I start the day by taking a quick look at the latest version of my commitments to self. This is a reminder of 5 synthesized notes from my detour into the world of stoicism (notes) and the virtues I commit to uphold.
I’ve been engaging in this practice for two years now and it’s helped me develop more equanimity by reminding me – every weekday morning – to keep perspective. As these notes are a collection of ideas, I expect to just think deeply about one of them every day as I skim them.
For example, the one that I thought about today was on discomfort.
Welcome minor discomforts – cold, hunger, and the pain that comes from stretching mentally or physically. Reach for those discomforts everyday by spending time in depth, exercising, reading, listening, and eating right.
I think of this note often. Aside from being a reminder to reach for these discomforts in an attempt to operate better, they’re a regular reminder of just how much I take for granted.
Some of these discomforts – effectively when we need to do things we may not want to do or consciously make a short-term trade-off – may loom large on a daily basis. But, in the grand scheme of things, they’re drops in the bucket. And, in some cases, the fact that we get to make these trade-offs often are an indicator of the presence of massive privilege.
This is a nudge to make sure I keep that perspective.
After all, it isn’t climbing the mountain that wears us out. It is the pebbles we carry with us in our shoe.
And those pebbles are often mental blocks around “minor discomforts” that go away when we make a slight shift to our perspective.
