Habits of Resilience
On the Daily Stoic community platform, I'm delving into a course focused on leadership. The aim is to apply Stoic principles to management. Today's lesson deals with life's challenges. The key question is:
How are you managing daily inconveniences rather than hypothetical, monumental adversities? These minor setbacks can serve as a litmus test for your overall resilience.
While bad driving or an incorrectly placed toilet paper roll may irk me, I don't lose composure. Drivers are outside my control; fussing about them is futile. A toilet paper roll can be easily corrected. The biggest thing I tend to get upset with is my kids behavior. Sometimes I wonder where they learned such petulance and obnoxiousness. And no matter how many times I ask them to pick up after themselves it just doesn't happen. It's in that gray area of a thing I can/can't control. I can and will try my best.
All in all, my life is pretty easy, so I've been introducing some artificial difficulty. How far can I run? How many days can I go without food? Can I take a cold shower? This is the practice I might one day need if I need to flee a dangerous situation, face a food shortage, or loss of creature comforts. I think if nothing else, there are health benefits. I hear fitness is good for you (even if fitness is for nazis - laughing out loud!). I read that autophagy is going to clear out my toxins, whatever that means. I heard that cold water can trigger your natural healing. So maybe my practice will have some secondary benefits.
Stoicism teaches us about premeditation of evils, or negative visualization. Think about something important in your life that you take for granted. No... more important than whatever you just thought of. Think a parent, spouse, child, or body part. Now close your eyes and focus on it in your mind. Imagine that you have just lost this important part of your life, and can never recover it. This is what is meant by the premeditation of evil. I'm imagining that my wife and kids die in a tragic fire that also destroys my home. It would be awful, and it really makes you grateful for the things you have. If you didn't have these things, that future YOU would be so jealous of past/present you. Negative visualization and practicing hardship can kind of meld together into one theme.
Resilience is tripartite: bodily fortitude, mental unflappability, and spiritual determination. They're not tasks to complete nor genetic windfall, but rather habits to cultivate. Physical endurance comes from regular exercise and moderation in bodily pleasures. Mental unflappability is honed by facing fears and deliberately entering overwhelming scenarios. Spiritual determination is nurtured through optimism, Stoic principles, and gratitude.
Stay prepared for life's curveballs. Build those habits.
Disclosure: I used an AI tool to revise my drafted journal post, and another one generated the image.
