Thrive When Life Gets Stressful 💎

Ancient wisdom for modern mental antifragility

Work pressure always increases in the fall as deadlines, meetings, and expectations loom like giants on the horizon.

Not to mention all the layoffs, lately.

Luckily, there are a few Stoic practices you can lean on to set yourself up to thrive when times are hard:

• Think Negative

• Practice Hardship

• Focus on what matters

Let's break these down into actionable info. These tips will help you cultivate mental antifragility. 💎

Think Negative (Premeditatio Mallorum)

Think about the worst thing that's likely to happen in your current situation. Is that result survivable? Has there ever been a person who met that fate and remained happy?

If the answers to those questions are "yes," then realistically, you don't have much to worry about.

Your ancestors slept on the ground and fought off tigers with sticks.

You're made of the same stuff as them – you'll be alright. You can handle a layoff, a rejection, or a failure.

In fact, you even have time, right now, to make a backup plan, just in case something "bad" comes to pass. Use this time wisely.

Think carefully about how to avoid the failure if possible, and also spend time thinking about how you will recover if the failure DOES occur.

You only lose if you quit.

Practice Hardship

Consider the consequence of failure that you fear most. Are you afraid to go hungry? Are you afraid you'll have to sell your stuff? Are you afraid that certain people will stop hanging out with you?

Start exposing yourself to the things you fear:

• Hunger is more bearable if you have a few 3-day fasts under your belt.

• Poverty is more bearable if you learn how to break your attachments to things.

• Loneliness is more bearable if you learn how to befriend your own mind.

Our ideas about what is required for a "good life" bind us to situations that poison our souls. If you want to feel true freedom, learn to let go of your chains.

Focus On What Matters

Think hard about the things you value. Are they really worth the effort required to maintain them?

• Your house is a box of dead wood and broken stones.

• Your bed is a pile of fibers.

• Your pantry is full of chemicals.

• Your "friends" talk trash about you behind your back.

• Your car could get stolen or wrecked any day.

And the craziest part? Everything you own is decaying. Even your body.

No matter how secure you feel in your "possessions," none of them actually belong to you in any irrevocable way. Time and fortune own them all.

All you have is your mind + your decisions.

Use them well. 👁️

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