5. Adjust Your Attitude: You Get What You Need
You can't always get what you want, but you can change your attitude so you no longer want it.
If for instance, you are robbed, you are likely to feel that you are the aggrieved party, but there is, actually another way to look at it. You lost your wallet, but what did the thief lose?
The reason why I lost my lamp was that the thief was superior to me in vigilance. He paid however this price for the lamp, that in exchange for it he consented to become a thief: in exchange for it, to become faithless.
- Epictetus: Golden Sayings XII
This is the area where we have the greatest control. If we do as the Stoics encourage, do nothing to hurt the community, act with deliberation, kindness
Let this be thy only joy, and thy only comfort, from one sociable kind action without intermission to pass unto another,
- Marcus Aurelius: Meditations 6.6
and care, and show true humility
Do nothing against thy will, nor contrary to the community, nor without due examination, nor with reluctancy. Affect not to set out thy thoughts with curious neat language. Be neither a great talker, nor a great undertaker.
- Marcus Aurelius: Meditations III. 5
we just might find we get what we need.
When we are invited to a banquet, we take what is set before us; and were one to call upon his host to set fish upon the table or sweet things, he would be deemed absurd. Yet in a word, we ask the Gods for what they do not give; and that, although they have given us so many things!
- Epictetus: Golden Sayings XXXV
Stoic-Based New Years Resolutions
- To Everything There Is A Season
- Do Unto Others
- Practice Makes Perfect
- Do Your Duty
- You Get What You Need
