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"The Stoic Challenge" book notes

Published at 2024-07-07T12:46:55+03:00

These are my personal takeaways after reading "The Stoic Challenge: A Philosopher's Guide to Becoming Tougher, Calmer, and More Resilient" by William B. Irvine.

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Gods set you up for a challenge to see how resilient you are. Is getting angry worth the price? If you stay calm then you can find the optimal workaround for the obstacle. Stay calm even with big setbacks. Practice minimalism of negative emotions.

Put a positive spin on everything. What should you do if someone wrong you? Don't get angry, there is no point in that, it just makes you suffer. Do the best what you got now and keep calm and carry on. A resilient person will refuse to play the role of a victim. You can develop the setback response skills. Turn a setback. e.g. a handycap, into a personal triumph.

It is not the things done to you or happen to you what matters but how you take the things and react to these things.

Don't row against the other boats but against your own lazy bill. It doesn't matter if you are first or last, as long as you defeat your lazy self.

Stoics are thankful that they are mortal. As then you can get reminded of how great it is to be alive at all. In dying we are more alive we have ever been as every thing you do could be the last time you do it. Rather than fighting your death you should embrace it if there are no workarounds. Embrace a good death.

Negative visualization

It is easy what we have to take for granted.

Imagine the negative and then think that things are actually much better than they seem to be.
Close your eyes and imagine you are color blind for a minute, then open the eyes again and see all the colours. You will be grateful for being able to see the colours.
Now close your eyes for a minute and imagine you would be blind, so that you will never be able to experience the world again and let it sink in. When you open your eyes again you will feel a lot of gratefulness.
Last time meditation. Lets you appreciate the life as it is now. Life gets vitalised again.

Oh, nice trick, you stoic "god"! ;-)

Take setbacks as a challenge. Also take it with some humor.

A setback in a setback, how Genius :-)
A setback in a setback in a setback: the stoic god's work overtime, eh? :-)

What would the stoic god's do next? This is just a test strategy by them. Don't be frustrated at all but be astonished of what comes next. Thank the stoic gods of testing you. This is comfort zone extension of the stoics aka toughness Training.

E-Mail your comments to `paul@nospam.buetow.org` :-)

Other book notes of mine are:

2023-03-16 "The Pragmatic Programmer" book notes

2023-04-01 "Never split the difference" book notes

2023-05-06 "The Obstacle is the Way" book notes

2023-07-17 "Software Developmers Career Guide and Soft Skills" book notes

2023-11-11 "Mind Management" book notes

2024-05-01 "Slow Productivity" book notes

2024-07-07 "The Stoic Challenge" book notes (You are currently reading this)

More books and other resources I found useful.

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