What Stoics do daily? By Naeem khan CSP

 What Stoics do daily? By Naeem khan CSP

Basics and Rituals of Stoicism 

1. Events Don’t Upset You. Beliefs Do.

2. Control What You Can. Ignore The Rest.

3. Accept Everything. But Don’t Be Passive.

4. Choose Whose Child You Will Be:find your mentor. 

5. Morning And Evening Rituals Are Essential

Morning 🌄 rituals:

Have Something To Look Forward To

Manage Your Mood

Eat Breakfast

Do Something You Dread

Send A “Thank You” Message 

Plan How You’ll Deal With Challenges

Kiss Somebody You Love: a child, your mother or romantic lover or a stone or a tree etc.

Evening Rituals

Have a “Shutdown Ritual”:get your brain out of “work mode” to relax or meditate 

Turn Weeknights Into Weekends:enjoy each night like weekend. 

No TV but hobbies 

Wind Down, Don’t Collapse:prepare sleep environment slowly. 

Don’t Go To Bed Angry With Your Partner

Write Down The Good Stuff That Happened:Journaling 

Negative visualization 

Amor Fati 

Schedule Something To Look Forward To

6. Ask, “What Would I Recommend If This Happened To Someone Else?”

7. Use The “Discipline Of Assent”

8. Do not grieve for the things which you  not have, but rejoice for those which you have.

9. Morning

Wake up early

“The day has already begun to lessen. It has shrunk considerably, but yet will still allow a goodly space of time if one rises, so to speak, with the day itself. We are more industrious, and we are better men if we anticipate the day and welcome the dawn.” 

— Seneca

10. Gratitude 

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive — to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” Marcus Aurelius 

11. Meditation 

“People look for retreats for themselves, in the country, by the coast, or in the hills. There is nowhere that a person can find a more peaceful and trouble-free retreat than in his own mind. . . . So constantly give yourself this retreat, and renew yourself.” Marcus Aurelius 

12. Walking 

“We should take wandering outdoor walks so that the mind might be nourished and refreshed by the open air and deep breathing.” — Seneca

13. Sympatheia

Walking at dawn and witnessing the stars going down and the sun coming up

In Meditations, 6.38, Marcus Aurelius says,

“Meditate often on the interconnectedness and mutual interdependence of all things in the universe.”

14. Work 

“Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants, the spiders, and the bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being?”

“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?” Marcus Aurelius 

“Progress is not achieved by luck or accident, but by working on yourself daily.” — Epictetus

15. Remember your mortality — Memento Mori 

“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” Marcus Aurelius 

16. Read 

“Reading, I hold, is indispensable — primarily, to keep me from being satisfied with myself alone, and besides, after I have learned what others have found out by their studies, to enable me to pass judgment on their discoveries and reflect upon discoveries that remain to be made. Reading nourishes the mind and refreshes it when it is wearied with study; nevertheless, this refreshment is not obtained without study.” Seneca 

17. Evening reflection 

Seneca explains,

“When the light has been removed and my wife has fallen silent, aware of this habit that’s now mine, I examine my entire day and go back over what I’ve done and said, hiding nothing from myself, passing nothing by.”

“I will keep constant watch over myself and — most usefully — will put each day up for review. For this is what makes us evil — that none of us looks back upon our own lives. We reflect upon only that which we are about to do. And yet our plans for the future descend from the past.”

Epictetus describes a very similar practice:

“Allow not sleep to close your wearied eyes,

Until you have reckoned up each daytime deed:

“Where did I go wrong? What did I do? And what duty’s left undone?”

From first to last review your acts and then

Reprove yourself for wretched [or cowardly] acts, but rejoice in those done well.”

Every night the Stoics would ask themselves three questions:

What did I do badly?

What did I do well?

How can I be better tomorrow and what tasks were left undone?

19. Find stillness

Marcus Aurelius knew the importance of finding stillness in your day:

“Anyone with a feeling for nature — a deeper sensitivity — will find it all gives pleasure. Even what seems inadvertent. He’ll find the jaws of live animals as beautiful as painted ones or sculptures. He’ll look calmly at the distinct beauty of old age in men, women, and at the loveliness of children. And other things like that will call out to him constantly — things unnoticed by others. Things seen only by those at home with Nature and its works.”

20. Read Stoicism books like 

Top 5 books on Stoicism 

The Discourses of Epictetus by Epictetus

A Guide to the Good Life by William B Irvine

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. 

Letters on Ethics: To Lucilius by Seneca. 

A New Stoicism by Laurence Becker.