Stoicism for a Better Life – Weekly exercise (May 17, 2020)
Hello there,
For this week’s exercise, I would like to draw from my second most favourite character from the movie Gladiator, and my #1 favourite Roman Emperor who was also a Stoic, Marcus Aurelius. This is from his Meditations IX 42 :
“Where is the harm or the strangeness in the boor acting like a boor? See whether you are not yourself the more to blame in not expecting that he would err in such a way. For you had means give you by your reason to suppose that it was likely that he would commit this error, and yet you have forgotten and are amazed that he has erred. (paragraph before)…wherein have you been injured? For you will find that no one among those against whom you are irritated has done anything by which your mind could be made worse; but that which is evil to you and harmful has its foundations only in the mind.”
This one speaks to me…a lot. As someone who works in a corporate environment, this is a lesson I keep close at hand. I kid you not! I have a bunch of Post-It notes at my desk and they’re all yellow, some are larger others are smaller and all have some notes scribbled on them. There is, however, one Post-It that stands out (if you know it’s there). It a pink note with no writing on it. It just kind of lives there. This is my proverbial “string around my finger” to remind me specifically of the lesson above.
Each one of us makes this mistake ALL the time: Someone does something that is in line with their character, but that is not in line with our hopes and expectation…and we get shocked. “Can you believe what she did?!”…”Oh the nerve of that guy!” Even if our hopes are in line with social norms, and we KNOW this person won’t do the right thing…we still get shocked at this person for doing what they would normally do. I’m sure you can think of an example or ten. Think family gathering, a friend’s friend that you have to be around, a colleague…and they just blow your mind for doing something incredulous! But you know who is at fault? You! Think of it logically:
1) We should not be getting upset at what others do for it is outside of our control anyways; and
2) It’s doubly bad (as in we hurt ourselves a second time) by being upset with someone for acting entirely within their character…just because we disagree with their behaviour.
So, this week at the end of the day reflect on some frustrations you had. Then see if you can identify situation where you got extra upset because someone was acting exactly the way they would be expected to…yet you went “Can you believe this?!”. This is one of those exercises where we can learn to eliminate a lot of frustration from our lives. It certainly works for me and I’m confident you can get a lot out of it as well.
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”)