Stoicism for a Better Life – Weekly exercise (January 5, 2020)
Hello there,
Happy New Year to you all. I hope the new year brings you the wisdom and tranquillity you seek.
Since I mentioned it last week, quite a few more of you have reached out to me and shared your resolutions. First off, thank you guys. Keep sending me those emails, messages, Tweets, comments, etc… All I want to get out of this work I do is to hear about your success stories and connect with you (my readers and listeners from around the world) that I would not have had a chance to connect with otherwise. So, whether it’s about the books, podcast series or the articles, keep the conversation going. It warms my heart.
Although we don’t need January 1st to come around in order to make good changes in our lives, it does offer a unique motivation that we have bought into as a society in the form of a New Year’s resolution. So I encourage you to follow through on your resolutions, and with this week’s exercise on Stoicism for a Better Life, I would like to offer you some more motivation. Here is a quote from the Moral Letters of Seneca to Lucillius CI 8 :
“The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.”
If you have been reading these articles since the beginning, you know by now that one of the cardinal sins we commit in going about our daily lives is that we don’t actually believe we will die. We know it, but kind of conveniently ignore it. This is why one very often sees a change in the life and attitude of someone who has had a near-death experience. These people who face death square in the face, accept the uncomfortable truth that it’s coming for you real fast. In my first book Your User’s Manual I share a few examples of this, including that of the 33 men that were trapped in the mines of Copiapó, Chile in 2010. As they were lying there in the dark collapsed mines waiting for death, many of them wrote themselves notes or made themselves promises that they would change the way they live and actually live as opposed to just being alive.
Eventually, they were rescued, and many did change the way they lived. But if they changed, it means they had what it takes to live a better life in them the whole time. Why did they have to wait until a brush with death and a miracle rescue to change their approach to life? I mean they knew their time is limited and running out. Yet they went about their daily drudgeries disregarding the looming death sentence approaching them every day…until one day the grim reaper made an up close and personal appearance. Sound silly and illogical from where we sit, but lest we forget, we are committing the exact same error. If you truly believed you are living life to its fullest, that you live a good life worthy of living and that you make the most of your time knowing full well your death sentence marches towards you every day, then one thing is for sure: You are lying to yourself.
If you are here reading this article now, you have yet more improvements to make on your life and the way you live it. You’re still trying to improve. But besides that, I will prove with one question that you are not yet living your life like someone who has 100% accepted they are dying and can very realistically die at any time: Have you ever said that you don’t have enough time? As in, have you ever said: “man I wish I had more time to do X, but I just don’t”. If your answer is yes, then you are not living a life that accepts your imminent death.
To drive this point home, our ancient guides often used the example of a soldier who is about to leave on deployment. Of course, back then given the nature of how battles were fought, one truly never knew if they were coming home from a battle. A big part of a soldier’s training was to get in the mindset of accepting that they are leaving to meet their death at every battle, so as to have the courage to fight. So as a soldier would leave their home on deployment, not knowing whether they will return or not, they would get their affairs in order. they would handle their business they would tell their children they love them and kiss them as if it were the last time. They would take care of what is important and simply not have any time for quarrelling or petty matters.
So, this week (and as you try and work towards your new resolutions) focus on what needs to be done…what ACTUALLY needs to be done. Identify the necessary actions you need to complete, and complete them before you end your day. Everything else falls into the category of “nice to haves”, as in “it would be nice if I get to do this as well, but it’s not necessary for a good life”. Do this on a daily basis, and it will give you the discipline to get the important things in life done without complaining that you don’t have enough time. And if you identify the key actions, and get them done on a daily basis, as an added bonus I guarantee you will sleep better.
As always, I wish you a wise, tranquil and productive week.
Anderson Silver
(Author of “Your User’s Manual” and “Vol 2: Your Duality Within”)