Following The Doctor’s Orders – The Daily Stoic – Part 7 of 366

Just as we commonly hear people say the doctor prescribed someone particular riding exercises, or ice baths, or walking without shoes, we should in the same way say that nature prescribed someone to be diseased, or disabled, or to suffer any kind of impairment. In the case of the doctor, prescribed means something ordered to help aid someone’s healing. But in the case of nature, it means that what happens to each of us is ordered to help aid our destiny.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.8

Doctor’s orders. Somehow this simple phrase does carry enough weight to get people to accept unpleasant things. There is the promise that in following through with the unpleasant course of action we will find ourselves in a better place. And yet we often don’t apply this same thinking to fate or destiny.

Again, as in part 5, this one is harder for me to swallow. It implies that there is a destiny for each and every soul, and while I agree that each creature in this universe will follow a path to an eventual conclusion, that conclusion may not be one we readily desire and accept.

Many people are dealt an unfair and uncaring hand by the universe. Should you accept and welcome a destiny where you are permanently disabled and nearly die in a car crash in your 40s? That is what happened to my father. Although he survived, he lived another 20 years of declining health and ability, and he gradually watched as the world he was leaving to his kids seemingly became worse at every turn.

Perhaps the stoics would say that his destiny was in fact to have a family and be lucky enough to watch his kids grow up — a gift this universe did not grant my mother — and that this is enough. Framed in this light I can accept what Marcus says. I generally think being a good parent is by far the most important thing most humans will do with their lives.

It took me what feels like a long time, but I have come to appreciate my life experiences even though my younger years were extremely challenging and frequently consisted of loss and hardship. These experiences have indeed helped me become who I am today, and I know I would not be where I am without them. They have made me more grateful for what I have, and they have motivated me to stay on my purpose in a way that seems very uncommon amongst my peers.

I am still amazed at how insights into life from 1800 years ago are still incredibly poignant today.

We Were Made For Each Other – The Daily Stoic – Part 1 of 366

You’ll more quickly find an earthly thing kept from the earth than you will a person cut off from other human beings.

— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.9.3

As the book notes, Marcus Aurelius and his fellow philosophers did not yet know about Newtonian physics, but it is still an apt analogy: the human need to be with other humans is more powerful than the law of gravity.

We are social creatures, for better or worse. As an introvert it took me many years to come to grips with this fact. Oh how tempting it is to cut out all others and just live a life of the mind! All day focused on solving your problems, reading, writing, and so on. And yet, as someone who has done this, I can say it does eventually wear on you and cause problems. You simply cannot overcome millions of years of evolution and your very own biology. I myself realized after many years that I’m not nearly as introverted as I thought, and I became much happier when I found a better balance between “me” time and “we” time.

Some parting thoughts on this concept:

The greatest things ever built were made by teams of people, not individuals. If you want to achieve great things, you must strive to work and learn from great people.
Invite that weird guy or girl you work with to lunch. It will be good for both of you.
It is not easy to care for someone else, but it is also not easy to be cared for.
As a general rule, be pro-people and pro-inclusion. Our society seems to have lost this concept along the way, but it is the only way we will survive.

The Daily Stoic – Part 0 of 366

My life has been crazy. Like, really crazy. I would go into further details, but it is a long story (well, many long stories) that can wait until another day. The important takeaway is simply this: life is hard, stressful, unfair, and unpredictable. This isn’t unique to me, or to anyone else, so eventually I started to wonder: how the hell did people deal with the chaos of life over the past two thousand years?

I feel like it took me a long while to arrive at this thought considering people have been dealing with the stress of every day life since… well, literally as long as we have existed. While we have new modern problems, it turns out that many of the problems in our lives are not that different from those who lived thousands of years ago. Love, grief, wealth, happiness, success; a lot of time and energy has been spent thinking about these things over the course of human existence.

Now I know what you are thinking: didn’t you take philosophy in school? The answer is yes, and I enjoyed it. However, it never felt useful or practical. My goal when asking the question above was to find a framework that can help me deal with some of the bullshit life throws my way, and to help me de-stress my life. Researching how great people in history dealt with their problems led me back to something that was always on my “learn about this eventually” list: stoicism.

I’m not going to dive into the virtues of stoicism here, but I would highly recommend The Obstacle is the Way as a crash course that will get your feet wet and point you in the direction of what to read next. The main thing I will note here is simply this: stoicism is a timeless, battle tested, and, most importantly, practical mental framework about living a good life.

My goal with this long series of posts is to think about and practice these concepts regularly so they do not become stale, fuzzy, or worse, forgotten. Thankfully this is precisely what The Daily Stoic prescribes: read one specific stoic proverb or thought every day, and then articulate my thoughts and reactions. There is one for each and every day, so this will be a year long journey and thus very long series of posts.

Let’s get started.

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(Also, as a brief aside, the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, considered a god by his people and the most powerful man on the planet during his lifetime, took the time to write in a journal about virtue and how he could become a better person. This writing survives to this day, and you would be crazy not to read it.)