Shaking off sickness to wrap up the posts before getting into the next trial. For some, philosophy may be a blow off class they took in high school or college. Others may see it as ancient guys in robes arguing about pointless nonsense. For a different group, myself included, it’s all about how we look at the world and make decisions in it. The primary philosophy I practice in my life is stoicism.
It’s All About the Response
The key I’ve found in reading about stoicism is a pretty simple concept. There is next to nothing we can control in out lives except our reaction to an event. One of the most famous stoic philosophers, Epictetus, was actually a slave who had next to no control over his actions and decisions. He couldn’t decide his lot in life, as many of us cannot, but we can choose how to think about it.
While I’ve been lucky to have a lot of opportunity in my life, I can’t say I haven’t had some difficult days. There have been plenty of times that having this philosophy in mind has helped. A specific example that comes to mind involves my previous job. We had a system that experienced a ton of technical errors. Time and time again I had to send out emails explaining we were having another issue. One day, we had an issue after we thought it was resolved. When my co-worker told me as I walked it, I almost lost my temper and erupted. After catching myself, I sat down at my desk, sent out the notice, and worked to resolve the problem.
As someone who grew up losing his temper or getting over emotional over the smallest things, I can’t imagine where I would be without following this philosophy.
Practical Positivity
Stoicism offers an answer to how and why to choose the response, but what does that really mean? For me, it involves switching my emotions to a positive one. There are of course exceptions to this practice, but I feel there’s no point in getting caught up in the day to day crap that used to take up so much space in my mind. I’m talking about things like bad drivers, missing an alarm and running late, a rude comment, or whatever other annoyance may occur that day.
Whenever something like this happens, I’ll typically accept what is true about whatever happened, possibly make a joke or comment about it, then move on. If I get cut off while driving, assuming we both get out safely, I’ll say to the driver, well to myself really, “I hope wherever you’re going is as fun as your driving makes it seem to me.” I’ll laugh at how ridiculous my comment was, and then keep driving. It’s only slightly different if I’m stuck behind someone going extremely slow on a one lane highway. I’ll say something like, “thanks for making sure we both get to our destination safely,”
When this approach started, I couldn’t say, but I now find myself doing this for everything. Sometimes, I find myself holding back from laughing out loud because of whatever stupid comment I have in mind.
Whether you have a name for what you think or not, everyone follows some philosophy. These are some of the core beliefs I follow for the most part. It’s far from perfect, but it’s not like there’s an award for best philosophy. Whatever you believe, make sure it’s adding value to your life, and if not, a philosophy can always be changed to make life better.
Next Time, Return to Form
I’m excited for the next trial I’ll be doing. I’ve had this one in mind for some time, but waited until now to do so. The idea is to follow a fitness routine that is the punchline of a joke. It comes from the anime series One Punch Man. In it the titular hero can defeat any opponent with a single punch. He got to this point by following a strict routine of 100 push ups, 100 sit ups, 100 squats, and a 10 kilometer run every day. Season 2 just started up and the weather is promising, so it seemed there was no better time to start!
Trying Out Before Buying In 
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