Modern Stoics: Part Four

“You must own everything in your world. There is no one else to blame.” -- Jocko Willink

Jocko Willink is a retired naval officer who served in the navy SEALs. Although he’s specifically said he doesn’t follow stoicism, there seems to be an overlap between what he values and what others value.

One of Willink’s phrases that he often repeats is “Discipline equals freedom.” He claims that this isn’t a contradiction, it’s an equation. What does this mean?

If giving discipline means receiving freedom, what does that tell us? Well, it tells us that we can always do something to free ourselves from whatever it is that’s stressing us out.

The other quote at the top of this page reveals Willink’s philosophy of what he calls extreme ownership. This is essentially the idea that anything that happens in your life is something that you have responsibility for. Everything that happens in your life is your fault. Not your boss’s. Not the system’s. Not your coworkers or the employees. Yours. You and you alone are responsible for 100% of what happens in your life. On the surface this seems daunting and life draining, but after some careful thought and consideration you realize that 100% responsibility means you can control anything that happens to you. You can stop yourself from being stressed out by removing the things that are stressing you out. You can fix that relationship with whoever you seem to be arguing with. You can push yourself to do better… the list goes on.

Apply this logic to your everyday life and you realize how important it is. You and you alone are responsible for keeping your diet in check. You and you alone are responsible for making yourself workout everyday. You and you alone hold yourself accountable to your challenges, and you and you alone can confront them. Again... Scary on the surface, but comforting underneath that.

So. You know who’s responsible for fixing your problems. Hold them accountable and charge forward with confidence.

Like what you read? Be sure to share this post with your friends and family, comment what you'd like to hear about next, and follow this page. It helps me out a lot, and you can always change your mind later. Be sure to stay tuned for future posts, and try to be the reason someone smiles today :)

by Chris Goode

Modern Stoics: Part Three

“By putting yourself in that intense form of stress, it makes regular life more peaceful.” -- Joe Rogan

Stress is an everyday part of life that you simply can’t avoid. What you can do is learn how to deflect it or absorb it and shoot it back out for lack of a better word, but you can’t completely avoid it because it’s always going to be here.

But that’s a conversation for another time.

As of right now, let’s talk about why stress exists in the first place. First off, the most obvious answer is that it exists simply because you can’t hold yourself up without it. Did you know that there have been experiments where trees were raised in a perfect indoor space, with the right lighting, water, ph levels in the soil, nutrients, and all that? But… they still fell over. Why? Well, because there was no wind to blow on them and make them strong enough to hold themselves up.

Stress conditions us to be strong enough to hold ourselves up when the wind blows, but it also conditions us to enjoy the times where it doesn’t. If we avoid stress, we struggle to even hold ourselves up in our day to day lives because we’re so determined to find the easy way out. But the truth is that there is no easy way out that’s worth anything, because the easy way out only gives you an easy reward.

Once we build up this callous to stress, regular life is like a stroll in the park.

Expose yourself to stress. It’s the only thing that makes you stronger.

Like what you read? Be sure to share this post with your friends and family, comment, and follow this page. It helps me out a lot, and you can always change your mind later. Be sure to stay tuned for future posts, and try to be the reason someone smiles today :)

by Chris Goode

Modern Stoics: Part Two

“We can learn from stoicism without embracing it’s strict letter. This human side of stoicism can toughen us without robbing us of our humanity.” -- Nancy Sherman

Nancy Sherman is a philosophy professor at Georgetown University. She’s studied philosophies from many different parts of the world, stoicism being one of them.

I think this quote is important because it reaches out to those that think stoicism is too callous and emotionless for them. It reminds them that there’s still valuable lessons there for them, and it’s not a great idea to dismiss it simply because of one or two things you disagree with. Everything has wisdom, whether we like it or not. The key is to find out how that wisdom applies to your life.

Realistically, it doesn’t feel good to ignore your emotions and tell yourself that everything is okay -- especially when it isn’t. What stoicism CAN bring us however, is the knowledge that most things don’t have underlying meanings. Yes means yes, not “well I felt guilty about saying no and I almost still said it but decided to say yes to be nice.” Just like no means no -- I don’t need to explain that one. Stoicism can help those who are naturally submissive become more aggressive because they’ll begin to understand that it’s better for everybody involved when you simply speak what’s on your mind.

It’s worth clarifying that aggression doesn’t mean violence. It simply means making the first move, or at least making a move before your enemy does. Your enemy could be anything: laziness, exhaustion, hunger, thirst, lack of discipline, negativity… the list goes on and on. Aggression isn’t a bad thing, it’s just looked down upon because some people who are bad people ruined it for the rest of us.

Look for wisdom. It’s everywhere you haven’t looked, but also everywhere you have.

by Chris Goode

Modern Stoics: Part One

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.” -- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nassim Taleb is a Lebanese-American essayist known for studying randomness, likelihood, and probability. He’s also the author of a book called The Black Swan.

Oddly enough, this man also seems to follow stoicism, or at least share some common ideas with it. In this quote he brings up what he believes are the three most harmful addictions: heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.

Obviously heroin is a bad thing. It’s an illegal drug for a reason; it makes people lose control of themselves and their thoughts, which results in harm to themselves and others

Carbohydrates are arguably not too great. Sometimes we have trouble processing them in our bodies and it keeps us from having as much energy as our bodies need.

A monthly salary is possibly the worst addiction in Taleb’s eyes due to the fact that a monthly salary is something that many people are willing to sacrifice the rest of their lives for. By this I mean that a monthly salary often results in people working too much for something that they’re unlikely to keep for long. We sacrifice our hobbies, relationships, and mental health simply to be paid at the end of the month -- and most of the time, that simply isn’t worth it.

That being said, you need a monthly salary in order to be a functioning member of society. You can’t just live for free. It’s unfortunate and in an ideal world this isn’t the case, but we don’t live in an ideal world. Because of this, we can only control how we react to receiving a monthly salary.

Now before I say this it’s important to point out I’m not a financial advisor. But but but, regardless of how you feel about money, it’s important to remember that it’s only an object. Those little pieces of paper might be able to control your life, but not your mind, and you can always say no to them.

Of course, there are exceptions to this. Some people are forced to work in a job they hate because they need the money. Others have families to provide for and they do it for them. Simply saying that money has no control over you can’t stop it from changing your life, but it can be something that you whisper to yourself when you’re feeling stressed about money. “It’s only paper. It can’t hurt me.”

By the way, sorry that I disappeared for a week -- lots of things have been happening and sometimes I have to set this blog to the side so I can focus on other things. You could help out a ton though by liking this post, commenting, and sharing it with a friend. Remember to take care of yourself, and try to be the reason someone smiles today :)

by Chris Goode

Quotes From Heraclitus: Part Five

“Our envy lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy”

Envy is a deadly sin.

If you aren’t christian, then envy is a bad way of thinking. Or evil spirits. Or a crazed mind. Whatever you want to call it, envy isn’t good. It leads to us never being satisfied. It leads to jealousy. It leads to anger. It leads to frustration and stress and anxiety and depression and everything else you can think of that’s bad.

I’m sure you’ve heard people say that forgiveness is the best revenge. I’m sure if you’ve heard this you also have struggled with forgiving someone at one point or another. This is normal. One way to help forgive someone (or at least seemingly forgive them) is to think of it as a revenge plan. It sounds devious, yes, but if you can truly convince yourself to do it, it becomes a little bit easier and a little bit more genuine. “I’m so upset that you did these things that I’m going to forgive you and never speak to you again.” Again, sounds devious, but eventually you’ll really convince yourself that you forgive that person. You’ll struggle at times, but you’ll be able to remind yourself; “Yeah, they did some mean things and I wish I had done this or that, but I forgave them when they didn’t deserve it. That makes me stronger than them and it baffles them that I’m so kind.” Of course, when you aren’t upset this doesn’t sound very logical. That being said, when you ARE upset it’s a lot easier to be… well, angrily forgiving.

Once you understand how to forgive someone, you can begin practicing it daily. Eventually you’ll begin forgiving people for more and more things until that limit reaches it’s max and you can genuinely forgive people for anything.

Learn to forgive. It trumps any other envy.

You’ve read this far, why not share this article with a friend? I’m sure they’ll enjoy it too. By the way, feel free to let me know in the comment section what you want to hear about next. Also, I would greatly appreciate it if you shared this with your friends and followed my blog -- it’s totally free, and you can always unfollow me later if you change your mind. Other than that, stay tuned for future blog posts every Monday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, and try to be the reason someone smiles today :)

by Chris Goode

Quotes From Heraclitus: Part Four

“Big results require big ambitions”

Ambition is an important aspect and characteristic to anybody with any kind of goal, ever.

Sounds like I’m exaggerating there. I’m not. Without ambition, we have no inner desire to do things. Without an inner desire to do something, we never truly complete a task because we never spend time getting all the flaws worked out. If we only run off of exterior motivations, we only work when others are watching. Unless you have an audience 24/7, this simply isn’t enough to make you succeed in whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish.

Jocko WIllink often talks about how discipline equals freedom. It’s a popular quote of his, and I resonate with it because he says discipline instead of motivation. The thing about motivation is it usually comes from an outside source, whereas discipline comes from within and makes you do things even when you don’t feel like doing them.

In order to truly be ambitious, we need to constantly work at something we enjoy that we’ll do even when we’re tired or not quite in the mood for it. We need to be able to discipline ourselves to do the things we need to, regardless of what we think or feel like. This is the path to true success in whatever it is we’re trying to accomplish. This is the path to completion. This is the path to big results.

by Chris Goode

Quotes From Heraclitus: Part Three

“Much learning does not teach understanding.”

Academics and intelligence are two commonly confused things.

Of course, it makes sense. Education often increases intelligence, and an intelligent person often does well academically. The confusion comes in when people try to measure intelligence based off of academics. Or even worse: when people assume that an intelligent person will be extremely successful academically.

There’s plenty of examples of individuals that are exceptions to this rule: James Cameron, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc. As for examples of academically successful people who aren’t very intelligent… think about that kid that cheated on every test in highschool. Regardless of anybody’s opinions of these individuals, it’s hard to deny that they’re successful in their own endeavors and overall are pretty intelligent people.

It’s important to understand this so that we can do a little bit more than appreciate the people who dropped out of highschool or college despite being intelligent. We learn these things so that we can look at the next generation and understand that academics don’t dictate intelligence. They might be a strong indicator, yes, but in no way does that mean that a kid with poor grades is stupid.

It’s also good to consider that there are many different kinds of intelligence. There’s academic intelligence, musical intelligence, mechanical intelligence, fighting intelligence, social intelligence… the list goes on. It’s usually pretty easy to tell where people are mostly intelligent -- it just so happens that it’s what they probably spend most of their time doing every day. A martial artist is intelligent when it comes to body mechanics and knowing how to fight. A painter or writer is intelligent because they understand how to illustrate a picture either literally or in someone’s mind.

In order to be our best selves (because that’s always the goal with all these articles), we need to find out where we’re most intelligent. Regardless of whether or not we enjoy the topic, it’s important to have something to attach more knowledge to. For example, there might be a kid who absolutely despises math but is really good at it. That kid can then relate other things to math whether they know it or not, which allows for them to understand it better. Intelligence is the ability to relate two seemingly unrelated things, and use that information in a positive way. Of course, positive is a relative term.

by Chris Goode

Quotes From Heraclitus: Part Two

“Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day.

Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.”

Good character is a concept of human imagination that results in individuals striving to become smarter, stronger, faster, and kinder. In other words, the idea of good character encourages people to become the strongest versions of themselves. The only issue with this idea is that people assume that good character is a thing that you can gain or achieve and it’s as simple as that. This isn’t the case.

Instead, good character is something that you only realize is there when you look back into the past and compare that to what you are now. Good character is an immeasurable change. A good way of understanding this concept is to imagine filling a cup with water, but not being able to see through it. You know the water is going in the cup, but you usually can’t tell exactly how full the cup is until it’s overflowing.

Good character is the same as an overflowing cup because you can’t see it until it’s everywhere. When you truly have good character, you give until you see it everywhere in your life. Your relationships will become stronger. You’ll be proud of yourself for the things you do. Your life will start to have some kind of structure or rhythm, and it’ll be easier to push through difficult times because you’ll understand that good things will come through sooner or later.

The second part of Heraclitus’ quote reminds us that good character can only be developed by individuals who are willing to give patient effort. Without a true desire to achieve, nothing can be accomplished. At the end of the day, the decision to have a good or bad character falls on you.

by Chris Goode

Quotes From Heraclitus

“There is nothing permanent except change.”

Change is always happening.

We’re always changing because that’s what humans do. Without change, we don’t adapt, and we fall to the bottom of the food chain over time.

Oddly enough, there’s people who actively resist change. They know it can’t be stopped, but they try anyway. The reason for this is that they want to stick to what they know. They don’t want to be forced to change their current state of being in order to adapt to something they’re unfamiliar with. Although it’s a natural human trait, it’s one that’s important to grow out of with time.

One way to begin accepting change is to find comfort in it. Yes, things are constantly changing. It can be stressful. It can be unsettling. It can even be frightening… unless you embrace it. In fact, this is a method used by psychologists to help people get over their fears; it’s called exposure. The idea behind it is to do something you’re scared of so that when you survive you’ll see that it’s not so bad. One example would be a person who’s scared of drowning swimming as deep as they can and then some. They come back up, and suddenly the swimming pool isn’t so scary anymore.

We can do a similar thing with adapting to change. Trying to resist it is futile, but learning to grit your teeth and change as fast as possible can make things easier. One step is to think about the things you want to change. Maybe there’s a coworker who’s mean or your job is too stressful, but changing would eliminate those things. Sure, it might change a lot more than that, but when you get to the new job you’ll find comfort by telling yourself “yes, this is different, but at least I don’t have to deal with these other things.”

We find comfort in change by welcoming it, which gives us more comfort. It’s an exponential process, but it begins with you looking for a way to adapt and accept things.

by Chris Goode

Quotes From Aristotle: Part Seven

“Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.”

Work is inevitable.

Okay okay, I might sound a bit like Thanos when I say that, but the point still stands. Work is something that you need to do in order to take care of yourself. Alternatively you’ll be homeless, hungry, probably lonely, and although it doesn’t sound bad, bored. Boredom kills.

Aristotle knew that enjoying your task is what drives perfection. Perfection is achieved when you tinker with the outcome of something over and over and over again until it’s exactly the way it’s meant to be. Although you could probably do this once or twice with most things, it’s almost impossible to do it constantly… unless you enjoy doing it.

In order to constantly do something, you almost have to be obsessed with it. You can’t really truly be the best at something or even be mediocre unless you’re willing to do it all the time, every day, for the rest of your life.

This is why it’s important to enjoy the work you do. Some people simply like working because it gives their mind something to do or they have people to see. Some people dislike those things but they enjoy the task they’re assigned. Whatever the reason, these people are often the most successful at their tasks. This of course allows for them to dedicate time into their work without tiring out as quickly as others. As a result, their work ends up better than others.

The same logic applies to real, genuine self improvement. This is whatever you feel helps you to become the best version of yourself. If you don’t really truly enjoy what you’re doing, you won’t improve yourself. Choose wisely.

by Chris Goode

Quotes From Aristotle: Part Six

“Whosoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god.”

I’ve noticed there seems to be a tendency for influencers to encourage people to be alone more.

Admittedly, this is true sometimes. It’s good for people to learn to be okay with being alone, because sometimes we’re forced to do so. If we never learn this skill, we become codependent and unreliable towards ourselves. Of course, these are traits that we always want to be working towards getting rid of. The idea is to be fully conscious of the things that are happening in the moment without being led by our ego.

That being said, solitude isn’t necessarily something we should actively be working towards. As much as we need to be okay with being alone, we need to have people to be around -- it’s a human need.

Those that seek solitude and delight in it are either a wild beast or a god, at least according to Aristotle. What exactly does this mean?

It means that when we actively seek out being alone, we’re either close to being less than human or close to being more than human. In other words, those who actively seek out being alone are replacing their mind for something else.

If we enjoy being alone because it’s an excuse to get away from others, we’re like animals who are trying to keep everything they get for themselves. We become greedy, angry, selfish, closed off, and sometimes narcissistic. Of course, these are oftentimes the very things that make people dislike others. This is the process of turning people into the things they dislike about the world.

However, if we enjoy being alone because it gives us time to think about things, we often end up trying to play god. We start thinking about things that we have no control over, like other individuals thoughts and ideas, the future, the past, what things could happen and what things might happen… we drive ourselves crazy trying to manipulate our reality. This drives us to anxiety, stress, depression, and unfortunately in extreme cases it can even lead to suicide.

The key to stop both extremes from happening is to seek balance.

Of course, we aren’t wild animals. Or maybe we are, but we can think like a god. And of course, we aren’t gods. Or maybe we are, but we can think like a wild animal…

by Chris Goode

Quotes From Aristotle: Part Five

“The whole is more than the sum of its parts.”

We often have a tendency to dislike ourselves.

By this I mean we look at ourselves in the mirror too often. At first we might be okay with what we see, but then we begin looking deeper. A somewhat symmetrical face and beautiful skin become unbalanced eyes, a weirdly shaped nose, a chin that juts out too much, an overbite, and skin that’s damp with oils and filled with acne.

My point in this is that we often look at ourselves too much and we start to pay too close attention to detail. We might see things about ourselves that we like at first but then we search for things we dislike and we decide to think of ourselves as ugly as a result of it. The same thing happens with our psyche, our ego, our soul, mind, spirit, whatever you want to call it.

We look at ourselves and we’re satisfied. We might have a few things we feel like we need to change but we know we’ll get there eventually and we aren’t too worried about it. Then after thinking about it for too long we start to think about our insecurities, our fears, the things that stress us out, and the things we choose to hate about ourselves. After that we suddenly dislike ourselves. We start to define ourselves based off of what we see, and we choose to see negative things if we look too long. It’s just how human minds work.

There’s two main solutions to this, ideally both can be done. The first is to completely and wholly accept yourself, your flaws, and your downfalls, and learn to love those parts of yourself. No matter who you are, you’re flawed. This isn’t me making some bold accusation -- it’s me pointing out what everybody already knows. Knowing that everybody is flawed is knowing that you’re just as human as everybody else, and without that we shame ourselves into being closed off and emotionally dead.

The second solution is to look at yourself as a whole. When you think about it, this is really just a tool to help you accept and love yourself. Seeing yourself as a whole is the difference between seeing the texture of the paint and then backing up and seeing the whole painting, appreciating it’s beauty and imagery and seeing it’s flaws as characteristics that strengthen it’s radiating beauty instead of weakening it. Once you can see yourself as a whole, you can learn to love the things you have. Sure, you might be insecure about public speaking, but the fact that you’ll still do it on occasion shows bravery. You might think you’re a loser and never succeed, but the fact that you still try shows determination. Things cancel out -- and positivity almost always comes out on top. On the rare occasions when it doesn’t, it’s important to look inward and try to find out why negativity is beating you. Acknowledging negativity is important, because otherwise we’re hopeless romantics or stupidly optimistic. Despite this, we can’t let it rule our lives.

by Chris Goode

Chris Goode

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