After hearing author Ryan Holiday on a podcast, I was intrigued with his knowledge of Stoicism and just how the philosophy aligned with my core values. After purchasing The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living and Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius I decided to document my journey. Here I will share my anecdote while learning and reflecting on Stoicism and how I plan to apply it to my life.
“Remember to conduct yourself in life as if at a banquet. As something being passed around comes to you, reach out your hand and take a moderate helping. Does it pass you by? Don't stop it. It hasn't yet come? Don’t burn in desire for it, but wait until it arrives in front of you. Act this way with children, a spouse, toward position, with wealth — one day it will make you worthy of a banquet with the gods.”
- Epictetus, Enchiridion, 15
“This is the true athlete — the person in rigorous training against false impressions. Remain firm, you who suffer, don't be kidnapped by your impressions! The struggle is great, the task divine — to gain mastery, freedom, happiness, and tranquility.”
- Epictetus, Discourses, 2.18.27–28
“It is quite impossible to unite happiness with a yearning for what we don't have. Happiness has all that it wants, and resembling the well-fed, there shouldn't be hunger or thirst.”
- Epictetus, Discourses, 3.24.17
“If someone asks you how to write your name, would you bark out each letter? And if they get angry, would you then return the anger? Wouldn't you rather gently spell out each letter for them? So then, remember in life that your duties are the sum of individual acts. Pay attention to each of these as you do your duty… just methodically complete your task.”
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.26
“Clear your mind and get a hold on yourself and, as when awakened from sleep and realizing it was only a bad dream upsetting you, wake up and see that what's there is just like those dreams.”
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.31
“For to be wise is only one thing - to fix our attention on our intelligence, which guides all things everywhere.”
- Heraclitus, Quoted in Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, 9.1