Stoicism for a Better Life – Weekly exercise (August 16, 2020)

Hello there, 

For this week’s exercise, I will seek some inspiration from Seneca. This is from his Moral Letters to Lucilius CIII 4-5:

“When philosophy is wielded with arrogance and stubbornly, it is the cause for the ruin of many. Let philosophy scrape off your own faults, rather than be a way to rail against the faults of others.”  

You are judgy. I am judgy. As a society we have an entire subculture built on and around judging others. Whether it’s looks, or what others have or don’t have, or what others say or do, we have this intrinsic bad habit ofjudging others. A significant portion of social media, and reality TV which (sadly) dominates the airwaves is built entirely on this decrepit habit we have. Why we are prone to judge others has an anthropological explanation and is mainly due to the zero-sum view of the world our animal body and its mind has. I’ve covered this a few times already, including two chapters in Vol 2: Your Duality WIthin, so I won’t go into more detail here. Instead, let us focus on the lesson at hand.

Yes, we tend to judge others. This is an instinctive response we have. And if one possesses esoteric knowledge (say having memorized some philosophical precepts) it is too easy to use that to look down on others’ actions and words and think them less enlightened than ourselves. Philosophy does get used to look down on others by holding it over their heads. But what Stoicism teaches us, and what Seneca is reminding us, is that the goal of our philosophy is to practice it. We don’t practice virtue by evaluating others. We practice it by putting it into our own actions and practices. 

So as a practical exercise this week, try and catch yourself anytime you make a judgment on another. Immediately pivot and find a fault with yourself you can work on (beginning with having been judgmental of another). We can’t control others, but we can control our own thoughts and actions. So, identifying what someone else did wrong offers us no opportunity for self improvement. Identifying what WE did wrong, however, is an opportunity to actually change and improve something. And this is what we should be focused on.

As always I wish you a tranquil and productive week. Reach out to me on Twitter or Reddit to keep the conversation going.

Anderson Silver

(Author of “Your User’s Manual” and “Vol 2: Your Duality Within”)