Wild beasts flee from the dangers they see -
and when they have fled they are calm.
-- Seneca
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Remember:
Matter.
How tiny your share of it.
Time.
How brief and fleeting your allotment of it.
Fate.
How small a role you play in it.
-- Marcus Aurelius
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Any person capable of angering you
becomes your master;
he can anger you only
when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.
-- Epictetus
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The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on the fighting the old, but on building the new.
-- Socrates
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Read postThe Egg
July 17, 2023•1,000 words
By: Andy Weir
You were on your way home when you died.
It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.
And that’s when you met me.
“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”
“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.
“There was a… a truck and it wa...
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The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
Marcus Aurelius
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Leben wie ein Baum, einzeln und frei
doch brüderlich wie ein Wald,
das ist unsere Sehnsucht.
Nazım Hikmet
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Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
Hilary Cooper
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The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.
Alan Watts
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Read postDon't Quit
March 12, 2023•201 words
When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don’t you quit
Life is strange with its twists and turns
As every one of us sometimes learns
And many a failure comes about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow
You may succeed with another blow.
Success ...
Read postWhen your bow is broken
September 20, 2022•96 words
Interestingly, "The Book of Mu" cites the following as a waka poem written by an old Japanese Zen Master.
When your bow is broken and your arrows are exhausted,
There, shoot!
Shoot with your whole being!
-- The Book of Mu
While an internet search has the following line written by Roger Zelazny, an American writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels.
When your bow is broken and your last arrow spent,
then shoot,
shoot with your whole heart.
-- Roger Joseph Zelazny
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The best revenge against your enemy is not to become like your enemy.
-- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.6
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Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day. The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.
-- Seneca
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I wonder what feelings inspire a man to complain of 'having nothing to do.' I am happiest when I have nothing to distract me and I am completely alone. . . . Even if a man has not yet discovered the path of enlightenment, as long as he removes himself from his worldly ties, leads a quiet life, and maintains his peace of mind by avoiding entanglements, he may be said to be happy, at least for the time being.
Kenkō (translated by Donald Keene), Tsurezuregusa, Chapter 75, in Donald Keene, Essay...
Read postLeaves
June 22, 2022•110 words
The prisoners of infinite choice
Have built their house
In a field below the wood
And are at peace.
It is autumn, and dead leaves
On their way to the river
Scratch like birds at the windows
Or tick on the road.
Somewhere there is an afterlife
Of dead leaves,
A stadium filled with an infinite
Rustling and sighing.
Somewhere in the heaven
Of lost futures
The lives we might have led
Have found their own fulfilment.
Derek Mahon, The Snow Party (Oxford University Press 1975).
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To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Read postDo not believe in anything
June 19, 2022•118 words
Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not
believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do
not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your
religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of
your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have
been handed down for many generations. But after observation and
analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is
conducive to the go...
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Since I came to Cold Mountain
how many thousand years have passed
accepting my fate I fled to the woods
to dwell and gaze in freedom
no one visits the cliffs
forever hidden by clouds
soft grass serves as a mattress
my quilt is the dark blue sky
a boulder makes a fine pillow
Heaven and Earth can crumble and change
-- Red Pine (translator), The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain
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Read post"Stop Chasing After So Many Things" - Ryokan and Wang Wei
June 19, 2022•164 words
When I am in need of a sense of perspective, I often turn to the poetry of Ryokan (1758-1831) or Wang Wei (c. 701-761). Ryokan was a Zen monk who lived much of his life in a hut in the wooded hills near the coast of the Sea of Japan. (Present-day Niigata Prefecture.) He is one of the most beloved of Japanese poets, valued for his humility, his simplicity, and his integrity.
My hut lies in the middle of a dense forest;
Every year the green ivy grows longer.
No news of the affairs of men,
Onl...
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If you change the way you look at things,
the things you look at change.
-- Wayne Dyer
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Read postkintsukuroi
June 12, 2022•97 words
(n.) (v. phr.) "to repair with gold"; the art of repairing pottery with gold or silver lacquer and understanding that piece is more beautiful for having been broken
When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something's suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful.
Barbara Bloom
In Japan, broken objects are often repaired with gold. The flaw is seens as a unique piece of the object's history, whi...
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Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of men's desires, but by the removal of desire.
-- Epictetus, The Discourses
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You can't save time.
You can only spend it.
But you can spend it wisely or foolishly.
-- Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh
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We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.
-- Maya Angelou
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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.
-- Epictetus
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Read postThe Old Man in The Park
February 6, 2022•2,076 words
Once there was a young man walking in the street, he was 25 years old and was lost in his thoughts. He was thinking about the future, about his goals, about his purpose in his life, about his family’s health, and also he was thinking about his past, his mistakes, his embarrassments, his bad decisions, and all of these thoughts were making him very anxious and frustrated. He didn’t know what to do with his life, he was 25 years old and going nowhere, with no prospects, no real goals, with nothing...
Read postAnyway: The Paradoxical Commandments
February 1, 2022•188 words
People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest mi...
Read postPlease Call Me by My True Names
January 22, 2022•472 words
All Is Well In The Great Mess · Thich Nhat Hanh - Please Call Me by My True Names
Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow —
even today I am still arriving.
Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth an...
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We have a tendency to think
in terms of doing and not
in terms of being.
We think that when we’re not doing anything,
we’re wasting our time.
But that’s not true.
Our time is first of all
for us to be.
To be what?
To be alive, to be peaceful,
to be joyful, to be loving.
And this is what the world needs the most.
We all need to train ourselves in our way of being,
and that is the ground for all action.
Our quality of being
determines our quality of doing.
-- Thich Nhat Han...
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No coming, no going,
No after, no before,
I hold you close,
I release you to be free;
I am in you
And you are in me.
-- Thich Nhat Hanh, *11 October 1926 - †22 January 2022
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Sometimes the scariest bridge to burn
is the one between you
and the person you thought you were.
-- Tanya Markul
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It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.
-- Aristotle
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The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.
-- Marcus Aurelius
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Read postThe Daily Stoic
December 12, 2021•59 words
The new year is coming to an end and for next year I already have a little surprise for all German speaking visitors:
Ryan Holiday's The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Enjoy reading and practicing. And if you like it and can afford it, please support the author by buying the book.
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In a chaotic modern world seemingly designed to burn everyone out, slowing down is a profoundly positive act of rebellion.
-- Unknown Author
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The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
-- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
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Ergib dich nicht der Stimmung dessen, der dich beleidigt, und folge nicht dem Weg, auf den er dich schleppen möchte.
-- Marcus Aurelius
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Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.
-- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
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"If you are depressed, you are living in the past.
If you are anxious, you are living in the future.
If you are at peace, you are living in the moment."
-- Junia Bretas, West Los Angeles Buddhist Temple Bulletin, volume 57, July-August 2014
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Read postThe Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
September 5, 2021•156 words
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way l...
Read postInvictus by William Ernest Henley
September 3, 2021•116 words
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with puni...
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“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.”
-— Seneca, Letters From a Stoic
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“Do you want to improve the world?
I don't think it can be done.
The world is sacred.
It can't be improved.
If you tamper with it, you'll ruin it.
If you treat it like an object, you'll lose it.
There is a time for being ahead,
a time for being behind;
a time for being in motion,
a time for being at rest;
a time for being vigorous,
a time for being exhausted;
a time for being safe,
a time for being in danger.
The Master sees things as they are,
without trying to control them.
She lets them g...
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"It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor."
„Nicht wer wenig hat, sondern wer viel wünscht, ist arm.“
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
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Read postSeneca - Das Leben ist kurz!
July 21, 2021•22 words
Heute habe ich Marion Giebels Übersetzung von Senecas "Das Leben ist kurz" hinzugefügt. Der Text ist auch über den Menüpunkt "Stoicism" erreichbar.
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Read postMarcus Aurelius - Meditations
July 4, 2021•24 words
Today I have added Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations", translated by Gregory Hays. You can also access it via the menu bar in the "Stoicism" section.
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Read postIf— by Rudyard Kipling
July 3, 2021•452 words
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
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Read postSeneca - On the Shortness of Life
July 1, 2021•27 words
Today I have added Seneca's "On the Shortness of Life", translated by C.D.N. Costa. You can also access it via the menu bar in the "Stoicism" section.
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"It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live."
-- Marcus Aurelius
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"Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about
other people—unless it affects the common good. It will
keep you from doing anything useful. You’ll be too
preoccupied with what so-and-so is doing, and why, and
what they’re saying, and what they’re thinking, and what
they’re up to, and all the other things that throw you off and
keep you from focusing on your own mind.
You need to avoid certain things in your train of thought:
everything random, everything irrelevant. And certainly
every...
Read postIch muss meinem Tag keinen Plan mehr geben
May 19, 2021•269 words
All Is Well In The Great Mess · Ich muss dem Tag keinen Plan mehr geben
Kulturelles Feature „Ich muss dem Tag keinen Plan mehr geben“Oder: einfach leben!Von Cornelia Beuel
Anne
Donaths Geschichte entwickelte sich wie die vieler Frauen: Abitur,
Lehrerexamen, Ehe, drei Kinder, Hausfrau. Heute, sie ist jetzt 58 Jahre
alt, ist ihr Leben geprägt von Verzicht: keine Waschmaschine, kein
Kühlschrank, kein Strom, kein Telefon, kein Auto.
Ihr Haus, nach dem sie
sich immer sehnte, ist eine Hütte ...
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“The birds have vanished into the sky,
and now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me,
until only the mountain remains.”
-- Li Po
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Read postThe Little Duck by Donald C. Babcock
April 21, 2021•197 words
Now we’re ready to look at something pretty special.
It is a duck,
riding the ocean a hundred feet beyond the surf.
No it isn’t a gull.
A gull always has a raucous touch about him.
This is some sort of duck,
and he cuddles in the swells.
He isn’t cold,
and he is thinking things over.
There is a big heaving in the Atlantic,
and he is a part of it.
He looks a bit like a mandarin,
or the Lord Buddha meditating under the Bo tree.
But he has hardly enough above the eyes
to be a philosopher.
He has...
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“Nothing lasts, nothing is finished, nothing is perfect.”
-- Tenets of Wabi Sabi
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“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
-- Anaïs Nin
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"If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."
-- Wayne Dyer
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„Ziehe dich in dich selbst zurück, so viel du kannst; verkehre mit denen, die dich besser machen, und erstatte solchen den Zutritt, die du besser machen kannst.“
-- Seneca
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“You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you. True power is sitting back and observing things with magic. True power is restraint. If words control you that means everyone else can control you. Breathe and allow things to pass.”
-- Warren Buffett
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"If you aim at great things, you must not allow yourself inclination toward the attainment of other things, however slight; but you must entirely quit some of them, and for the present postpone the rest."
-- Epicurus
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"Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?"
-- Epicurus
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"In the end what matters most is
How well did you live
How well did you love
How well did you learn
to let go"
-- Unknown Author
"In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you."
-- Gautama Buddha
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Read postKeeping a Stoic Journal
November 6, 2020•1,165 words
I have experimented with other exercises, but journaling is my primary Stoic exercise, although I journal a variety of ways.
One of the better starting points (not historically Stoic, but influenced by Stoicism) is the philosophical meditation routine from the The Philosopher's Mail, although I personally bring more Stoic elements into it by, in addition to the questions listed there, I ask what the different experiences say about what I value, whether these values concern virtues/vices or ex...
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Things are not as they seem, nor are they otherwise.
-- Zen proverb
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Wer noch grün ist, kann wachsen.
Wer sich bereits reif wähnt, beginnt schon zu faulen.
-- René Borbonus
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It’s not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.
-- Seneca
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No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
-- Aesop
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The cost of sanity in this society, is a certain level of alienation.
-- Terence McKenna
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Read postBleiben will ich, wo ich nie gewesen bin
May 2, 2020•60 words
Was ich habe, will ich nicht verlieren, aber
wo ich bin, will ich nicht bleiben, aber
die ich liebe, will ich nicht verlassen, aber
die ich kenne, will ich nicht mehr sehen, aber
wo ich lebe, da will ich nicht sterben, aber
wo ich sterbe, da will ich nicht hin:
Bleiben will ich, wo ich nie gewesen bin.
Thomas Barsch
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Read postSomeday Never Comes
May 1, 2020•162 words
“Some day my prince will come.…” Good old Walt Disney. Well, that may have worked out for Snow White. Back here on Earth, it’s a recipe for disappointment. In flesh-and-blood life, waiting for “some day” is no strategy for success, it’s a cop-out. What’s more, it’s one that the majority follow their whole lives. Someday, when my ship comes in … Someday, when I have the money … Someday, when I have the time … Someday, when I have the skill … Someday, when I have the confidence … How many of thos...
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"The wise man is consistent in both his thoughts and actions."
-- Donald Robertson, How to think like a Roman emperor
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Read post"Just keep in mind: the more we value things outside our control, the less control we have."
-- Epictetus
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"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit."
-- Aristotle
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"Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?"
-- Epicurus
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Read postStoicism in a time of pandemic: how Marcus Aurelius can help
April 26, 2020•43 words
The Meditations, by a Roman emperor who died in a plague named after him, has much to say about how to face fear, pain, anxiety and loss.
A great article from Donald Robertson, published by The Guardian:
Stoicism in the Time of Pandemic
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Read postAbout Stoically Braving the Odds to Emerge Stronger
April 25, 2020•74 words
Want to build-up resilience and will power? The stoics offer a daily dose of subjecting yourselves to the worst-case scenarios to your troubles. It’s a simple methodology where you focus on yourself and your immediate surroundings once the terrible event has befallen you. According to the stoics, factoring every tragedy in one’s life trajectory is key to letting nothing disturb your internal peace.
Here’s the vision of a stoic on the journey through Covid-19.
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Everyday, think as you wake up, ‘today I am fortunate to have woken up, I am alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others, to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others, I am going to benefit others as much as I can.
-- Dalai Lama
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In everything that you do, pause and ask yourself if death is a dreadful thing because it deprives you of this.
-- Marcus Aurelius
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"True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not"
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca, De Vita Beata
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Read postStoics are speaking to locked-down readers
April 16, 2020•75 words
Sales of works by ancient Roman Marcus Aurelius have seen a sharp uptick in recent months.
According to Penguin Random House, print sales of Meditations are up 28% for the first quarter of 2020 vs 2019, while print sales of Letters from a Stoic are up 42% for the same period. In the last four weeks, its ebook sales rose by 356%"
The Guardian: ‘Dress rehearsal for catastrophe’: how Stoics are speaking to locked-down readers.
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Read postRalph Waldo Emerson - Self-Reliance
April 13, 2020•10,682 words
This text was first published in Emerson’s Essays collection in 1841. Emerson drew on his journals of 1832-40 for a number of ideas and passages he wrote here. Over the years, he delivered the text as speeches and lectures, so it evolved over time.
"Ne te quæsiveris extra."
"Man is his own star; and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man,
Commands all light, all influence, all fate;
Nothing to him falls early or too late.
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shad...
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"External things are not the problem. It's your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now."
-- Marcus Aurelius
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"We’re tight-fisted with property and money, yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest misers."
-- Seneca
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"It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."
-- R.W. Emerson, Self-Reliance
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"It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light."
-- Aristotle
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"We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality."
-- Seneca
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"A rock thrown in the air. It loses nothing by coming down, gained nothing by going up."
-- Marcus Aurelius
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"My life has been filled with terrible misfortunes; most of which never happened."
-- Michel de Montaigne
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Read postMarc Aurel: Selbstbetrachtungen (Reclam Hörbuch)
April 4, 2020•28 words
Die Selbstbetrachtungen von Marc Aurel sind als kostenloses Reclam Hörbuch auf YouTube verfügbar. Gelesen von Winfried Frey.
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“True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing.”
-- Seneca
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Read postSenecas unvergängliche Lebensweisheit
April 2, 2020•37 words
Warum sind wir so geizig mit unserem Geld, gehen aber verschwenderisch mit unserer Lebenszeit um? In seinem Traktat „Das Leben ist kurz“ plädiert Seneca für einen verantwortungsvollen Umgang mit der Ressource Zeit.
Lesung mit Reinhard Glemnitz
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“The life we are given isn’t short but we make it so; we’re not ill provided but we are wasteful of life.”
-- Seneca
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“Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what's left and live it properly. What doesn't transmit light creates its own darkness.”
-- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
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"Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions -- not outside."
-- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
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"Without going out-of-doors,
one may know all under heaven;
Without peering through windows,
one may know the Way of heaven.
The farther one goes,
The less one knows.
For this reason,
The sage
knows without journeying,
understands without looking,
accomplishes without acting."
-- Victor H. Mair (Lao Tzu - Tao Te Ching)
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"Remember that no one loses any other life than this which he is living, nor lives any other than this which he is losing."
-- Marcus Aurelius
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"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
-- R. Buckminster Fuller
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“My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.”
-- Michel de Montaigne
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“Loss is nothing but change, and change is nature’s delight.”
-- Marcus Aurelius
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“It’s impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows”
-- Epictetus
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"You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone."
-- M. Aurelius
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