Controlling your responses

You can only control how you respond to situations

Many strange events and some unfortunate events have happened. Some are on a large scale that affects ALL OF US. Some of them are on a small scale on a personal level. When bad things happen it is “natural” to respond in anger or direct blame.

However it is not always a good idea.

In the past week people have probably panic sold their investments, or panic bought hordes of toilet paper.

A big thing that resulted from this epidemic commotion that impacted my life in a negative way is my Japan trip cancellation. That point I did not react with anger or frustration but felt a sense of disappointment that we could not follow through with our plans.

As the week went by and we noticed the situation would not get any better we chose to incrementally cancel and refund each of our bookings. Each decision made was after careful deliberation with a calm sense of mind.

By all means it is okay to feel our negative emotions, but it is not okay to let them drive our actions and decision making. Reason goes out the window in this case. Every situation is made better with a calm and collected state of mind

To summarize what I am learning and trying to apply so far with Stoic teachings from Marcus Aurelius and Seneca themselves: Anything that happens to you is objective. These events are indifferent to your feelings. You always have a choice on how to respond.

I came across a strange critique of Stoicism as a life philosophy: That it foregoes any sense of determinism.

How can that be? If anything, it is powerful to have all the deliberation and ownership over your behaviour and actions onto you.

I’ll end this off with one of my favourite videos from Jocko Wilink: Good

Thoughts? Leave a comment down below