Our Stoic journey ahead.

Welcome to Stoic Sundays! This site is a chronicle as we, Greg and Min, try to become more resilient through the practice of Stoicism. Stoicism is an ancient Greek philosophy that was popular during the Roman Empire, and is gaining modern popularity, notably among entrepreneurs such as Tim Ferriss.  Stoicism values the use of rational thinking to overcome negative emotions and fears, to come to terms with not being able to control everything, to be grateful for the things we have, and to be better prepared to confront a broad variety of circumstances in life.

Some central tenets of Stoicism that we will explore include confronting fears through negative visualization (visualizing that which we fear so that we become accustomed to it) and voluntary discomfort (building resilience through occasional sacrifice of our daily comforts), as well as practising meditation (both learning to still the mind, as with Buddhist meditation, and also to reflect on our day, what we are grateful for, and what we can improve tomorrow).

We’ve chosen to use our Sundays each week as the focal point for these exercises. We will document various discomforts, for example taking cold showers, fasting or sleeping on the floor, and will also mix in some more adventurous activities that open us to public scrutiny such as busking in the streets.  Each time, we will reflect on the experience here. Even with small challenges, such as the inaugural cold shower this morning, we already learned to be more grateful for having a warm apartment, and not having to live with fuel poverty in the winter. As an added bonus, it provided an instant cure for Sunday morning drowsiness.

We expect this to be a fun and insightful journey, and hope you’ll enjoy following along as well. Drop us a note in the comments, and let us know about your own experiments with, or perspectives on Stoicism.

One thought on “Our Stoic journey ahead.”

  1. Once you ve got into the habit of doing this, try imagining greater challenges in the day ahead such as some of your plans not going as you hope and dealing with difficult people. As you consider a possible difficulty, think about how you could tackle it with a Stoic principle or virtue.

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