I find stoicisminvaluablefor navigating the modern world while maintaining any semblance of self-control.
This post originally appeared onThe Simple Dollar.
Ive discussed stoicism in brief in several places over the years.
Some of you may remember that, a few years ago, I wrote athreepartserieson Ralph Waldo Emersons essaySelf-Reliance.
What Is Stoicism?
Take a bottle of soda, for instance.
Its neither good nor bad.
It is what it isneither good nor evil.
Yet, if I were passionate about drinking soda, I would personally hone in on the good.
I would have an emotional response driving me toward the soda.
I would have an emotional response driving meawayfrom the soda.
Those responses would mostly appear as gut feelings.
I might be enticed by the soda… or I might be disgusted by it.
In either case, my emotions are guiding me.
Those emotions, though, theyreinsideme.
I can control them if I so choose.
Here are some of those principles.
You decide if you want something.
You decide if you dont like something.
We basically attribute it to that product.
They feel almost like theyre created by the thing that you like.
The same thing occurs during every single buying situation.
You might deeplywantsomething, but that want is something inside ofyou, somethingyoucreated.
This is such a huge key to personal and professional and financial success.
Theyre all within you.
This is why a mentor is so valuable.
A mentor can help us walk through the consequences of various choices that face us in life.
A professional mentor can help us make good career decisions, for example.
Mentors play a powerful role in helping you make decisions outside of the influence of your emotional responses.
They can be invaluable, especially when you’re free to tell that emotion is clouding your judgment.
Know That Failure Happens, but Life Goes On
One of the most powerful emotions is fear.
The idea of failure seems very negative for most people.
The thing is, fear is just another emotion.
If we do that, though, we miss out on tons of opportunities.
Fear of failure should never hold you back from taking on challenges.
Fear is an emotion, like any other.
To do so requires knowledge and the ability to apply that knowledge.
The best response is to learn.
Go to the library and check out some books on investing and personal finance.
Learn more about those issues so that they no longer seem scary and unknown.
Be Brutally Honest with Yourself
No one is perfect.
The best solution is to be brutally honest with yourself.
How do your skills line up next to your peers?
In what areas do their skills exceed yours?
In what areas are you more skilled?
In what areas can you improve yourself?
This does not extend to brutal honesty with others.
It often directly leads to more time that you could use for improving various aspects of your life.
Take a strong, serious look at how you use your time.
One great way to do this is to do a time diary.
I use time use trackers likeTimingto keep track of how Im using my time.
This almost always shows me, in very clear terms, how well Im using my time.
One great way to do this is to use a spending tracker.
When I do things, I prefer to have them fall into one of those two categories.
Unsurprisingly, this all points a very negative finger right at procrastination.
Youwantto do something else because the important thing perhaps isnt as fun.
The end result is that you end up under-performing on the important task.
The best approach is to start in on important tasks as soon as you know about them.
Start saving for retirement now.
Start working on that project now.
We dont respond to things rationally and instead rely on the most instantaneous of reactions to deal with situations.
In short,we make better decisions and take more away from situations if were present in the moment.
The solution here is easy: whatever it is that youre doing at the moment,focus on it.
Dont let your mind wander.
Incidentally, this is why my cell phone is actually completely turned off a lot of the time.
Youll get upset by something.
Those emotions are completely normal.
Almost always, by the fifth why, Im getting somewhere.
Ideally, we make the best decisions possible in each situation.
Its all about making rational decisions as we work toward our higher purpose in life.
The Obstacle Is the Wayby Ryan Holliday is probably my favoritemodernintroduction to stoicism.
The Enchiridionof Epictetus is something of a practical handbook on how to life a stoic life.
Id also strongly recommendMeditationsby Marcus Aurelius, who was a second century AD Roman emperor.
Marcus Aurelius was clearly committed to stoicism and his writings are very insightful.
Photo byPan_Media(Shutterstock).
