The optimist taking an exam believes ‘I will definitely pass the exam’. And if they don’t it leaves them completely devastated, not being prepared for the chance they wouldn’t)t prepared for not passing it). A pessimist thinks ‘There’s no way I’ll pass’ and spends their whole time wasting life in a disgusting …
6 weeks ago, my copy of Marcus Aurelius Meditations looked like this: And yesterday, after consciously taking my time to read as little of it every day as possible (so as to think about and most importantly try put it into practice) I finished. Just over a month later (not 20 years), now …
Going through adversity? Good. Embrace it, pay close attention to it, how you feel during it, learn from it and it’ll make you tougher. Going through a favourable period? Also good. Appreciate it, pay close attention to how you feel during it and be grateful for it. Either way, shit …
This is what my site’s about: And this is what Marcus wrote in Meditations (10:37): At every action, no matter by whom performed, make it a practice to ask yourself, ‘What is his object in doing this?’ But begin with yourself; put this question to yourself first of all. Coincidink? Yep. Probably. …
A friend wrote to me today telling me it’s been an ‘interesting’ time for me lately. Now, you don’t need to know what ‘interesting’ means in this case, but interesting is the right way to put it. There is no good, no bad, no sad, no tough, no difficult things that happen. …
Blink. Done? Okay, so in an average life of 75 years you’ve got 2.4 billion seconds. A blink of your eyes takes about half a second. So, say your life is the history of Earth (4.5 billion years)… then your entire existence on it is nothing but One. Single. Blink. Or one 4-and-a-half …
What do you consider ‘successful’? Being rich? Famous? Attractive? Running a company that sells millions of dollars worth of some shit people don’t need? Sure, those are types of achievement, but what’s the common thing among all those? They’re external, they’re superficial and most notably, they’re entirely reliant on and decided …
The principles of Stoicism are easy to put into practice when stuff’s going well. To express gratitude for what you have, to aim for tranquility to be your core emotion, and that you only control what you do and you have ZERO control over what others do. But it’s when things …
This happened today (well, actually last week, but I don’t check my Facebook because I have 0 Facebook friends): That’s pretty cool. Especially since it’s Ben Lee –someone whose music I not only love, but whose philosophy on life is one I try to live by in many ways. Another …
Spanning over 2300 years, there’s one thing that bound Plato’s Socrates, Henry David Thoreau and Confucius together: They all knew nothing, and they knew it. This was a song Thoreau sang to himself while cutting, hewing and chopping wood in 1845¹: Men say they know many things; But lo! they …
