his mind—that’s what the mind is for. #

• “If you don’t take money, they can’t tell you what to do, kid.” #

• BE THE PERSON YOU WANT TO BE #

• According to the Stoics, your mind is the asset that must be worked on most—and understood best. #

• We must seize what flees.” #

• “We are what we repeatedly do,” #

• There is an old saying: “How you do anything is how you do everything.” It’s true. #

• “I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have.” #

• Don’t get upset. Do the right thing. That’s it. #

• “get active in your own rescue—if you care for yourself at all—and do it while you can.” #

• “Rivers,” Publilius Syrus reminds us with an epigram, “are easiest to cross at their source.” #

• There are two kinds of people in this world. The first looks at others who have accomplished things and thinks: Why them? Why not me? The other looks at those same people and thinks: If they can do it, why can’t I? #

• “if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.” #

• But plans, as the boxer Mike Tyson pointed out, last only until you’re punched in the face. #

• ‘The reason why we have two ears and only one mouth is so we might listen more and talk less.’” #

  • Es muy fácil dejarse llevar y hablar de más. Pero lo que deberíamos hacer es escuchar más, y hablar menos. Para eso tenemos dos orejas y solo una boca.

• “The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close up.” #

• “Calm is contagious.” #

• That’s who you want to be, whatever your line of work: the casual, relaxed person in every situation who tells everyone else to take a breath and not to worry. #

• “We should take wandering outdoor walks, so that the mind might be nourished and refreshed by the open air and deep breathing.” #

• Always Say Less Than Necessary. #

• How you handle even minor adversity might seem like nothing, but, in fact, it reveals everything. #

• No need to be too hard on yourself. Hold yourself to a higher standard but not an impossible one. And forgive yourself if and when you slip up. #

• see whether there is a situation in which one could not find some virtue to practice or derive some benefit. There isn’t one. Every impediment can advance action in some form or another. #

• The goodness inside you is like a small flame, and you are its keeper. #

• Thankfully, you’re not like everyone. You’re not afraid of doing what is hard. You can resist superficially attractive rewards. Can’t you? #

• “In your actions, don’t procrastinate. In your conversations, don’t confuse. In your thoughts, don’t wander. In your soul, don’t be passive or aggressive. In your life, don’t be all about business.” #

• Those who pick things up quickly are notorious for skipping the basic lessons and ignoring the fundamentals. Don’t get carried away. Take it slow. Train with humility. #

• “Whenever you have trouble getting up in the morning, remind yourself that you’ve been made by nature for the purpose of working with others, whereas even unthinking animals share sleeping. And it’s our own natural purpose that is more fitting and more satisfying.” #

• “Nothing is noble if it’s done unwillingly or under compulsion. Every noble deed is voluntary.” #

• “Receive without pride, let go without attachment.” #

• The proper response of the Stoic to these events is not to not care, but mindless, meaningless sympathy does very little either (and comes at the cost of one’s own serenity, in most cases). If there is something you can actually do to help these suffering people, then, yes, the disturbing news (and your reaction to it) has relevance to your reasoned choice. If emoting is the end of your participation, then you ought to get back to your own individual duty—to yourself, to your family, to your country. #

• But you are a human being, not a human doing. #

• “Work is what horses die of. Everybody should know that.” #

• “Often injustice lies in what you aren’t doing, not only in what you are doing.” #

• Take pride in your work. But it is not all. #

• It’s far better that we become pragmatic and adaptable—able to do what we need to do anywhere, anytime. The place to do your work, to live the good life, is here. #

• “The more you say,” Robert Greene has written, “the more likely you are to say something foolish.” #

• Silence is a way to build strength and self-sufficiency. #

• “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” #

• If you give things more time and energy than they deserve, they’re no longer lesser things. You’ve made them important by the life you’ve spent on them. And sadly, you’ve made the important things—your family, your health, your true commitments—less so as a result of what you’ve stolen from them. #

  • Tú decides qué cosas son importantes al dedicarles tiempo. Si pasas tu tiempo envuelto en discusiones sin sentido, las estás haciendo importantes.
  • Al hacer importante algo que no vale la pena, estás haciendo menos importante algo que sí lo vale, como tu familia, salud, amigos y verdaderas obligaciones.

• If you find yourself trying to persuade someone to change or do something differently, remember what an effective lever self-interest is. It’s not that this or that is bad, it’s that it is in their best interest to do it a different way. And show them—don’t moralize. #

• Remember: humans can be happy with very little. #

• “No person has the power to have everything they want, but it is in their power not to want what they don’t have, and to cheerfully put to good use what they do have.” #

• Your hidden power is your ability to use reason and make choices, however limited or small. #

• “Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” #

• The seeds of Stoicism are long underground. Do the work required to nurture and tend to them. So that they—and you—are prepared and sturdy for the hard winters of life. #

• The point is not to have an iron will, but an adaptable will—a will that makes full use of reason to clarify perception, impulse, and judgment to act effectively for the right purpose. #

• You can always get up after you fall, but remember, what has been said can never be unsaid. Especially cruel and hurtful things. #

• If you say you’re being honest now, does that mean you usually aren’t? #

  • No me gusta usar la frase "para serte sincero" porque me hace pensar que en otras ocasiones no fui sincero. Puede que mucha gente no lo vea así, porque se ha convertido en una forma muy común de iniciar una idea y "ganar" la confianza de la otra persona.

• If you see someone who is in need of help, or has asked for guidance, provide it. You owe them that much. #

• Let’s not confuse getting better at stuff with being a better person. One is a much bigger priority than the other. #

• That’s it. That’s what goes into the most important skill of all: how to live. #

• These three parts—the moral, the natural, and the rational—have one aim. As different as they are, they have the same purpose: to help you live a good life ruled by reason. #

• Instead of simply accepting what happens, they urge us to actually enjoy what has happened—whatever it is. #

• You don’t have to believe there is a god directing the universe, you just need to stop believing that you’re that director. #

• “The universe is change. Life is opinion.” #

• The earth abides forever, but we will come and go. #

• Let’s not confuse acceptance with passivity. #

• “Never complain, never explain.” #

  • No necesitas dar explicaciones a extraños en el internet. Si no están de acuerdo con lo que haces o dices, y no ves que se pueda entablar una conversación sana y educada, lo mejor es no explicarte. Cuando lo haces te estás rebajando de nivel, y ellos están subiendo. Repentinamente les das mucha más importancia de lo que podrían merecer. Claro que vale la pena dar explicaciones a personas cercanas o cuando estás consciente de que hiciste algo mal.

• Acceptance isn’t passive. It’s the first step in an active process toward self-improvement. #

• It’s not about overcoming our fears but understanding that both hope and fear contain a dangerous amount of want and worry in them. #

• 1. Accept only what is true. 2. Work for the common good. 3. Match our needs and wants with what is in our control. 4. Embrace what nature has in store for us. #

• “In short, you must remember this—that if you hold anything dear outside of your own reasoned choice, you will have destroyed your capacity for choice.” #

• our attachments are what make it so hard to accept change. #

• turn your mind away from the things that provoke it. #

• If we’re Stoic, there is one thing we can be sure of: whatever happens, we’re going to be OK. #

• “To philosophize is to learn how to die.” #

• Instead of denying our fear of death, let’s let it make us the best people we can be. #

• “the number of people who stand ready to consume one’s time, to no purpose, is almost countless.” #

• “Life is long if you know how to use it.” #

• Use today. Use every day. Make yourself satisfied with what you have been given. #

• As frightening as death might seem, remember: it contains within it the end of fear. #

• Your own experiences have value. You have accumulated your own wisdom too. Stake your claim. Put something down for the ages—in words and also in example. #

• “Everything lasts for a day, the one who remembers and the remembered.” #

• “words become works.” #