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: