Quotes
Chapter 9: Duty: On Loving Mankind
When someone says he wants to be perfectly straightforward with us, we should be on the lookout for a concealed dagger.
Chapter 10: Social Relations: On Dealing with Other People
More generally, when we find ourselves irritated by someone’s shortcomings, we should pause to reflect on our own shortcomings. Doing this will help us become more empathetic to this individual’s faults and therefore become more tolerant of him. When dealing with an annoying person, it also helps to keep in mind that our annoyance at what he does will almost invariably be more detrimental to us than whatever it is he is doing.
Chapter 11: Insults: On Putting Up with Put-Downs
Suppose that [...] someone succeeds in annoying us. In such cases, Marcus says, we should remind ourselves that “this mortal life endures but a moment,” meaning that we soon will be dead.
Stoic Praxes
Negative Visualization
Or, futurorum malorum præmeditatio, pre-studying bad future.
Internalize Goal
Only aims to achieve goals which you have complete or considerate control over.
Dichotomy of control: Things we have: control/no control
Trichotomy of control: Things we have: full control/some control/no control (Irvine's term)
Past & Present Fatalism
Be fatalistic with respect to the past, to keep firmly in mind that the past cannot be changed.
Be fatalistic with respect to the present. It is clear [...] that we cannot, through our actions, affect the present, if by the present we mean this very moment.
Self-Denial
Undertaking acts of voluntary discomfort. Is it like excercising?
Stoical Meditation
Meditate on the events of daily living:
- how we responded to these events
- how, in accordance with Stoic principles, we should have responded to them
Notes
- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
- Hedonic Adaptation/Hedonic Treadmill: humans quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness (or sadness) despite major positive or negative events or life changes.
"We humans are unhappy in large part because we are insatiable; after working hard to get what we want, we routinely lose interest in the object of our desire"
- seeksorrow: one who contrives to give himself vexation.