Author: Erick

  • 232 – QTIP

    232 – QTIP

    Not to display anger or other emotions. To be free of passion and yet full of love. —Marcus Aurelius. How often do you take what other people say and do personally? How often do you feel like you have to “fix” someone else’s mood? Today I want to talk about emotional responsibility, and how it…

  • 231 – A Model of Thinking

    231 – A Model of Thinking

    You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. —Marcus Aurelius. The stoics teach us that we have control over a few things – our thoughts, our choices, and our actions. In short, our will. So is there a way that we can get better with our…

  • 230 – Our Human Contract

    230 – Our Human Contract

    Ignorance leads to fear, fear leads to hate, and hate leads to violence. This is the equation. — Ibn Rushd Is it ever okay to hate someone as a stoic? Is there ever a time to have “righteous anger”? Today I want to talk about anger, hate and violence in our ever more divisive world.

  • 229 – Conscious Communcation

    229 – Conscious Communcation

    Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. —Rumi Have you ever thought about how often we have judgments in our language? Are you even aware of how often we communicate our opinions and feelings about others? What if we could remove judgments from our language? Today I…

  • 228 – Offended

    228 – Offended

    Choose not to be harmed — and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed — and you haven’t been.” —Marcus Aurelius How often have you been offended by someone? When we are offended by something it’s because of the thoughts we have about it and what we make it mean.

  • 227 – Self Commitment

    227 – Self Commitment

    How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself? —Epictetus. How often do you find yourself starting something only to notice a few weeks or months later that you let it fall by the wayside?

  • 226 – Cognitive Dissonance

    226 – Cognitive Dissonance

    Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth. — Marcus Aurelius Why do humans resist changing their minds, even in the face of overwhelming evidence? How often have you changed your opinions when presented with new facts? How often have you actually changed your behavior…

  • 225 – Be Yourself

    225 – Be Yourself

    The life of those who live under a mask cannot be happy and without anxiety. — Seneca. How much of our lives do we spend living in way to please other people? How much unhappiness do we feel in our lives because we’re not being ourselves? Today I want to talk about why it can…

  • 224 – To You or For You?

    224 – To You or For You?

    It does not matter what you bear, but how you bear it. — Seneca Do you think that life just happens to you? That you are simply a pawn in the game of life? Because there are so many things that we don’t have control over in our lives, it can be easy to fall…

  • 223 – Changing Others

    223 – Changing Others

    When someone is properly grounded in life, they shouldn’t have to look outside themselves for approval. — Epictetus. Why do we spend so much time trying to change other people or expecting that other people will change for us?