Hjernero Flashcards
Focus On What Is Up To Us
Failure and hardship will be part of the ride when being ambitious. The thing is we decide how to cope with what happens. If something happens that wasn’t up to you, it makes no sense beating yourself up over it. There is a stoic phrase: “ta eph’hemin, ta ouk eph’hemin.” What is up to us, what is not up to us.
An even better example would be the serenity prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference. “. This is useful for many aspects of life when dealing with things outside our control because we shouldn’t focus on those things. An obstacle might appear in your life, which you have no control over. The question is now, should you spend time focusing on how unfair it is that something that ISN’T up to you happened, or should you focus on your attitude towards the obstacle which IS up to you.
Amor Fati
Backup plans are often valuable. Don’t let small things catch you off guard and ruin your plans, but have prepared for adversity and overcome it.
“Beware the calm before the storm.
Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
The worst is yet to come.
It gets worse before it gets better.”
Once adversity has hit, however, there is an excellent way to cope with it which a story from Thomas Eddision explains. Eddison once had his life work, his research and production campus, destroyed by a fire fueled by strange chemicals making the fire glow in different colours and impossible to put out. He then went to his son and said: “Go get your mother and all her friends, they’ll never see a fire like this again”. His son was amazed and in shock, but wasn’t it true what Eddison said? It was an amazing reaction because Eddison couldn’t do anything else, so why not make the best of the moment. He wasn’t heartbroken either, instead, the setback was fuel for his work, and shortly after he started rebuilding what he had lost and ended up gaining more than what he started with. An excellent saying for this attitude towards adversity is “Amor fati”, to love everything that happens.
In general, to live amor fati is a great way of coping with endless adversity. Life won’t just give you one obstacle but many, so why not learn to start loving the hardship instead of getting upset every time it hits. Haitians have a saying for this, “Behind mountains are more mountains”. You have to start enjoying the journey instead of thinking you will find joy at the destination. After all, once the destination is reached, you have to prepare to start again because you will start again.
Staying On Course
Jack Bogle, founder of Vanguard, feels miserable when the market drops 50% even though it’s his full-time job and he knows another market crash will come. To cope, he gets a couple of his “staying on course books” and reads them. This can transcend to other aspects of life, especially when feeling down and like the grind is too much, and then picking up a book that assures you your course is worth keeping. Here it would be perfect to find such a book and read it when feeling thrown off course.
Life Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint
The race of life is a marathon, not a sprint. The only thing to focus on is the path in front of you. Look ahead. Establish your pace so you won’t burn out. Keep moving forward. It’s not about how we start but how we finish and it’s often useful to remember everyone starts in different places. There is no first or last place in life and using money and acquisitions as a standard for how you are ranked is dumb and flawed.
“The only person you should try to be better than is the person you were yesterday” - Anonymous
