Fragments of a Stoic Mind

This is a continuation of Stoic reflections.

• See things as they are. When eating meat, remind yourself: this is the flesh of a dead cow. When eating fish: this is a dead fish. When having sex: it is simply two organs secreting and exchanging fluids. Strip away illusions.
• Remember: some things are under my control, others are not. What is truly mine is only my mind. I do not control my body, the thoughts of others, or the fate of my friends and family.
• When your neighbor grieves for a lost child or an exile, do not let appearances deceive you into calling it good or bad. It is the mind that labels events, not the events themselves.
• Life is short. Soon I will be gone, and forgotten.
• Do not say, “I am more beautiful, more intelligent, richer than you.” Instead say, “Your face is beautiful, your mind is intelligent, your wealth is rich”—for these things are not yours to own. To boast of them is like boasting of a horse’s beauty. Let the horse own its beauty.
• You wish to win an Olympic medal, or to become a professor? Then remember the sacrifices required: forgoing meals, training in winter, enduring injuries, sleepless nights, failed experiments. Every prize comes with its price.
• Live each day as if it were your last. Memento mori.
• If nature assigns you the role of orphan, slave, emperor, or invalid, play your part well. Did you protest when nature first brought you into this world? Why protest now?
• When the time to depart comes, do not cling. You did not choose the hour of your birth—why demand the hour of your death? Whether two years or ten, you have seen the same cycles.
• “But my father is cruel, my mother strikes me, my brother excels.” Nature did not give you a “good” or “bad” father—it gave you a father. That is the role. Accept the bond as it is.
• Do not demand that events conform to your wishes. Instead, wish them to happen as they do. To fight nature is to fight disappointment.
• When insulted, do not frown. Instead say: “He has left much unsaid—there are worse things about me he forgot to mention.”
• Would you lease your body to strangers in the street? Then why hand over your mind to them so freely?
• Honey tastes bitter to one with jaundice; water repels one with rabies; to a child, happiness is a ball. Why grow angry when people judge from their own condition?
• As Epictetus said: do not parade your philosophy, practice it. Sheep do not show shepherds how much they have eaten, but reveal it through their wool.
• When asked about your philosophy, remain quiet. You may be mistaken. If you practice, they will mock you; if you fail, they will condemn you. Better to live it silently than to boast aloud.