November 10, 2019
☼ Personal Development
Lately I’ve been reading Seneca as part of my exploration of Stoicism. There’s a lot of great things here and I recommend you check out the video and my notes below:
To Live Well We Must Be Constant Students of Life
- Seneca’s essay “On the shortness of life” reminds us that time is a non-renewable resource
- Treat time as a commodity, people guard their property but squander time
- The amount of time we get is uncertain, you could die at 20 or 100
- Death creeps up on time wasters
- Make the most of time, it is an amplifier when used properly
Don’t Invest Your Time Preparing for Life
- Seneca pushes us to live right now and not to delay happiness
- Your typical life is work till 60 and then wait to be happy
- What usually happens is your old to enjoy life then and regret not making most of life
- Planning the big things in life but don’t delay living it
Live Life for Your Own Self
- Being busy with things we don’t like is the greatest distraction of your life
- We waste time at jobs we don’t like, relationships we’re not happy in, etc
- Invest your time into making a life worth living
Practice Premeditatio Malorum
- While you waste your time by procrastinating, life goes on
- Researchers call the dissonance of “short-term gratification vs long-term commitments” as time inconsistency
- To fight this, use Premeditatio Malorum which is a form of negative visualization
- Think of what could go wrong with your long term task and then make plans to achieve it. This will offset the distractions
- The need to procrastinate it he most powerful RIGHT at the start of work
- When rewards are years away (i.e. diploma, career, et), you tend to procrastinate
- To overcome, you must bundle a reward at the start of the task
- You can eat a piece of cheesecake when you lost 10lbs or give yourself time to browse the web once you finished those pesky spreadsheet task
Make the Most of Your Free Time
- Too often we waste our free time with stupid stuff. Gossiping, drinking at the bar, etc
- There’s plenty of time to do everything we want if we just stop wasting our free time
- We work hard to earn money and free time, so why waste that precious free time
- Use your lunch hour to explore the city, write in a journal, play an instrument, reading, etc
- To beat mediocrity and start living your life, make the most of your free time
Spend Time Reflecting on Your Past
- Present time is transitory (it’s moving), Future is uncertain, the past is unalterable
- Seneca says pay attention to the past, so you can be effective today
- Personal note: Journaling is a wonderful way of capturing the past
##Stop Wasting Time in Life’s Trivialities
- We are all guilty wasting our time in trivialities (Social Media)
- Social Media sucks your time away
- When your happy you fill your time with activities that are valuable and meaningful to the vision you want of your life
Invest Your Time Creating New Memories
- While you preoccupy your time with trivialities, death approaches that you can’t escape
- Invest your time into creating new memories and philosophies
- Memory is more enduring than grief (Ed. Very true. I call it Adventuring)
- Memories may be fleeting but they deliver more happiness than anything else
- Do yourself a favor and take on challenges and adventures, learn to play music, travel, etc
Invest Your Time in Philosophies
- The Study of Philosophy is the most invaluable teacher
- Study as much of philosophy (current, past, etc) as you can because it will help you in your life
- Your life will expand and your wisdom will grow
- A Philosopher is a lover of wisdom: truth, virtue, life and death