June 30th - How can I use this obstacle as an opportunity?

June - Problem Solving

June 30th

The Obstacle Is The Way

“While it’s true that someone can impede our actions, they can’t impede our intentions and our attitudes, which have the power of being conditional and adaptable. For the mind adapts and converts any obstacle to its action into a means of achieving it. That which is an impediment to action is turned to advance action. The obstacle on the path becomes the way.”

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.20

Today, things will happen that will be contrary to your plans. If not today, then certainly tomorrow. As a result of these obstacles, you will not be able to do what you planned. This is not as bad as it seems, because your mind is infinitely elastic and adaptable. You have the power to use the Stoic exercise of turning obstacles upside down, which takes one negative circumstance and uses it as an opportunity to practice an unintended virtue or form of excellence.

If something prevents you from getting to your destination on time, then this is a chance to practice patience.

If an employee makes an expensive mistake, this is a chance to teach a valuable lesson.

If a computer glitch erases your work, it’s a chance to start over with a clean slate.

If someone hurts you, it’s a chance to practice forgiveness.

If something is hard, it is a chance to get stronger.

Try this line of thinking and see whether there is a situation in which one could not find some virtue to practice or derive some benefit. There isn’t one. Every impediment can advance action in some form or another.

WEEK XXVII (27) - Protect Your Own Good

30th June to 6th July

Musonius Rufus, one of Epictetus’s teachers, taught that human beings are all born with an innate goodness, or, as he put it, with an inclination to virtue. It’s our choices that decide whether that goodness comes out or not. We’re not bad people, essentially, though we might sometimes do bad things. The purpose of Stoicism then is to remind us of that goodness and to help us work hard to protect it. Spend some time writing about the choices you can make this week— the actions you can take—to do just that.

“Protect your own good in all that you do, and as concerns everything else take what is given as far as you can make reasoned use of it. If you don’t, you’ll be unlucky, prone to failure, hindered, and stymied.”

—Epictetus, Discourses, 4.3.11

“Dig deep within yourself, for there is a fountain of goodness ever ready to flow if you will keep digging.”

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.59

Stoic Guidance - Cardinal Virtues

If we were to describe Stoicism in one sentence, it would be this: A Stoic believes they don’t control the world around them, only how they respond—and that they must always respond with courage, temperance, wisdom, and justice.

Summary of Daily Stoic 4 Stoic Virtues.

Wisdom

“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own”

—Epictetus

Wisdom is harnessing what the philosophy teaches then wielding it in the real world. As Seneca put it, “Works not words.”

Temperance / Self-Control / Moderation / Discipline

“‘If you seek tranquillity, do less.’ Or (more accurately) do what’s essential—what the logos of a social being requires, and in the requisite way. Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better. Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’”

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.24

Temperance is the knowledge that abundance comes from having what is essential. The Stoics often used temperance interchangeably with “self-control.” Self-control, not just towards material goods, but self-control, harmony, and good discipline always—in pleasure or pain, admiration or contempt, failure or triumph. Temperance is guarded against extremes, not relying on the fleetingness of pleasure for happiness nor allowing the fleetingness of pain to destroy it.

Justice

“And a commitment to justice in your own acts. Which means: thought and action resulting in the common good. What you were born to do.”

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.31

Justice is “the principle which constitutes the bond of human society and of a virtual community of life.”

Epictetus said, “Seeking the very best in ourselves means actively caring for the welfare of other human beings.”

Courage

“Don’t you know life is like a military campaign? One must serve on watch, another in reconnaissance, another on the front line. . . . So it is for us—each person’s life is a kind of battle, and a long and varied one too. You must keep watch like a soldier and do everything commanded. . . . You have been stationed in a key post, not some lowly place, and not for a short time but for life.”

—Epictetus, Discourses, 3.24.31-36

Epictetus was once asked which words would help a person thrive. “Two words should be committed to memory and obeyed,” he said, “persist and resist.”

Courage to face misfortune. Courage to face death. Courage to risk yourself for the sake of your fellow man. Courage to hold to your principles, even when others get away with or are rewarded for disregarding theirs. Courage to speak your mind and insist on truth.