Meditations on Self-Discipline and Failure: Stoic Exercise for Mental Fitness
184
Meditations on Self-Discipline and Failure: Stoic Exercise for Mental Fitness
184eBook
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781785355882 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Collective Ink |
| Publication date: | 10/27/2017 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 184 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
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CHAPTER 1
1
You can control nothing other than your own attitudes, values, and efforts directed at mental discipline. The rest of the world is as it is, will be as it will be, and unfolds as it does with or without your consent. This is as it should be. Indeed, this is as it must be. You have enough to contend with just governing your own thoughts and actions. Your consciousness and your will are more than enough to keep you busy, engaged, and challenged. Master yourself, administer your affairs, discipline yourself, and you will have accomplished more than most ever dare. This is your only purpose. Are you not ashamed to allow the events of the day to throw you off balance? What business is it of yours if lives begin or end, warfare erupts here or peace is restored there, economies shudder, earthquakes strike, or storms beat down upon the land? Will it all to be otherwise if you can. What answers directly to the exertion of your will? That, and only that, is your business. Do not invite needless distress and perturbation by insisting that the world must conform to your expectations or whims. Who, after all, do you think you are? Control the very small sphere that answers to your direction. As for the rest, cultivate gratitude for the opportunity to draw breath and take part in a life that you never earned.
2
Other people are not yours to control. You may speak to them, cajole them, debate them, show them evidence, present them with the dictates of reason, you may even threaten them — but their minds are their own. You invite needless frustration, anger, animosity, and discontent every time you insist that they must agree with you, or respect you, or love you, or adopt any particular cast of mind. Their will is beyond your direct control. Make your best efforts to assist them, if it seems reasonable to do so, but do not allow your contentment to depend upon anyone else's mental state or other measurement of well-being. The world will have its way with all of us. The story of every human life ends in that human's death. To resist or resent this is childish folly. To insist that those whom you love must be invulnerable to suffering, struggle, and death, is to insist that mortal and fragile humanity is insufficient for the maintenance of your contentment. Is the human condition displeasing to you? Perhaps you ought to register a complaint with management and insist upon some type of compensation. Then again, perhaps you would do better to grow up, stop your whimpering, and try not to be a malignancy upon this world that has no need of you.
3
You need not take seriously anyone's alleged "right" not to be "offended" (whatever that supposedly means). Another person's mental states are entirely beyond your control and ought, therefore, to lie entirely beyond your concern as well. Why should you care what anyone else thinks, or allow yourself to be troubled by what anyone else says? Just as your thoughts are up to you, so are theirs up to them. Let others govern the speech that comes out of their mouths, and take no heed of it — even if it is directed at you or is allegedly about you. If what they say is true, learn from it. If what they say is untrue, then their false descriptions are no business of yours. Should someone else believe a false characterization of you, someone thereby develops a misperception. What of it? They are free to believe as they will, and their mistakes need not concern you. No one can make a misperception true or accurate. Concern yourself only with the truth. What others believe the truth to be is their concern.
4
Success and failure do not, in any way, depend upon states of affairs that lie beyond the direct control of your will. Your performance is largely up to you (providing that your body does not fail your will). Another person's assessment of your performance is entirely beyond your control. You must, therefore, jettison any concern regarding someone else's assessment of your performance. This applies to your career, your relationships, and the improvement of your character. Do everything in your power to be a virtuous person, a good human being, a proper spouse and parent, and a useful professional. If you do as well as you are able in these endeavors, you need not concern yourself about whether anyone believes that you have done well or not. Do not lie. Tell the truth, and do not concern yourself with anyone who says that you lie. Do not commit adultery. Ignore those who accuse you of committing adultery. Be conscientious about your work. Do not concern yourself with those who question your diligence. Be a good person. Be an honorable person. That is enough.
5
Resist being swayed by the opinions of the majority or those who regard themselves as your peers. Opinions are insignificant, ephemeral things. Opinions occupying the minds of others are even less significant than your own. Concern yourself only with evidence and reason. If your opinion does not comport with the available evidence, relinquish it. Do not take it up again unless you encounter new evidence supporting it. Resist the urge to agree simply for the sake of seeming agreeable. Resist the urge to consent for the sake of conviviality. You have no obligation to comport felicitously with the poorly informed, the disingenuous, or the dim. Let them think what they will of you, and remain indifferent to the contempt with which they regard you. Their beliefs are none of your concern. Focus on understanding the world around you, your place in it, and your duties as a rational and decent human being. The rest is theater. Leave it to the actors.
6
Do not pretend to respect other persons either more or less than you actually do respect them. You owe no one a pretense of deference, and you owe everyone the deference that they have, by your own lights, earned. You should have nothing to do with sham collegiality or faux civility. Some persons are worthy of your contempt, and their behavior, as well as other outward indications of their character, is sufficient grounds for reasonable (though not perfectly reliable) assessment of their merit. If anyone demands that you "try to get along" with any person that you do not respect, then you have grounds for reconsidering your relations with the former individual (the one issuing the demand). Do not allow yourself to be pressed, bullied, or cajoled into relations that strike you as unhealthy or pointless.
7
Inevitability is double-edged sword. You may perceive that a particular change is both inevitable and not at all worthy of celebration. Indeed, the inevitable can be, and often is, quite repugnant. Faced with an unpleasant inevitability, you would do well to reconcile yourself to it, and reject despair, anger, and frustration concerning the matter. This is not tantamount to surrender. The inevitable is not necessarily bound to be permanent or even particularly long-lived. That too shall pass away. Endure it as best you can. Keep searching for an opportunity to make some change should the chance to do so arise. Do not insist upon this chance arising. Do not peg your contentment to this opportunity, but prepare yourself so that you can respond rationally if events offer you an opening. There is no excuse for failing to prepare for what you see coming. There is no excuse for allowing a valuable opportunity to pass, while you stand dumbly by. Perceive. Reason. Act.
8
You see your nation and its culture in precipitous decline. Both appear to be moribund and well beyond salvation. Certainly, both are well beyond the sphere of your direct control. Your will is impotent beyond the direction of your thoughts, your actions, and your decisions. What then will you do with your life, and your share of allotted time? Remember that you do not know how much that share will turn out to be. You also have no idea how long your nation, or Western culture at large, are likely to endure. These are "yours" only in the sense that you were born into them. They are not yours to control. You had no hand in creating either. Do not cling to a dying enterprise. Be prepared to jump before the vehicle goes over the cliff.
9
There appears to be relatively little time left. The time for what you had previously held dear has almost certainly elapsed. Your only rational option then is to alter your concerns, and to direct your attention inside. That which is beyond your will must be allowed to slip beyond your concern. It should not recede from your notice, but you must not tether your peace of mind to it. The world will have its way. The world, indeed, must have its way. It is not your place to grumble against the course of events. It is not your place to grumble at all. Adapt or take your place in the implosion.
10
To love others is noble, but to despair at their mortality and fragility is nothing but an invitation to needless suffering and impotent anxiety. Do not become overly hard-hearted, but do not deny your limitations with respect to your ability to secure the well-being of your loved ones. The world is brutal and pitiless. Do not insist upon the contrary. Everyone about whom you have ever cared is going to die. Some have passed on already. In fact, everyone, irrespective of any connection to you (or lack thereof), is bound to go "the way of all flesh." Do not wish it to be otherwise. This is petulant childishness. Embrace mortality. What, after all, is the alternative?
CHAPTER 2
1
Pity and sentimentality are of little if any use to you or to others. Surely, little is accomplished by commiseration among those beset by despair. Indeed, despair itself is of little value unless it prompts one to shed it and move forward in noble and rational fashion. Every moment of self-pity is a moment of diminution, a moment wasted, a moment spent in shame. Feeling sorry for yourself is a manifestation of irrationality and weakness. The world exists, you have an opportunity to draw breath and participate, and you dare to indulge in self-pity? If the challenge is too great, take to the exit! Otherwise, steel yourself and get to work. It is not your proper role to whimper. Leave that to the mongrels.
2
Do events disappoint you? If so, do you, therefore, blame the events? This is foolishness. Events unfold as they will, or as someone or something far more powerful than you directs them to unfold. Do not set yourself up as an adversary opposing the world, its evolution, or the passing scene. This is a futile and childish opposition. Your business is the governance of yourself and your will. The rest is, to be blunt, none of your business. The time is now. Help is not on the way. Here is the world as it is. Here you are. What do you intend to do about it? If you feel the slightest uncertainty about the matter, you have a lot of work to do.
3
Be mindful of the lessons you learn, and of the sources from which you learn them. Beware the tendency to focus on short-term benefits. Never sacrifice your integrity for any form of material gain. Do not degrade yourself. Remember also that no one else has the power to degrade you. More importantly (perhaps), beware the temptation to degrade yourself through the pursuit of ignoble goals, or the satisfaction of bestial impulses, at the expense of misused reason, atrophied virtue, and indifference to honor and decency. If you overvalue the lesser, you have learned nothing from the examples of Socrates, Epictetus, and Diogenes. This is worse than a shame.
4
No one is master of his own fate. No one is master of any domain beyond his own will and its sphere of direct influence. You possess the wherewithal, however, to increase mastery of yourself. Bend your will to that purpose. Focus your efforts on matters that respond to the exertion of your will. Do not attempt to change the weather. Adapt to its changes, and do not complain of heat, rain, or snow. This is not your business. Can you master your own mind? Can you learn to govern yourself in admirable fashion? Can you face any contingency with a full heart and steady hands? Let fate hurl at you what it will. Something, at some point, will break. Take care that it is not you.
5
Your detractors provide valuable lessons. Ask yourself if their criticisms are correct. If so, then improve yourself, and be grateful for their guidance. If, on the other hand, their criticisms are misguided, then recognize that their error is nothing to you. Let them persist in their misperceptions if they must. Should they change their minds and come to respect you, recognize that this is equally insignificant. Perhaps the praise will prove as well or ill-placed as the criticism. Perhaps both assessments will prove inapt and inaccurate. What of it? The wind blows, the people form beliefs, the river flows, and, in the end, the world swallows it all.
6
Kindness toward animals is an almost unalloyed good. It is soothing for you, it is pleasurable for the animal, and it is reassuring to those who may witness the kindness. You must, however, take care that you correctly distinguish the tame animal from that one that despises the touch of humankind. The latter is not likely to return your affection. You need not pet every snake and porcupine you encounter. A skunk is not entitled to an embrace, and a lion has no desire to sit content in your lap. Kindness within reason is a virtue. Pathological, indiscriminate kindness is a recipe for personal disaster and cultural extinction. Do not gleefully participate in your own destruction.
7
Do not make excuses. This is an ignoble habit, and you diminish yourself with each new excuse you offer. Even a "good" excuse, even offered in sincerity, contributes to the decline of your character. Bear the consequences of your actions, and the disapprobation that generally ensues, in the manner of a rational adult in possession of your faculties. Embrace the fair and the unfair criticisms alike. Do not complain about either. A complaint is indistinguishable, in the only analysis that matters, from a dog's bark, or the bleating of the sheep. Making an unpleasant sound with your face is hardly a method of ennobling your soul or your character. Can you manage no better?
8
You will encounter stupidity, lies, and corruption every day of your life. It is your obligation to do everything in your power to ensure that these do not originate with you. Secondarily, you must resist the temptation to become frustrated with the stupid, the liars, and the corrupt. This is, perhaps, your greatest challenge. Let them degrade themselves, but do not degrade yourself because of them. Their character is their punishment. It is not your concern. It is not your role to attempt to rectify another person's character. Do you not perceive enough of your own flaws, regarding which you would do far better by applying your attention and your efforts? Until you become an honorable, virtuous, and wise human being, you are excused from responsibility for setting the world aright, and perfecting the unwashed masses. Arrogance is unbecoming. Unwarranted arrogance is a grotesque disfigurement.
9
Politicians are, by and large, not to be trusted. Are the citizens, or the voters, any worthier of trust than their "representatives"? You have spent too many years living among your fellow human beings to take their indignation, feigned or forthright, more seriously than a politician's promises. Would you be more honest, more upright, or more admirable sitting in some seat of power than is its current occupant? Do not be as naïve as that. You have never had the opportunity to wield that type of power, you have no way of knowing how doing so would impact your behavior or your character, and all available evidence suggests that the citizenry would be no better off with you in a governing role. Have you even learned to govern yourself in virtuous fashion? Rather than casting a critical eye upon Governors, Senators, Presidents, and the like, you would be well served to turn your gaze inward. Do you not perceive corruption within yourself? Are you not one of the citizens "represented" by the corrupt politicians? How unlucky you must be to have been hurled into this wicked old world, with such a pristine heart, mind, and soul! Do not deceive yourself in this manner. Do not be a child.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Meditations on Self-Discipline and Failure"
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Copyright © 2016 William Ferraiolo.
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