There are but two persons who will never fail you. God and yourself. Whatever may come you will always stay true to your nature. Be it when you do bad or good deeds, you can only act in the way your nature dictates. The goal is to develop your self-control, discipline and virtue to the point where you can really on yourself that you will always act in the way which is most beneficial to yourself.
stoic
On The Brink of Destruction – False Gods of Democracy
Who can stand before the leaders of the modern world and say that he is happy and satisfied with the current state of things? The one who can do this, is either a madman, a blind person or a God. We live in times of great, almost suffocating comfort. A time of unbearable and unchanging peace with which we are neither content in living in nor oppressed enough to disturb it. We live in a time of decadence, yet all this intrigue is painted in colors of golden democracy and secular values. There seems to be a cult of success and freedom everywhere around us, yet little true success and uncontrollable freedom exists in the modern world. The success of having a family, someone to inherit your wealth and values and to keep pushing on once you fall, the freedom to be independent of the processes of the modern world, to grow your own food, create your own energy, have your own micro-dominion as a man on this earth- these true and crucial forms of freedom and success are either ignored or looked down upon and actively discouraged. Instead, we have a farce, a theatrical interpretation of success and freedom.
Trial, Failure and Success | Stoic Thoughts on Persistence
A condition of success is always trial and error. Before any big win we have in life we must first attempt to win before capturing it. We may fail multiple times, get demotivated, dragged through the mmud, humiliated and beaten in our spirits, yet if we keep on pushing forward, the win we are fighting for draws ever nearer and the more difficult the trail towards it was, the sweeter it’s taste becomes when we finally achieve it.
Stoic Principles to Deal with Criticism
Today we are living in a world where we see constantly how people judge and criticize others all the time, no one is spared when it comes to criticism. Everybody sees the world and other people through their own lenses and while this is totally natural and human, this might be the reason why criticism is born in the first place. The reason for that is that we rarely see more than what our mind allows us. In this article, we will find stoic practices to deal with criticism in our daily lives, Besides this, we will get to know wonderful ways adopted by stoics to respond to unfair criticism with peace, patience, tolerance and dignity.
A stoic person knows that they will be the recipient of criticism by others therefore they need to be strong and patient and they don’t whine and bitch about it. Thus, they do not get attracted and distracted by such threats of criticism and keep themselves ready for it. Similarly, they usually do not take those situations too personally. As Epictetus stated: Feel grateful when someone unfairly criticizes you because they will not be pointing at your real flaws. Another point extremely worth mentioning as well is that criticism is a signal of progress (or at least change). You`ll have this experience firsthand once you decide to step up and pursue a dream. There always will be people laughing at you, doubting you won`t be able to accomplish whatever you have set you mind on. So, if you decided to do anything above average be ready for criticism, if it didn`t hit you already, IT IS COMING SOON.
Discipline | The Source of Virtue and Freedom
There are essentially, three types of discipline a man must develop in order to achieve freedom. Discipline is the first, the cardinal virtue, it is the virtue from which all other virtues bloom, and the achievement of the state of iron discipline is the success from which stem all other successes.The lack of discipline is the sickness from which idle minds conjure up sin and vanity. It is essential for a man to be disciplined in his life, but attaining such discipline in a world in which no outside motivation for it exists is a difficult and daunting task.
Know Who You Can Trust | Stoic’s Guide to Trust and Manipulation [STOIC MINDSET]
Having someone who you can trust is a natural and needed part of a human life. Trust evolved as one of the social attributes which helped us to form our communities and tribes, trusting someone is a deep emotional need, it’s very hard, if not impossible to make that need go away. The Stoic practice is generally a good way to control one’s emotions, yet even it fails when it comes to the simple need of a man to have at least one person who they can trust sufficiently enough to show them the deepest, personal and hardest to admit aspects of oneself. The need for trust is simple, and can be put into terms of simple exchange: “I let you in on my private perspective of the world, and give you a role in it, you fulfill your role in my world, and keep other people away from my personal world.” Of course, the term “Personal world“ not only refers to one’s mind and thoughts, but also to secrets, to expectations and goals which he rarely shares, and most of all to one’s view of the objective reality around him, trusting someone means having someone with whom you can share your personal lens through which you see the wider world, without him telling anyone what he saw.
It’s Fucking Simple | A Mindset for Overcoming Doubt
Through the years I found myself guilty of this as well, when I need to study for something, or do an extra thing at work, or learn a new skill, whatever situation the “It’s too complicated for me” was always there. Even in emotional situations, before I became aware of how do inter human relations really work, I was too lazy to accept the truth, when I got bullied, or when a girl rejected me or I had a fight with my friends. I’d always fall back into the “It’s too complicated for me to sort it out” argument. This kind of behavior made me weak and undeserving of the title of a man and the position in which I was born in as a sentient being. As I started to improve my life a few years ago, going to the gym, studying, making progress in my social life I found a simple mindset, a short motto or a mantra that helped me overcome that comfortably helpless excuse. It was “It’s fucking simple, just start.” These are one of the most powerful words I have spoken to myself ever, they motivated me to go further in life than almost anything else.
Strength Matters, Weak Men Are Not Men | A Stoic’s Guide to Virtue
Now that we have covered how does one become a good man (through embodiment of virtues), and why are does virtues important, let us discuss the topic at hand. Strength for a man is one of the major virtues. I would even say that it is the base virtues upon which all other virtues are built. One cannot be virtuous without being strong, I think that a quote from Dr. Jordan Peterson would be helpful here: “A weak man cannot be virtuous. If you're harmless you're not virtuous, you're just harmless, you're like a rabbit; a rabbit isn't virtuous, it just can't do anything except get eaten! That's not virtuous. If you're a monster, and you don't act monstrously, then you're virtuous.”
Being What You Say You are | A Stoic’s Guide to Integrity
Doing the things you say sounds simple enough, if you were to ask most men, they would tell you that they indeed do the things they say they’ll do. However this is not a simple lie, it’s not meant to lie to you, they are lying to themselves through lack of integrity and self-determination. Doing … Continue reading Being What You Say You are | A Stoic’s Guide to Integrity
The Logos and The Dao |A Stoic’s Perspective on Daoism(Taoism)
As somebody who is interested in Stoic philosophy and who tries his best to practice the Stoic way of life, I have found the insights and teaching of Lao-Tzu, the founder of the philosophy of Daoism as inseparable from the Stoic teachings. Two intertwining philosophical views that complete one another. Where Stoicism fails in its rejection of mysticism, is where Daosim completes it in its spirituality, where Daoism fails in giving clear instruction, Stoicism is firm in the rules it's followers must follow to achieve their goals. The two philosophies carry a very similar message, and stem from the same roots, although they grow in the gardens of two different cultures, in the modern age they combine well into a full spiritual and philosophical approach to life.
The Wolf with a Keyboard 