Day 2 of Stoicism

Marcus Aurelius had his own idols and people to look up too. Respected philosophers such as : Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Socrates, Diogenes, Epictetus, Cyrus and much more. As I told you about the passage of "take on color of dead men" (which means studying about the wisdom of past generations) we must make sure that we try to live and imitate the lives of these men and their principles.

One step in order to strengthen our character or exemplify virtue we want to attain is through writing them down. Jotting down the virtues like what Marcus Aurelius did in the "Meditations" enables you to physically see and put on paper that virtue and enables you to visualize it.

Make sure you make a specific description about the person you'd want to imitate. At the same time when faced with an obstacle or challenge ahead always ask what your idol would do such as : What would Marcus Aurelius do if he fails his 3rd year of college?

According to psychologist this is called "modeling". This could also be applied in every choice we make or how we model our attitude in our lives. By imagining that your own role model is with you could imagine what they could advise you to do or How you could deal with this problem? And on and on.

After this step, "mental rehearsal" which pertains to picturing yourself or acting and imagining yourself following their advice will prove the be helpful in obtaining your role models virtue.

To do:

In your morning meditation: look into the challenges and tasks you would need to accomplish that day. Ask yourself: What would your (idol) Marcus Aurelius do? Rehearse and prepare the virtues that you will exhibit in order to accomplish these tasks.

This is a guide for your morning meditation:

1. What would the consequences be if you acted as a slave to your passions?

2. How would your day differ if you acted more rationally, exhibiting wisdom and self-discipline?

During the day : continually imagine that your idol is watching and observing every move you make. This is called "stoic mindfulness" or may also be described as "prosoche" which means keeping paying to yourself.

During evening meditation: review what happen during the day. Criticize yourself and ask: What would Marcus Aurelius advice me to do different in order to do better?

A famous passage from the "Golden Verse" that Epictetus qouted to his student which could help your evening meditation:

allow not sleep to close your wearied eyes,

Until you have reckoned up each daytime dead:

"Where did I go wrong? What did I do? And what duty's left undone?"

From first to last review your acts and then

Reprove yourself for wretched acts, but rejoice in those done well.

Amazing right?

Side notes:

1. Don't be too ambitious. What you need to do is to start small. Make sure to do small increment acts that will do justice in the virtues you want to attain.

2. Be consistent. Remember that the goal for stoic is to "act consistently in accord with reason and virtue".

Being able to be mindful throughout the day increases the chance of working on what matters and avoiding vices. In, addition we are able to learn, adapt and improve in our day to day lives. Examining where we went wrong, praising and continuing what we did right and adjusting to do things better will help us get from 1 to 100 percent slowly. As the book qoutes from Aristotle: "The unexamined live is not worth living". Hence, we must do our best to stay woke.