Stoic Prompt Week 11 (2024)
"When your sparring partner scratches or head-butts you, you don't then make a show of it, or protest, or view him with suspicion or as plotting against you. And yet you keep an eye on him, not as an enemy or with suspicion, but with a healthy avoidance. You should act this way with all things in life. We should give a pass to many things with our fellow trainees. For, as I've said, it's possible to avoid without suspicion or hate." Marcus Aurelius, Mediations, 6.20
What bad assumptions can I cast out
I used to think good friends and good employees should all be a ten on a scale of one-to-ten, ten being the best. My first few jobs in management taught me the error of my judgment right away. I use this lesson to apply to my friendships and my expectations of my former employees, team members, and family, too.
The assumption that someone acting against my interests is doing so with malice is self-centered. It assumes that I am the center of someone else's universe at the very moment that I am perceiving a slight or a transgression coming my way. It is vain to think so.
Turning the mirror to reflect my own behavior confirms it to me. I rarely act against a person. I typically act out of perceived self-interest. If my action harms another it is a secondary consideration. One that I may grieve its aftermath, or while suffering any fallout, but collateral damage none-the-less.
My goal is to assume that the guy who suddenly changes lanes and cuts me off is acting out of self-interest, albeit rashly, but without malice. Yet, that does not stop me from swerving to avoid a collision. Unfortunately, my action to avoid harm may put others in harm's way as a consequence, but again without malice,
Only seeing the world from where one sits is myopic and stunting. Yet, as a good friend once said to me, "Just because I think that fellow in front of me is following me, doesn't mean I am paranoid."
Stoic Don'ts
1- Don't be overheard complaining. Not even to yourself. Marcus Aurelius
2. Don't talk more than you listen. Two ears one mouth. Zeno
3. Don't tie your identity to the things you own. Those things are fragile and can be taken from you at any Moment. Epictetus
4. Don't compare yourself to others. Comparison is the thief of joy. Seneca
5. Don't suffer imagined troubles. Seneca
6- Don't suffer before you need to. Those things will happen or they won't. Seneca
7. Don't overindulge in food or drink. This is the idea of temperance. Musonius
8. Don't fear change. Everything that is good that has happened to you is change. Marcus Aurelius
9. Don't look outside ourselves for approval. Marcus Aurelius
10. Don't seek revenge- The best revenge is to not be like them. Marcus Aurelius.
