Welcome to Stoic Snippets,
The track that is short in time but not in depth.
Very little is needed to make a happy life.
It is all within yourself,
In your way of thinking.
I've done a talk on this quote before but like so many of the Stoic quotes it bears repeating.
It has also been one that I have been contemplating a lot since the birth of my baby Jethro.
Things are stressful in my house to say the least.
Work has been very dry,
Taking care of a newborn takes a lot of energy and sleep is just a distant memory at the moment.
Staying upbeat has required a monumental amount of effort at times.
Seneca's line,
Sometimes just to get out of bed at times is an act of courage,
Has been ringing through my head at around 2.
30am when Jethro needs another bottle and he just isn't settling.
But back to Marcus Aurelius and his opening quote from today.
Is it true?
Can it be true that it's in a way of thinking that very little is needed to make a happy life?
Certainly the longest study on human relationships gives this some credibility.
The Harvard study on happiness found that one variable above all stands out in happy people across cultures and across times and across income amounts as it happens.
They found that the single biggest predictor of how happy someone was was the strength of their relationships.
Money had some impact but way less than you think.
Despite this,
Strangely we have no problem putting a lot more time into getting more money but can begrudge even the smallest of social occasions.
And that is one of the issues.
When we are down we tend not to want to see other people.
Ironically this is the one thing that could probably help us.
And this is when the next element comes in.
It's all within yourself.
In your way of thinking,
Marcus Aurelius says.
Something I've pondered on.
Indeed your mind is a complicated thing.
It tries to serve multiple needs simultaneously.
In an ideal world your prefrontal cortex perfectly addresses the most important stuff and ignores the rest.
The noise.
But that is not always the case.
It's almost never the case.
When we are down we are way less rational and begin to look for evidence of why we are miserable.
And spoiler alert.
We find it.
We find it everywhere.
The world is full of reasons to be miserable if you're looking for them.
And with each bit of data that confirms our sadness we get even better at finding more reasons.
The vicious loop occurs.
What is known as negative bias.
The terrible part is misery loves company.
But company isn't such a big fan of misery.
So another vicious cycle occurs.
Us being down decreases the chances we want to see others and it also decreases the chances that they want to see us.
Both result in us being more down.
This is where we need to break the cycle by not letting these thoughts snowball.
Or maybe a better description is avalanche.
We need to rethink how bad things are and be honest about how good things are.
For instance circling back to my opening statement about being up at 2 30 doing bottles at night for Jethro.
In reality that's probably been once or twice.
And more often than not he's a great boy and he sleeps well.
My comment about not working as much as I would like can actually be seen as a good thing.
For the longest time I've been trying to move careers so not working has allowed me to focus on being here with you guys on InsideTimer.
And it's been a treat.
It's been a treat to be able to do more work like this and it's also been a treat to spend more time with my boy while he's so little.
In fact just recently I had the pleasure of seeing him smile and laugh at his own fart.
A truly magical moment.
You see the world is a complex matrix of events.
Good and bad.
We have the power not only to choose to see the good but we also have the power to reframe the bad to see the good in it.
We have the power to see advances stressful or exciting.
To see responsibilities as a drag or a challenge.
To see the situations in our life as a threat or an opportunity.
So I want to challenge you today to choose what you see.
To change your way of thinking.
If you like this kind of thing be sure to look out for my retreat here on InsideTimer coming out this year.
I'd love to have you in person where we can talk about these ideas and live the good life.
I'll see you soon.
