PhilosoBits Biweekly #012 - Discard What Doesn't Serve | May 28, 2023

Discard What Doesn't Serve

A renowned management consultant whose theories formed the basis of modern business and leadership techniques, Peter Drucker was a proponent of the inversion method when it came to asking questions. Instead of asking, for example, “What makes a good life?” we could start from a place of elimination by asking, “What makes a bad life?” Marcus Aurelius offers a similar evaluative exercise when he implores us to ask ourselves whether death would be something terrible if we were deprived of a certain thing. Living well then becomes the active discarding of what does not serve us. Asking such a question requires that we be prepared for the answer, and for the discomfort that may accompany the hard decisions the answer demands. 

There’s a tendency to interpret something like this as a directive to act rashly, dropping everything in pursuit of an unclear yet grand adventure. While life is short—or more accurately put, fast—its "shortness" doesn’t inherently encourage frivolity. What it encourages is intention—making decisions deliberately as one who is palpably aware of the finiteness of things.

A productive response to our finiteness includes limiting (or where possible, eliminating) that which hinders our best in the time allotted to us. Further, it requires an intimate understanding of what our own "best" is, emotionally, mentally, and so forth. Does it help me to overthink this? Am I who I want to be when engaging in this? Will I be glad that I did or did not do this thing?

Freely discard what doesn't serve; freely be free.

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PhilosoBits Biweekly #011 - Action Is The Antidote | May 14, 2023

Action Is The Antidote

As expressed by Epictetus in Discourses and Selected Writings, philosophy’s chief task is to illuminate unsound beliefs. It’s to expose where our consciously or unconsciously-held assumptions may be undermining the quality of experience we seek. Chaotic as the world around us may be, our brains seek order, particularly in the way of linear results per the standards we've determined sensible. What's often missing from our best-laid plans is precisely the consideration of chaos, the confluence of environmental and human factors wholly separate from us that influence anything at any given time. In a chaotic world indebted to no one, action is our anchor and armor—the former in agency, the latter in preparation.

At the root of Stoicism is a quality that, in a time where the popular narrative is that it’s everyone else’s fault, rings powerfully: agency. If time is the great equalizer, action is the great separator. Beyond position, placement, and any other factors of randomness, action, sustained through disciplined exertion and clear intent, is what separates the directed from the wandering. It is the indicator of an aligned life.

The aim is to remain accountable to what we own: our thoughts, our will, our efforts. May our capacity for action in the direction of our own and others' betterment be our strength.

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PhilosoBits Biweekly #010 - Committing to What We Control | April 16, 2023

Committing to What We Control

The greatest power unlocked by Stoic thinking and living is that of freedom from personalizing externals—that is, from taking any matter that occurs outside of you as a personal affront or a personal failure.

One of the defining characteristics of the Stoics was an unwavering commitment to focusing only on what was in their direct control: their will, their actions, their effort. Epictetus, an enduring slave-turned-highly influential philosopher, furthers the concept in his discourses by positing that our goal is to bring the will in line with events. In other words, we’re to not only reserve our energy for that which is under our direct control, but to also strive to align our desires to whatever naturally occurs. We’d be hard-pressed to identify an approach to life more likely to enable contentedness.  

At first reading, Epictetus' words on this topic can seem quite extreme, implying the possibility of a world in which "nothing happens contrary to our wishes and, conversely, nothing fails to happen that we want to happen.” The key here, as expressed in Sam Torode’s modern interpretation of Epictetus’ works, The Manual: A Philosopher's Guide to Life, is to only desire what is in your power to attain, and correspondingly, to only be resistant to what is in your power to avoid. 

Where uncertainty, inconsistency, and chaos abound, acute focus on—and satisfaction from—what we can control is our strength.

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PhilosoBits Biweekly #009 - Prepare For The Possible | April 2, 2023

Prepare For The Possible

An excerpt from Letters from a Stoic finds philosopher Seneca writing about a man whose town was destroyed by a fire. “It is a disaster by which anyone might be shaken,” Seneca writes, “let alone a person quite devoted to his hometown.” One of the less-highlighted attributes of the prominent Stoics was their empathy—their understanding and acknowledgement of the human’s natural reaction to life’s dealings. Accordingly, Seneca recognizes the validity of this man’s devastation. What he also recognizes is something quite profound as we consider our own emotional responses to what we’d perceive as misfortune: “What is quite unlooked for is more crushing in its effect, and unexpectedness adds to the weight of a disaster. The fact that it was unforeseen has never failed to intensify a person’s grief.”

The unexpectedness of an event intensifies it. (This, too, is why good surprises are even sweeter. An unexpected raise, an unsolicited gift—the act or item itself is enough to raise serotonin levels, but the delight of the surprise brought about by it is often the true source of magic.)

It goes without saying that few of us are eager to imagine something so severe as one’s entire city being consumed by a blazing fire. There are the events that are so far from our cognitive consideration that we’re unlikely to conceive of them, and there are those that we can conceive but would prefer not to think about (loss, etc.). We’re to remind ourselves that the goal of preparation in this way is not agonizing rumination in itself, but practical and emotional inoculation that aids our ability to face matters bravely.

May anticipation cultivate bravery.

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PhilosoBits Biweekly #008 - The Enemy Is Expectation | March 5, 2023

The Enemy Is Expectation

Book VII of Meditations finds Marcus Aurelius reminding us of the futility of anger toward external events, "for they do not care." In other words, life is indifferent toward us.

Often found at the root of frustration is expectation. We expected to be at a certain place by this point. We expected a specific response (or one at all). We expected one decision to make everything else fall into place. What life's indifference tells us is that we must be consistent in our own pursuit of contentment, recognizing that the biggest decision is the commitment to making several decisions, day in and day out, in service of who we aim to be. 

"I am the decisive element," poet and novelist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote. "It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous."

Where expectation looms and threatens, agency is the antidote. We quell the pain of expectation by choosing to be our own benefactor, usefully aware that matters not guaranteed should not be expected.

Life does not promise ease, comfort, or that others will follow through, nor does it promise that factors of environmental and relational variability won't challenge our best-laid plans. Instead, the inevitability of any possibility demands that we be the sturdy element—the decisive element.

The enemy is expectation; sufficiency is our response.

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PhilosoBits Biweekly #007 - Is It Worth The Dissolution? | February 19, 2023

Is It Worth The Dissolution?

It serves us to assess whether we've maintained the targeted vigor with which we may have entered the year. What intentions have been upheld, and what's been eclipsed by life's demands or distractions? Philosophy's intention is not to discount the administrative realities and circumstantial duties impressed upon us per our placements in life; it instead impels us to maintain an appropriate view of all things in relation to the whole of things. Marcus Aurelius offers us a tactical directive in Book IV of Meditations with the following: 

“And here it is essential to remember that the care bestowed on each action should be proportionate to its worth; for then you will not lose heart and give up, if you are not busying yourself with lesser matters to a greater extent than they deserve.”

Our task in our own lives is to identify what these lesser matters may be, and to decide whether they're worth the dissolution of our identified higher matters. Disproportionate energy put toward lesser matters not only correlates with but accelerates the dissolution of the capacities and pursuits we deem significant. The more we optimize for the lesser, the more tolerant we become of our time being consumed that way. The higher our tolerance for the insignificant, the weaker our will for what matters.

As we audit our lives and uncover these lesser area-time investment ratios (as measured by the degree to which we or others are meaningfully helped by that thing), it behooves us to ask a pointed question: Is it worth the dissolution? Be it the scrolling that comprises hours over the course of a week (or day), or the less-than-useful meetings that we've become so accustomed to occupying space on the calendar, is the ongoing tolerance worth the dissolution of our capacity for meaningful engagement elsewhere?

May the answer shift the balance in favor of our higher matters.

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PhilosoBits Biweekly #006 - Where There Is Life, There Is Danger | January 8, 2023

Where There Is Life, There Is Danger

Ralph Waldo Emerson articulated what we hesitate to acknowledge, but can't deny when presented: “As soon as there is life, there is danger.” We needn't look further than the miracle that is childbirth to see the truth in this. Life itself then becomes a matter of sustaining life.

The very genesis of Stoicism started with danger, seeing a recently-shipwrecked Zeno make his way back to Athens where he visited a bookstore that would lead him to a Socrates book on virtues. This paired with interactions with Cynic philosophers led to the eventual formation of Stoicism. When danger is unavoidable, we're to embrace what may lay on the other side of it.

We should resist any temptation to dismiss an origin story so classically rooted in catastrophe, and avail ourselves to the demonstration of Stoicism displayed by it. Zeno's decision to respond to catastrophe by immediately pursuing wisdom is behavior worth modeling, that of actively turning challenges into opportunities for increased understanding. 

Life is risk and chaos. It is beautiful, dangerous, and not for the faint of heart. Thriving belongs to those who consciously decide how to most usefully respond to the hands dealt.

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PhilosoBits Biweekly #005 - The Principled Life | January 4, 2023

The Principled Life

Regret is one of the more difficult emotions to accurately anticipate. With purviews limited to present and past experiences, consideration of what a more experienced version of us may want poses challenging. This is demonstrated amidst reflective realizations that what we want today has indeed diverged from what we thought we'd want five years ago. In the absence of psychic abilities, the only solution to our inability to accurately predict what our future selves may want (and thus what we might regret) is measuring our action or inaction against our principles. Assuming one's lived long enough to know what those are, a life lived in accordance with one's principles is a life difficult to regret.

In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius writes about our invincibility when our decisions are rooted in "reason and careful reflection." It serves us to review the Oxford definition of invincible: "the quality of being too powerful to be defeated." It's not that we won't make mistakes, but that we'll be resilient when we do. 

A result of careful reflection, one's principles are the sails that guide us both in life at large, and within any one pursuit. While values are what gets prioritized (fluctuating as seasons require), principles define who and how we'll be in any situation. In the midst of a principled life, regret is, and can only be, a decided breach of one's principles.

Determine your principles, and live by them; the rest is simply what happens.

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PhilosoBits Biweekly #004 - Reality Is A Mirror | December 18, 2022

Reality Is A Mirror

“What else does reason prescribe? To accept the consequence of what has been admitted to be correct.” -Epictetus

Usefully direct in their expression, the Stoics offer powerful reframing for how we see and operate within the world as it is. They also leave no doubt as to their ruthless acceptance of reality, something that can otherwise be seen as a mirror that reflects back that which is undeniable. The undeniable nature of reality makes it a useful tool for assessing misalignment. It then becomes not only about acknowledging reality, but about responding in the measure it requires.

Specific outcomes require specific action. Extreme shifts in state or behavior are often the definitive response to what's been quietly known to be true, and is now painful enough to exact change. The longer reality is ignored, the more severe the required response may be; it thus behooves us to "accept the consequence of what has been admitted to be correct" with alacrity, sparing ourselves and others from any damage due to delay.

An equanimous acceptance of our realities invites the space necessary to productively respond. It’s the declaration of, “This is what is real, and these are my aims. What is required of me [my business, my family, my habits] accordingly?"

Our task as rational beings is to accept reality, and to usefully respond to what it reveals. We then repeat.

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PhilosoBits Biweekly #003 - The Role of Circumstance | December 4, 2022

The Role of Circumstance

"Reflect that nothing merits admiration except the spirit, the impressiveness of which prevents it from being impressed by anything." -Seneca

A compelling premise in Morgan Housel's The Psychology of Money is the randomness of wealth. Without discounting the importance of our own efforts when paired with the right circumstances, Housel manages to unravel preconceived notions around money with examples that demonstrate the consequential role played by one's placement in space and time.

Included amidst Housel's reveals is that of, at the time of his attendance, Bill Gates' high school being one of the only ones in the world that had a computer. As illuminated in both Housel's work and that of Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, genius in itself doesn't lead to external thriving; it must intersect with opportunity.

Our specific lived realities are the result of a confluence of factors in and out of our control. Both our nemesis and benefactor, circumstance bears judging with an objective equanimity.

Awareness expands and strengthens when we recognize the simultaneous significance and insignificance of one's environment--the former in its invisible influence on who we become, the latter in its apathy toward us. The where and when of our births could have just as easily been true for anyone else, and thus in and of themselves do not merit praise. Praiseworthiness is then restricted to what we decide to do with what we have, in who we've decided to be, and how we've decided to be it.

Philosophy well employed is one that both recognizes circumstance and transcends it, not diminishing its part nor diminished by it.

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PhilosoBits Biweekly #002 - What Matters Must Be Maintained | November 19, 2022

What Matters Must Be Maintained

Philosopher Seneca advises us to remain cognizant of the fleeting nature of time and its swift passage. A long-anticipated experience quickly becomes a memory. The tiny humans who relied on you for their every need become self sufficient sooner than our comfort would have it. What was at one point simply life is then remembered as the greatest time of our lives and longed for again accordingly.

Life and circumstances evolve, with change being introduced at a cadence often perceived as too quick for comfort (albeit gradual in reality). It's for this reason that we shouldn't ignore the following: what matters must be maintained.

Contentment that transcends circumstance is that which is rooted in a commitment to maintaining what matters (whatever that may be, and however it may look through the seasons). This can be as specific or as general as is sufficient for our natures. Previous friendships aren't what they once were, but connection remains important to you and so you pursue opportunities for new ones of quality to be introduced. You no longer feel as if you're contributing at your highest capability at work, and so you explore new avenues of doing so. You moved to an area without easy access to a fitness center, so you create a dedicated space for exercise at home. 

Do not underestimate the ability to maintain what matters through reimagined expression. Contrary to common scarcity-based perceptions of time, Seneca tells us that there is enough time for the accomplishment of the very greatest things for the person who knows how to spend it wisely. Commitment to maintaining what matters, in any new manner impelled by circumstance or season, allows for our own unique greatest.

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PhilosoBits Biweekly #001 - Accept The Test | October 23, 2022

Accept The Test

“Bearing all this in mind, welcome present circumstances and accept the things whose time has arrived. Be happy when you find that doctrines you have learned and analyzed are being tested by real events.” -Epictetus

Philosophy, or any system for thinking and processing productively, is only as good as our ability to draw upon it in the moment we need it most—the moments when thoughtfully deescalating can mean the difference between what is later contented reflection or regret. Epictetus encourages us to see any perceived hindrance as a sparring partner, training us in strength and resilience. 

In Ryan Holiday's The Obstacle Is The Way, we learn of a boxer who would famously smile his way through fights, persisting and reacting to each blow contentedly. Most certainly, the boxer in the ring is being tested by real events; his doctrines are the countless hours of training and practice matches leading up to the day. On match day, the boxer is happy to be tested.

Each day has the potential to be our "match day," a day where knowledge and mental training go from conceptual to practical. The question is whether we'll welcome the difficult circumstances as an opportunity to demonstrate that very training. It is not a matter of smiling through challenges in a manner that appears dismissively out of touch with reality. Rather, it's choosing a response that first and foremost prioritizes thankfulness for having the tools to face that precise battle. It's also useful to think of how a previous you may not have been equipped to navigate the circumstance that a now capable you has found yourself in. An awareness of our own progress and of time at large enables this. 

Accept the test. Operate as the person the teachings you've pursued have enabled you to be.

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