On being a stoic and friendship

   

                                                                 

                                  

I have been reading books I believed to bring me better knowledge about living well and being wise for a long time now. I am not sure where the compulsion came from. I did not copy anyone here, it was my own idea. Maybe it was because books were good friends from a very early age? Being not all that confident (thanks God for that) I wanted to be guided by somebody cleverer than myself? People around were not well suited to do that. So, I went to books for my answers. And it stayed that way even if I met many clever people in my travels and some gave me better ideas than my own. Books are still the best source of wisdom for me.

I read Kierkegaard and Fromm… The choice was coincidental as in Poland books were a hot commodity and were sold out fast most of the time one could not buy what one wanted.  No Booktopia at those times. After Kierkegaard I became to worry about life, it was on a depressing side. So when, much later, I discovered stoics, I thought that this is something for me.  It stayed that way. I read some stoic books from time to time to learn from them how to live. The stoic philosophy and books got me through the hard hospital times and they are still of great value in the recovery times. One of my friends got me to practice being a stoic in a structured way and after initial resistance to include readings of The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday into my rather sloppy morning routine, I am actually doing it. Recently the same friend suggested and it was a strong suggestion, I must say, that I enroll on a Stoic Week that was just about to start. I do not respond well to strong suggestions, but I respect my friend’s judgement so I thought, yes, I will give it a go. I have enrolled and I am very glad I did. Firstly, the questionnaire results showed that all that reading gave good results and I scored 445 points out of 539 which makes me a fair dink-um stoic. Hmm… Have I cheated? This would not be a stoic way at all. I also turned out to be classified as satisfied with life. Hmm… again.

OK, so this makes me feel good about myself if not a little surprised and pondering about the value of such tests. But what is more important and what I realised reading the material, that is supplied by the organisers of the program, is what my major learning area will be this week. The stoics identify wisdom, justice, self-control and courage as the most important virtues one should work on to acquire. The area with the biggest need to work on for me is self-control. Will I manage to spend my time better, go for walks, exercise, read in longer stretches of time, listen less to Polish politics, play fewer computer games, eat well and not much? I think that I may at least improve a bit.

                                                     

                               

What surprised me a little and made me feel lighter was some depreciation of friendship and family life. Not that they are not important but they are not critical for feeling happy. According to stoics, that is. This should have been clear to me before as the stoic teaching is that we should not worry about things we do not have influence on. Like being pretty or healthy. It is obvious to me now that the friends and family are important and valuable but this is not always I can influence such relationships to what I would like it to be. And I still can be happy even if the best friend becomes a considerable source of grief.

I think I have done my today’s middle of the day meditation prescribed by the Stoic Week by writing this post. Now, that I have done my physical exercises I will continue to work on my virtues and inner strength. Wow, if I continue like that I will soon walk on water.

                             

The value of having a routine in my life

When I look at the definition of routine, it seems rather uninspiring:

a sequence of actions regularly followed.

"I settled down into a routine of work and sleep"

synonims:

procedure, practice, pattern, drill, regime, regimen, groove;

Recently, however, I realised that a life without a routine leads to confusion, inactivity and generally losing direction. Now, the routine needs to be such that it actually inspires you to live better, to live a vibrant life… In fact, it needs to be the opposite to what it seems to be at a glance. It all depends on what my routine is, what are the steps I follow regularly, what thoughts I think every day.

This morning I went to my Daily Stoic book and the thought of the day brought for reflection the message of guarding your thoughts. I always knew, or at least, I have known for a long time that the colour of my daily thoughts dyes my life. It can make me look at life in a happy way or a negative, gloomy way of a scared person. It is so obvious what type of thought one should decide to think. This is not so easy sometimes and I get lazy and go on a negative automatic pilot.  I must say that the last year has been difficult for me in many ways and I fell into some routines that made my life not as good as I would have liked it. My problems, objectively, did not go away, but I made a decision to live each day the best I can. My stoic friends have a nice metaphor of seeing each day as a bead that we string on our thread of life. Each bead is a finished and separate unit and we have a choice to make this bead a lovely colour, shape and shine a bright light. At the beginning of each day, we can decide how we want the day to be. Starting with reflection helps to make better decisions during the day. Routine can be very helpful in this respect, providing that it is a supportive routine. This is what I am working on now. Designing my routine. Writing my blog or my diary is the way to systemise my thoughts and find answers in my subconscious and in my conscious mind. It would be really great if I got some ideas from the readers of the post, but this is perhaps too much to expect. My posts, even if read by some who I consider my virtual friends, are not that popular to get flooded by responses to my existential questions. If it happens I will be happy and grateful.

Back to posting

It has been a while since I posted. It is mainly that what was happening in my life was difficult to live through and difficult to write about. Even if I am typically quite candid with what I write, I want to leave the details aside for now. But I want to go back to writing my posts, so it looks that I will be a bit enigmatic and I hope that this will not matter.

I always wanted to lead a meaningful life. Sometimes my friends thought that I am too serious and that I labour the point of meaningful life too much. Now, I think, more than ever I want to live better than I was managing so far. But what is better? What I can change and how my days need to look like?

In the last weeks, I put increased emphasis on reading stoic thoughts. In fact, I started the year with a Daily Stoic book recommended to me by a friend. This is interesting and a good morning practice, but the current situation requires something more. So, I I decided that I want to read again the book by the polish writer Piotr Stankiewicz “The art of living according to stoics”. I felt that it would be very helpful to read the book with new interest. Alas, I left the book in Poland. And here I discovered once again the power of technology. After a short search on the internet I found an e-version of the book and some minutes later the book was downloaded to my iPhone. It felt like magic. I have been using internet and online shopping quite extensively so the situation should not have surprised me. It was just that I wanted the book so much that the sudden ability to read it at my will felt like many doors opening for me. I have not been thinking about it that I can read any book that is in Polish bookshops without going to the country. Typically, I prefer to read English originals, but there are books that are not translated into English that they suddenly became available to me. I like it.

So, what about living according to stoics? One of the most powerful and useful to me messages is that there are two things in life: those we can influence and those that we cannot. Worrying about the ones that are not under our control is silly as we can not do anything about it. The way is to accept it in a calm way. This is indeed an art that will require some practice, but I must say that I am doing not too badly already.

I guess I will stop at that for today, but my intention of going back to blogging has been fulfilled. The life is going back to the old shape, but there is a challenge ahead of me to live better than I was and use the time better. Procrastination will disappear. 

Time to shake off the blues

Frankly, I cannot see any changes in the circumstances I was bothered by, the other day writing my previous post. So, I thought that I ask my stoic bible for advice. I do not like this feeling of sadness and lack of control and I want to change it. Will it work? I hope so.

Mark Aurelius said that we do not have to give in to negative feelings like sadness or frustration. We may not have influence over the circumstances, but we have influence over our feelings and reactions. OK, I know the theory and I agree with it, but to make this necessary change is rather difficult. But if I do not make the necessary change in my mood, I am told that I am not true to myself, that I do not use the opportunities that are just at the stretch of the hand. That I waste opportunity to live better. Hmm…

Another thought, this time Seneca is the author of the wisdom, is that a wise person must not wait for the external bad circumstances to be resolved before the happy life can be lived.  It is shameful to wait with leading a happy and full life till whatever is bad at the moment passes or gets resolved. It is silly to expect that there will come the moment when everything is perfect and then we can spread our wings. This will never happen and we would waste our life waiting in vain for a perfect situation.

This is the theory, I intend to apply to my day and practice it. Will I manage? Maybe?? I feel a little better already.

Working on becoming a stoic

While I may have been born with analytical abilities, I was definitely not born a stoic. I heard about stoicism, the term is often used in everyday Polish language. Funny that, Poles are typically not blessed with stoicism. Emotions rule too often. For some reason and after many years being emerged in Swedish culture, I though it would be good to learn more about the stoic philosophy. I started to read. It may sound very highbrow; nevertheless it has been a genuine interest. I started with Don’t Worry, Be Stoic by Peter J. Vernezze and being encouraged I moved to more difficult reading. Marc Aurelius has been on my night table for a while but I have not managed to read it to the end. I may come back to it one day, who knows. However, I managed to read and understand Seneca’s Letters to Lucilius. My impression was that the advice given to the young Roman politician was a sound one and current it its message. I could even apply it to my XXI century life. Twenty five centuries after Seneca. Amazing.

When one is interested in a subject, one picks up more sensitively from information radar. Listening to a podcast from a Polish radio I came across an interesting discussion with an author of a book about stoics. It must have been one of those synchronicity coincidences. The talk was interesting and I thought that I’ll buy the book when I am back in Poland. My favourite niece studied philosophy. How clever and impractical of her. I envied her the courage to chose such subject.  Talking to her, I asked if she heard of a new book about stoic ideas. By that time I forgot the title and the name of the author. Martyna thought a while and then she said – It must be Pete, he lives around the corner from us. I know him. This came as a bit as a shock. Book about philosophy written by a neighbour who must be in his very early thirties or even younger? Would the book be worthwhile reading? Such a young person has not have a chance to experience life, I pronounced. I did not buy the book at that time. However, talking to the mother of my philosopher niece, I changed my mind. The mother has been reading the book and she liked it. And I respect my sister in law opinions. Apparently the book is nicely structured and the young Pete who is really serious Piotr Stankiewicz (sorry Piotr for earlier lack of confidence in your writing) does not try to teach elders to suck eggs, but presents excerpts of Seneca, Mark Aurelius and Epictetus which he comments. He does it very well.  The book is like translation ever current ideas, even if formulated 4 B.C., to current language and situations. Now the book Art of Living According to Stoics is on my Sydney night table. And I read it systematically.

As my life is full of challenges at the moment, I am remodeling my kitchen, the book is a great help. I am diligently working on understanding what I can influence and act on and things I cannot influence and stop worrying about them. Since worrying is one of my inborn talents, working on getting rid of it will take a while. I am optimistic that I will manage one day. This is Work In Progress for me. I follow Seneca's advice and keep learning how to live.