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A Stoic Guide To Navigating The Modern Workplace
Keep it simple
Each day presents us with many tasks and distractions. What should I wear? Am I eating well enough? What's next for me in life?
Approach each day as if it is the last. You don't need to get lost in all the distractions in life. Focus on the few things that make it possible to live an abundant life.
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SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
Very few ancient philosophies can be traced back to an entrepreneur, but one can: Stoicism. Around 304 BC, a merchant named Zeno was shipwrecked on a trading voyage. He lost nearly everything. Making his way to Athens, he was introduced to philosophy by Crates of Thebes, a famous Cynic, which changed his life.
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Hidden Gems From Ancient Philosophers
- The people you interact with the most influence your behavior. Consciously consider whom you allow into your life.
- Things can go wrong, anticipate worst-case scenarios to...
Recently, I found a book by Israeli philosopher Iddo Landau titled How to Find Meaning in an Imperfect World. This is not a self-help book. Instead, it's full of clear ideas on how to think about the meaning of life. Let's take a look. When a judge asks a man, "Why did you beat your wife?"
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Key Ideas
Questions about the meaning of life contain assumptions:
- “What’s the meaning of life?” Assumes that there’s a single meaning.
- “Does my life have meaning?” Assumes (or at least hints) at a “...
Problems of meaning=problems of insufficient value
Those who think life is meaningless feel that there is a gap between their expectations and reality: between the degree of value that life should have and the degree of value that it actually has. - Iddo Landau
To find meaning in life, we can either:
- Add more value: identify activities that are valuable to us or we can remove activities that reduce value.
- Change our thinking: Perhaps our life already has sources of value, but we just aren’t looking at things in the right way.
When I was nineteen years old I was told to read a book : Meditations, by the stoic philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius. Of course, I didn't fully understand it at the time, again I was a teenager, but I immediately tore the book apart and made a million notes on it .
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Stoicism explained
- In any and every situation—no matter how bad or seemingly undesirable it is—we have the opportunity to practice a virtue.
- Stoics like to refer to the phrase amor fati–loving the things that happen to us.
Cultivate Stoicism in your life
Stoic philosophy can be cultivated as a practical philosophy:
- Seeing the good in everything that happens around us, not feeling hijacked or negatively affected by fate and life events.
- Treating life as an experiment, not being overly attached to things, people and decisions.