Jonas’s Reviews > The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living > Status Update

May 21st
«Seneca writes that unbruised prosperity is weak and easy to defeat in the ring, but "a man who has been at constant feud with misfortunes acquires a skin calloused by suffering." [He] fights all the way to the ground and never gives up.

That's what Epictetus means too. What kind of boxer are you if you leave because you get hit? That's the nature of the sport! Is that going to stop you from continuing?»

May 13th
FUELING THE HABIT BONFIRE
"(…) if you want to do something make a habit of it, if you don't want to do that, don't, but make a habit of something else instead. The same principle is at work in our state of mind. When you get angry, you've not only experienced that evil, but you've also reinforced a bad habit, adding fuel to the fire."
—EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES

(…) I know a bit more about him or her, and from my reaction, they're going to learn a little bit more about me too.

(…) It's certainly a more resilient attitude than going around acting like the stakes of every encounter put the championship on the line.

When you catch an elbow or an unfair blow today, shake off the pain and remind yourself: I'm learning. My sparring partner is learning too. This is practice for both of us—that's all. (…)

(…) For, as I've said, it's possible to avoid without suspicion or hate."
—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 6.20

Seeing each day and each situation as a kind of training exercise, the stakes suddenly become a lot lower. The way you interpret your own mistakes and the mistakes of others is suddenly a lot more gener-ous. (…)

April 26th
THINGS HAPPEN IN TRAINING
"When your sparring partner scratches or head-butts you, you don't then make a show of it, or protest, or view him with suspicion or as plotting against you. And yet you keep an eye on him, not as an enemy or with suspicion, but with a healthy avoidance. You should act this way with all things in life. We should give a pass to many things with our fellow trainees. (…)

(…) Even more, the things in our control are by nature free, unhindered, and unobstructed, while those not in our control are weak, slavish, can be hindered, and are not our own."
—EPICTETUS, ENCHIRIDION, 1.1-2

January 9th
WHAT WE CONTROL AND WHAT WE DON'T

"Some things are in our control, while others are not. We control our opinion, choice, desire, aversion, and, in a word, everything of our own doing. We don't control our body, property, reputation, position, and, in a word, everything not of our own doing.
(…)

January 8th
SEEING OUR ADDICTIONS

"We must give up many things to which we are addicted, considering them to be good. Otherwise, courage will vanish, which should continually test itself. Greatness of soul will be lost, which can't stand out unless it disdains as petty what the mob regards as most desirable.
—SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 74.12b-13