Day 10 Remember then, if you deem what is by nature slavish to be free, and what is not your own to be yours, you will be shackled and miserable, blaming both gods and other people. But if you deem as your own only what is yours, and what belongs to others as truly not yours, then no one will ever be able to coerce or to stop you, you will find no one to blame or accuse, you will do nothing against your will, you will have no enemy, no one will harm you, because no harm can affect you. Anyone who truly wants to be free, won't desire something that is actually in someone else's control, unless they want to be a slave. Take days off from work, not learning. Better to trip with the feet than the tongue. Words can't be unsaid. A virtuous person is generous with assumptions: that something was an accident, that someone didn't know, that it won't happen again. This makes life easier to bear and makes us more tolerant. Meanwhile - assuming malice - the most hasty of judgments - makes everything harder to bear. Cease to hope and you will cease to fear. The primary cause of both these ills is that instead of adapting ourselves to present circumstances we send out thoughts too far ahead. Fortune falls heavily on those for whom she's unexpected. The one always on the lookout easily endures. From the book "the daily stoic"
Day 38 Temptations have grown a little stronger since yesterday. Still managing. Yet another weekend conquered.
Day 11 "I would choose being sick over living in luxury, for being sick only harms the body, whereas luxury destroys both the body and the soul, causing weakness and incapacity in the body, and lack of control and cowardice in the soul. What's more, luxury breeds injustice because it also breeds greediness." No person hands out money to passersby, but to how many do each of us hand out our lives! We're tight-fisted with property and money, yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest misers. From the book "The daily stoic"
