Learning from the Stoics

This past week was spent reading books from "The Stoics". It was more of learning of a philosophy then any particular challenges. Unfortunately I only had a week but I did learn some interesting lessons.

I guess I was jaded a little bit from the self help movement. I was noticing the past few years that I started to lean towards business books then my usual litany of self help books. Actually let me go back a little bit here.


When I was younger I guess I believed in whatever I was raised to believe. I guess if I had to choose something that I believed in back then I guess it was in the basics of religion I was raised to believe in. I then slowly moved to the Occult. I remember finding a book of mantras and remember thinking it was really cool. It kind of lead to a few other books but I guess it wasn't too crazy. I mean I didn't have any voodoo dolls or anything, but on a surface level it was "the occult". After that I kind of moved into super religion, almost evangelistic. It kind of was what I did until a few people that I thought were good turned out to not be so. After that I kind of went towards there is no God deal. I pretty much just figured it was all useless and just do what you do. And thatttttt (wow this is kind of a long evolution)moved towards the Self Help  do it, take action kind of philosophy. I set goals and just took a lot of action. That slowly shifted to a "Law of Attraction" kind of philosophy. Now where do I stand at this point in my life. I think it is kind of complicated. I do believe in something more out there. I also think that the law of attraction is fine but you also have to get out there and fail. You have to be willing to try out things. Leading to Stoicism.

I learned about these philosophers who preached a very practical approach to living over two thousand years ago. They were known as Stoics. I especially enjoyed the works of Seneca. A typical idea of the philosophy would be for example, if you are afraid of losing your job and poverty, actually spend a week having no money. Or making 20 dollars last all week. After going through this type of process you realize that it isn't going to kill you and that you are able to survive something like this. It might not be easy but I did learn a lot from this approach to life. If you are interested in the philosophy definitely check out the works of Seneca. I kind of jump around from the different letters that he wrote and pick up something everytime I read him.

Anyhow somethings to check out:

So distracted....hmmmmm

What makes for a year challenge leads to much distraction. I can't say that makes for a good excuse to not keeping 100 percent current with this blog but then again, I wish I had more time in the day.

I have been into so many cool things lately and reading and learning a lot. I really wish I had more time. I realize there are so many cool things in this world if I only had the time. I also realize that who we are as people are pretty much determined by our thoughts and beliefs about who we are. Trying out so many different things has a way of causing you to evaluate the many different perspectives about what is really possible (in a non self help guru kind of way).



I have been trying to maintain my personal focus as well as trying out different weekly challenges and also maintaining the basics of everyday  living (job, friends, family and such). I can't say that there are some things that haven't suffered and maybe at this time in my life that's okay.

So what did I do these past few weeks:

Week 31:


Baby Steps. Or to be more precise the concept of Kaizen. It was a process of thinking smaller and doing smaller. I got pretty much the entire philosophy from a book entitled "One Small Step Can Change Your Life" by Robert Maurer. I guess the lack of focus got to me and I was getting overwhelmed so I really kind of took to this book.

Much of the philosophy concerned making changes in such small incremental steps that it bypassed any internal resistance to change. One of the examples being going from a Venti (large)coffee drink to a Grande (medium) if I want to slowly end an addiction to coffee. If I have some project, I would do the smallest possible step. For example doing laundry, I might just take out the laundry bag. Those are small examples but I have to admit, it definitely made a difference and you should definitely check out the book.

Week 32:


Getting funky. I actually decided to try my hand at slap bass. That sort of funky, slapping popping type of bass sound. It was kind of fun. I mean, heck I sucked at it but it was definitely interesting. Once again a week made it kind of not enough time to get even half way decent but interesting none the less.


Week 33:


I actually got back to drawing. One of the earlier challenges was "Art Week". This week was strictly drawing. It's actually something I intend to do a little longer than a week. I am actually going through a book by Mark Kistler called Drawing in 30 days. I always loved Mark Kistler and his Kaizen approach to teaching drawing.

So anyhow, that should bring me up to date. For now. I am trying to be more forgiving with my situation and I have a bunch of habits that keep me sane but also take up much of my time. I am hoping to get my Jiu Jitsu back on track and just get myself focused again. Until then something else to try...