What if you could embrace the inevitability of death and use it as a catalyst for a more purposeful life? Join us in our latest episode of War of the Mind, where we explore the profound themes of mortality, resilience, and hope. We start with a daily devotion inspired by the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, reminding us that the awareness of our finite existence can drive us to live more fully. Drawing insights from William B. Irvine's "The Stoic Challenge," we discuss how resilience and foresight can help us navigate life's unavoidable setbacks. I share a personal story about my upcoming shoulder surgery to illustrate how a proactive mindset can equip us to handle obstacles more effectively.
In our subsequent segments, we delve into the complexities of how people react to and share their setbacks. From seeking empathy and help to impressing others with resilience or gaining pity, the motivations behind sharing these stories are multifaceted. We discuss how setbacks add depth to sports, literature, and dreams, making these experiences more compelling. We then shift focus to strategies that can help manage setbacks constructively, emphasizing the importance of keeping hope alive despite life's challenges. Don't forget to visit ljvoiceproject.com for more content and connect with us on social media under LJVoiceProject. Your reactions shape your experiences—keep the faith and stay resilient.
"Thank you for joining 'War of The Mind,' your essential guide to exploring emotional intelligence, mental health, and personal growth. Remember, self-awareness is the beacon illuminating your unique path of transformation and resilience. Join us again on our next adventure through the realm of mindfulness and self-improvement! #WarOfTheMind #MentalWellbeing #EmotionalIntelligence #SelfAwareness #PersonalGrowth"
What if you could embrace the inevitability of death and use it as a catalyst for a more purposeful life? Join us in our latest episode of War of the Mind, where we explore the profound themes of mortality, resilience, and hope. We start with a daily devotion inspired by the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, reminding us that the awareness of our finite existence can drive us to live more fully. Drawing insights from William B. Irvine's "The Stoic Challenge," we discuss how resilience and foresight can help us navigate life's unavoidable setbacks. I share a personal story about my upcoming shoulder surgery to illustrate how a proactive mindset can equip us to handle obstacles more effectively.
In our subsequent segments, we delve into the complexities of how people react to and share their setbacks. From seeking empathy and help to impressing others with resilience or gaining pity, the motivations behind sharing these stories are multifaceted. We discuss how setbacks add depth to sports, literature, and dreams, making these experiences more compelling. We then shift focus to strategies that can help manage setbacks constructively, emphasizing the importance of keeping hope alive despite life's challenges. Don't forget to visit ljvoiceproject.com for more content and connect with us on social media under LJVoiceProject. Your reactions shape your experiences—keep the faith and stay resilient.
"Thank you for joining 'War of The Mind,' your essential guide to exploring emotional intelligence, mental health, and personal growth. Remember, self-awareness is the beacon illuminating your unique path of transformation and resilience. Join us again on our next adventure through the realm of mindfulness and self-improvement! #WarOfTheMind #MentalWellbeing #EmotionalIntelligence #SelfAwareness #PersonalGrowth"
and welcome back. I'm your host, lauren Johnson, and we're back here on more of the mind, and today we're gonna start off by doing a daily devotion reading. Uh, it's out of the mind me. I'm only dying slow. Let each thing you would do or say or intend be like that of a dying person. Marcus aurelius, meditations 211.
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Have you ever heard some ask what would you do if you found out tomorrow that you had cancer? The question is designed to make you consider how different life might be if you were suddenly given just a few months to live. There's nothing like a terminal illness to wake people up. But here's the thing you already have a terminal diagnosis. We all do.
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As the writer Edmund Wilson put, death is one prophecy that never fails Every person With a death sentence. Each second that passes by is one You'll never get back. Once you realize this, it will have profound impact on what you do, say and think. Don't let another day take away in ignorance of the reality that you're dying in person. We all are. Can today be the day we stop pretending otherwise? That was yesterday's reading. So for today's reading, it's called the Philosopher as an Artisan of Life and Death.
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Philosophy does not claim to get a person any external possession To do so would be on its field. As wood is to carpenter, bronze to the sculptor, so are our own lives and the proper material in the art of living by Epictetus. Philosophy is not some idle pursuit appropriate only for academics or the rich. Instead, it is one of the most essential activities that a human can engage in. It is its purpose, as Henry David Thoreau said a few thousand years after Epictetus, david Thoreau said a few thousand years after Epictetus is to help us solve the problems of life, not only theoretically but practically. This aligns nicely with Cicero's famous line to philosophize is to learn how to die. You're not reading these quotes and doing these thought exercises for fun. Though they may be enjoyable and help lighten up, their aim is to help you sculpt and improve your life and because of all, of us have but one life and one death, we should treat the experience like a sculptor with his chisels carving until no paraphrase Michelangelo, we set free the angel in the marble. We are trying to do this difficult thing living and dying as well as we can, and to do that we must remember what we've learned and the wise words we've been given. I don't know what you all take from that, but I'd say those are some pretty powerful words.
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Like I said, I've been reading some of the Stoic books and meditations lately and it's amazing, like I said, how stuff that happened and was said back thousands of years ago are still applying to today and modern Stoics is getting more popular and popular. And, um, I do have this one book I've been reading. It's called the stoic challenge a philosopher's guide to becoming tougher, calmer and more resilient, by william b irvine. And one thing I wanted to hit on today is because yesterday we were talking about a lot of my setbacks in life and how other people can go through setbacks, and you know it's all how we handle it. You know this goes into, has a whole chapter on setbacks, and how many setbacks experience depends, as I have suggested, on how much foresight you possess.
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The days of a thoughtless person are likely to be filled with obstacles that have failed to anticipate and, as a result, he is likely to find life both frustrating and unfair. Were he not so thoughtless, he would fathom the reason for his misfortune. Thoughtful people, by contrast, minimize the number of setbacks they experience by learning how the world works and then using this knowledge to plan their activities in the day. No matter how carefully they plan for their future, though, life occasionally will deal them a setback. The computer of their fully fueled and recently serviced hybrid vehicle developed a glitch, thereby bringing it to a halt during rush hour on the freeway.
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If you are reading these words, you are doubtless a thoughtful individual who spends time and energy thinking ahead in order to prevent foreseeable setbacks. But have you also spent time and energy developing a strategy for minimizing the emotional harm done to you by foreseeable setbacks? And that was one thing I didn't hit on yesterday is the ability. We're not going to totally avoid setbacks in life, and that's one thing I forgot to hit on yesterday is the setbacks are still going to come. Forgot to hit on yesterday is the setbacks are still going to come, and you might not be the most resilient person, but learning how to become resilient allows you to minimize the setbacks.
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If you understand what I'm saying and I think that's huge, because if you, for example, you know this, next week I have to have my shoulder replaced. Now there's three billion setbacks. I'm playing through my mind. One the surgery's a setback, but then there's three other things that are playing in my mind that could be a setback or could possibly happen. And that's where I'm planning ahead to minimize the setback in case it were to happen. Minimize the setback in case it were to happen. So I mean, I'm already doing it and not even really realizing I'm doing it and that's. You know, what I'm trying to get across to some of the youth and people is setbacks are okay. We learn, we grow, we keep fighting and it's going to make us a better person. You know, we can learn a lot from studying from other people's responses to setbacks.
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Such study is facilitated by people's willingness to share their setback stories. You know a lot of people don't want to share their stories because of shame, guilt, that old pride. Sometimes their simple act of greeting someone how are things going? Will trigger one. Likewise, the comment to a friend that your water heater sprang a leak might elicit a reciprocal setback tale. So did mine last year. I'm just kind of reading some of this setback chapter.
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People are also inclined to top whatever setback tales share with them. When we tell them what we got sick after eating at a restaurant, they might respond by telling us its considerable detail About the time they were sick for three days after eating a taco stand in Tijuana, mexico. There are also people who don't just mention setbacks they have experienced, but they talk about them almost exclusively, and in the process they rejuvenate the anger triggered in them by those setbacks. Such individuals, needless to say, are not the most agreeable companions. Nevertheless, when you encounter them, you should pay close attention. Do you sometimes respond to setbacks the way they do, and, if so, is there a way for you to overcome this tendency? If you can, your days will go much smoother and you might, as a result, find you're enjoying your life as never before.
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Sometimes we share our setback stories as kind of a public service. We hope that by telling others about a setback stories is kind of a public service. We hope that by telling others about a setback, we can warn them of an obstacle that they too might encounter, and by telling people how we respond to that setback, we can help them deal with it. Despite our warning, they fall victim to it. In other cases, people who tell us about setbacks want our help. Consider the stranger who tells us her purse was snatched, leaving her without any cash, credit cards or ID. In yet other cases, someone will tell us a setback story in the hope that we will join them in their fight against social injustice that gave rise to that setback.
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People also tell setback stories in an attempt to impress us with all their resilience in the face of setbacks and their ingenuity and finding workarounds for them. Others have the opposite motivation for telling setback stories. They seek not our admiration but our pity. They might, in particular, want us to reassure them that it isn't their fault and that they experienced the setback they did. An unfair world is instead to blame. How many of you have met somebody like that when it's never their fault? Blame everybody else for everything bad happening in their life? I mean, I know individuals like that and you know. This is a good chapter because it summarizes and talks about a lot of what we talked about yesterday in the previous episode.
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Watching people being set back can be deliciously rewarding if, at any rate, we think they just they deserved to be set back. Suppose, for example, you're an abusive boss. Is your abusive boss is similarly fired by his boss. Justice at last. Watching people overcome setbacks can also be entertaining. This is one of the reasons people have an interest in spectator sports. We love to see the team we are rooting for imposed setbacks on the opposing team In baseball. Batters are struck out, players are injured, games are lost. We also love watching our favorite team recover in a heroic fashion from a setback is experienced. Remove the setbacks from sports, and they would become as boring as watching someone mow the lawn.
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When we aren't watching sports, we might spend our time reading a novel, or our interest in literature can also be explained in part by our fascination with setbacks. Novels are full of them, and with good reason. A novel in which two characters fall in love on their first meeting, get married, never fight, live happily ever after would be a commercial failure. Authors realize this and therefore go out of their way to confront characters with obstacles, to confront characters with obstacles. As a result, their characters' relationships don't run smoothly, hearts get broken. Their lives are also filled with drama. They might contract an illness or be a victim to a crime. Same rule applies to cinema.
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Most people don't attempt to write short stories, novels or screenplays, thinking it would require a degree of creativity that they lack. Ask them to describe a recent setback, though, and you might trigger their creative juices. They might add elements and characters to their setback tale in an attempt to make the setback sound less foreseeable and more challenging than it was. By doing this, they make their own solution to that setback seem all the more amazing, and if they failed to find a solution, they make a failure more understandable.
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Another time our creative juices flow is when we are asleep. We dream about strange things, some good, some bad. One thing that makes bad dreams bad is the setbacks we experience in them. We might be unable to find things we need. We're prevented from seeing people we need to see. We're unable to do the things we need to do, such as shout out a word of warning to the loved one who is imminent danger. A single dream might contain a chain of setbacks. Just when we think we found a solution, another setback prevents us from implementing the solution. When our dreaming selves finally conclude that a setback is insurmountable, suppose the dragon that has been blocking your path through the woods has laid his reptilian claws on us, and on doing so, we will likely feel compelled to share our dream world setbacks with friends and relatives.
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The setbacks we experience while awake cannot likewise be eliminated simply by opening our eyes. It is therefore important that we develop an effective strategy for dealing with them. Unfortunately, the strategy that many employ isn't just ineffective, it's counterproductive in them becoming first frustrated and then angry, which substantially increases harm done to the person, increases the harm done to them by the setback, and it's kind of like what we talked about yesterday. You know, instead of getting angry, it's okay to get frustrated, but you know, some individuals get fueled up so bad that they get frustrated and it turns to anger and it just festers and builds and builds and builds until it explodes.
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Different people respond to setbacks in different ways. Some people are quite sensitive to them. Even a minor setback will have significant impact on their emotional state, and after experiencing it, they won't bounce back quickly. They might feel incapable of finding a workaround for the setback, or they might play the role of the victim and complain to anyone who will listen. How unfair is that they were set back in this manner. They might go on to argue. Because of their victimization, they shouldn't have to come up with a workaround. Someone else should have to do it for them. Most of us, though, are tougher than this.
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We respond to the setbacks we experience not by feeling helpless and defeated, but by feeling frustrated. In many cases, the response is involuntary. Now, I didn't realize this when I read this the other day about the response being involuntary. We no more choose to get frustrated in the face of a setback than hay fever sufferer chooses to sneeze when pollen is in the air. It's just what we do. So again, frustration is an involuntary reaction to a setback or something bad happening. There is, however, an important difference between sneezing and getting frustrated. Sneezing removes whatever is irritating our sinuses, thereby makes us feel better. Getting frustrated, on the other hand, often begets to anger. This is unfortunate, since anger is incompatible with happiness. Indeed, anger can be thought of as an anti-joy. Consequently, getting frustrated in response to a setback only makes things worse.
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Unfortunately, any anger we experience is likely to be contagious. This is because we often direct our setback, trigger anger, at someone else, and when we express our anger to that person, he or she could very well respond by returning it. In other cases, we share our anger not with the person who made us angry, but with the innocent bystander. We do this in part because we seek to validate our anger. Sure that we have every reason to be angry. Better still, we want this person to commit to commit. We want this person to become angry with us. We want them, in other words, to get angry as well, so they can share our wretchedness. Of course, if it was foolish for one person to get angry about something, it is twice as foolish for two people to do so, especially if the second person isn't directly affected by whatever it was that made the person angry.
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Along these lines, suppose that after I experience a setback, friend tells me that that she feels bad about it. Maybe she doesn't literally feel bad. All she's trying to say is that she wishes I hadn't had a setback. This behavior would be perfectly understandable. This behavior would be perfectly understandable. Suppose, however, that she literally does feel bad. Suppose, in particular, that she is angry or sad by having been set back. This is the last thing a stoic like myself would want. I might ask a friend for advice on finding a workaround for a setback, but I would never ask or expect a friend to be angry or sad about my being set back. This sort of commiseration turns a setback for one person into a setback for two, without helping the first person overcome the setback. In other words, it only makes matters worse.
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So that's a little update on what I was talking about yesterday with the setbacks. So I just wanted to um kind of read that chapter to you guys, just so you kind of know what I was talking about, with how it's okay to be frustrated. But it's how we handle it, just like in everything in life, it's how we handle it. We're always going to have setbacks, like we said yesterday. So I'm your host, loren Johnson, here on War of the Mind, and go ahead and check us out on our website at ljvoiceprojectcom. We've got a lot of stuff added on there. Our blog is also on there, along with our past episodes of War of the Mind, so go ahead and check that out. Otherwise, you can find us on Facebook, twitter, instagram under LJVoiceProject, and with that, I'm your host, and keep hope alive.