Stoicism for a Better Life – Weekly exercise (March 28, 2021)

Hello there,

For this week’s exercise, let us find some inspiration from Seneca. This is from his work on Providence: 

“It is not possible that any evil can befall a good man. Opposites cannot combine.”

I love this one. Simple, yet so much happening in this here quote. Today, however, I want to focus on the idea that we are good people if our intentions are pure. Given our culture (especially in the western world) we are almost always too focused on results. We live in a result oriented society and social media exasperates this as we share results of our efforts (so we’re sharing the pinnacle of the best outcomes when they happen). And when others see this they also assume they have to thrive for such “greatness”. 

This, of course, is a mistake. Results have nothing to do with our self evaluation of our own virtue, because results lie in the domain of that which the universe contains. We can try and influence things, but we cannot control their outcome. We can only control our own efforts and judgments. Therefore, whether we are being a good or bad person has nothing to do with the outcome and everything to do with our intentions. In other words, you may end up doing something deemed “bad” by others due to circumstance, however, if your intentions were good, then you will and should know that you are in fact a good and virtuous person.

So for this week’s exercise, try and detach yourself from outcomes of your efforts, and focus only on your own efforts instead. Things will go bad sometimes and this is a fact for the rest of your life. But as long as your intentions as of virtuous ends, you can sleep well at night knowing that you were a good person. So focus on that which you control and that which can actually make your life more virtuous.

If you feel like it, share some of your stories on your preferred social media platform. Your stories help inspire others. You can find my social media contact information on the “Let’s Talk” page at stoicismforabetterlife.com

Anderson Silver