Stoicism / Mental Superpowers Flashcards
What are your 3 mental superpowers to always remember?
- Amor Fati. Love your fate. Wish that things happen as they actually happen. Then your life will go well.
- Nothing external can harm you. Nothing is intrinsically good or bad. It is only your judgments that give external events a good or bad value.
- How would the Stoic sage act? If you think they would act differently to how you are acting, then you know you can move closer to what is right + virtuous.
If you’re fearing something, what’s a good mental model to remind yourself of?
The present is a shelter from the anxieties of the mind
The things you worry about won’t be as bad as you think they are
Everything will be ok in the end
When you’re facing a challenge or setback, what should you do? How should you act? From a stoic view
Act as if the challenge / setback is a test from the stoic gods. Don’t let them win. Smile at their cunning plan and fight back a better person.
Regarding consumption, where does happiness lie?
In desiring little and being happy with very little. The most ambitious is the most anxious and insecure.
Minimise your desires to the bare minimum and ask yourself: is this the state I feared?
Why should you chill the fuck out?
We’ll all be dead soon and no one will remember who we were, what we did or what we stood for. Chill the fuck out.
Why is worrying about your problems a waste of time?
Because you’ll forget about them in 2 months time.
And nothing is ever that bad.
You’ll be dead soon. Life is not worth worrying about.
What mindset will guarantee satisfaction in life?
Low expectations. You must always have low expectations.
This way, you’re either satisfied or delighted with how things turn out
What has your back and ensure everything will be ok?
Fate. Your fate is pre ordained. Everything is happening to you for a reason. Love this fate and trust it will be ok in the end
What do we react to?
Our thoughts and judgments about things.
Not to things themselves.
This is an issue. We must seek to become conscious of these judgments, find the irrationality in them and choose them more carefully
What is money’s relationship to ones satisfaction and expectations?
No amount of money can satisfy someone.
The amount that will bring happiness is relative to their expectations, which grow as you get richer.
Keep expectations low, be satisfied with little.
How can you tell if you are overly attached to something?
How well would you handle losing that thing? If you wouldn’t handle it well, you have become too attached.
How should you respond to criticism?
If you are criticised justly, accept it and change.
If unjustly, the critics are misguided and entitled to compassion. They said what they could with their limited capacities.
What is a key source of much of our imbecility?
Conformity to majority opinion and the crowd.
Learn to think + act independently and learn a noble contempt for the consequences that follow
How should we look upon others faults?
Realise that what they have done is no worse than you have done on another day.
We overlook our own faults and find them too easily in others
Why should you not envy other people’s wealth, status and honour?
Because if we had to do the same things they had to do to get those things, we wouldn’t want it.
They had to give up their liberty to get these things; flatter others, work like a dog, act without virtue, lose relationships.
