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The ancient Stoics were deeply concerned with the virtue of “inner peace” or equanimity.
According to stoic philosophy, they believed it is a prerequisite for being happy and flourishing as a person.
With modern life moving so fast, it’s hard to keep up with everything, we forget to slow down, we become lost.
But we have to remember not everything will go our way, so we have to relax because some things aren’t in our control.
- Praemeditatio Malorum — Negative Visualization
Praemeditatio Malorum can be translated from latin as ‘negative visualization.’
Marcus Aurelius begins his second book with this entry.
“When you wake up in the morning , tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly, They are like this because they cant tell good from evil.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 2.1
This helps us because as the day moves along we don’t know what will happen.
So when something bad happens it’ll be less of a shock and our thoughts will immediately look for a solution in a bad situation.
Other ways this helps us is by growing a healthy detachment from things we can’t control.
2. Memento Mori
Memento Mori is Latin for ‘remember thou art mortal.’
We will die one day and it could be at any moment.
Our time on this planet is limited so Why waste your time procrastinating about things you want to do.
Go out there and do them.
The clock is ticking.
“Don’t look down on death, but welcome it. It too is one of the things required by nature. Like youth and old age. Like growth and maturity. Like a new set of teeth, a beard, the first grey hair. Like sex and pregnancy and childbirth. Like all the other physical changes at each stage of life, our dissolution is no different.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.3
3. Amor Fati
Amor fati is Latin for ‘love of fate.’
The idea behind this is to embrace and love everything that comes your way in life.
No matter how hard we work towards our goals and no matter the outcome of progressing towards those goals we will love the outcome because it can give us another opportunity to become better than we were.
You lost your job and had to get another one because of bills.
But in that moment of working a job just to get by you can learn something new and change your perspective.
It could lead someone to working for themselves and realizing that was the best decision ever.
“Don’t demand that things happen as you wish, but wish that they happen as they do happen, and you will go on well.”
Epictetus, Enchiridion, 8.
So, remember to love the outcome of any situation because it could be the best thing that has ever happened to you, you will die someday so make your time count and, write or visualize what could go wrong during the day so you’ll be less surprised by it.
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