The Power of Five Ideas
Five timeless philosophical insights to navigate life, or at least this weekend.
Welcome to The Art of Becoming.
The Power of Five Ideas Friday edition. Where we learn five ideas that can change our lives.
The Art of Becoming is a newsletter about finding value in adversity and embracing discomfort. Each week, I share how to find fulfillment, a little joy, be more resilient, wiser, and a little better. It starts with you and me embracing discomfort—by doing hard shit.
Today, we learn how five (small) ideas can change our lives
I hope you join me.
Reading books opens the door to new worlds, but books over 100 years old form the backbone of culture. They connect past wisdom to today's thought process, bringing a more complex understanding of the human experience.
Modern books are longer variants of simplified tweets, Facebook gotcha posts, and blog posts. Most are like eating candy. There’s very little literary nutrition in them.
While there is value to reading Ryan Holiday, Richard Dawkins, or Robert Greene, these modern-day literary masters would agree that the texts of a bygone era offer a more enriching and unique lens to understand the core of human nature.
Immersing ourselves in these works enhances our cultural literacy, connecting us to a wealth of ideas that shaped our world. Most of those books are written with unique literary craftsmanship and are to be read and reread. Each word honing and sharpening the reader's mind.
These books connect us to the collective human experience, reminding us that, despite the passage of time, the essence of what it means to be human remains constant.
I chose these five ideas because they mean something to me now, specifically Marcus Aurelius' thoughts on impermanence and living in the present.
This year, my wife lost her mother, and my sister buried her husband. Marcus' words rang loud when I learned two people I loved died, and I would never be able to say goodbye.
1st Idea
That the longest-lived and those who will die soonest lose the same thing. The present is all that they can give up, since that is all you have, and what you do not have, you cannot lose. –Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Whether you live a short life or to 120, all you have is the present. The past is gone. It stopped existing the moment you lived it. The future does not exist until you get there. Stop feeling guilty about the past and stop worrying about the future. Live for right now.
2nd Idea
"Simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being. Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are. Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world." - Lao Tzu, "Tao Te Ching"
This quote encapsulates the fundamental principles of Taoist philosophy. Living simply, allowing events to unfold without forcing them, and being compassionate, especially to oneself, leads to harmony and peace.
Imagine a world where everyone on the freeway driving to work lived patiently, honored the present and did not flip off the other driver who cut them off. How great would that be?
3rd Idea
"Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you." - Jean-Paul Sartre
Though the quote is not over 100 years old, it is relevant to this conversation. You cannot always control the events that happen to you. However, it is your responsibility to choose what they mean to you. And there lies your freedom. You decide how any event will affect you and what you do moving forward.
Your thoughts, actions, and attitudes are the vehicles that assert your freedom and responsibilities regardless of what happens to you.
4th Idea
"We suffer more often in imagination than in reality." –Seneca
People tend to create scenarios that cause distress, even though they may never happen.
Seneca told his young protégé, Lucilius, more things in life will frighten than crush us. Not all scary events are crises. He tells Lucilius (and us) that our fears are not grounded in the present but in made-up scenarios in our minds.
When my daughter was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer, I envisioned her funeral in a thousand different ways. Never once did I explore the possibility of her living past a year. But she did. She's been in remission for over ten years.
Even when life throws the worst at you, it isn't always that bad. Don't allow imagined possibilities to control the narrative of what is happening.
5th Idea
"Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well." –Epictetus.
When you align your desires with reality as they unfold, rather than wishing reality to conform to your desires, you learn the value of acceptance and the power of adapting your mindset to embrace whatever life presents to you.
Friedrich Nietzsche believed you can achieve greatness when you accept and love your fate. When you love what happens to you, even suffering, you see it as an opportunity to grow and to affirm your life.
He borrowed this idea from the Stoics. He called it Amor Fati—love your fate.
When I stopped wishing my daughter didn't have cancer and instead accepted her cancer for what it was, my suffering changed. I was beyond devastated I could lose my child, but I also realized this was an opportunity to affirm her life and show her how much she was loved.
One of the pillars of wisdom is to accept events for how they happened and stop trying to control everything in your life.
Thanks for reading. Choose the vehicle to assert your freedom. It starts by reading books.
Love to you and yours,
Michael