Stoicism and the Art of Control
During some of the darkest periods of my life, it was Stoicism that got me through.
I first learned about Stoicism in a book called "The Obstacle is The Way".
It teaches you how to use the principles of Stoicism to turn adversity into triumph, and also how to accept how few things we actually control...
And as a young man struggling to make it through my time in the military, the book changed my life.
The Stoics words are timeless, and as relevant today as the day they wrote them.
But nothing helped me as much as the Stoic's ideas on "control"...
Acknowledge how little control you have
Accepting that we have control over very little in life is a hard pill to swallow.
> You can work harder than anyone else… and still not get the promotion.
> You can be the perfect partner… and still get cheated on.
> You can live an extremely healthy life… and still fall victim to an unexpected disease.
The thing is, we like to believe that our actions are the end all be all, but we can’t change everything.
Whether it's other people, bad luck, or unfortunate timing, there are some things that no matter what we did, would have happened anyway.
And a lot of the time we torture ourselves with "what ifs", and try to force outcomes we aren't really in control of...
So what’s the solution?
Focus on what you do control
What IS in our control?
> Our actions.
> Our mindset.
> Our efforts.
> Where we focus our thoughts.
We control how we think, what we choose to think about, what we do, and how we do it.
So instead of saying “I have to get the promotion”.
We can say “I will be the best employee I can be.”
Instead of “I want to make my wife happy”
It’s “I’ll be as loving and supportive as possible”.
Because at the end of the day, you can’t control who loves you, or whether you get the promotion…
But if your goal is to be a person of character and always do your best… that’s a goal you can always achieve and feel good about.
Today, focus on being a person of excellence.
Focus on always giving your best, and treating others with kindness.
Those things we control, and are the true marks of a good person.