50 (Short) Rules For Life From The Stoics
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Focus on what you can control.
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You control how you respond to things.
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Ask yourself, “Is this essential?”
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Meditate on your mortality every day.
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Value time more than money/possessions.
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You are the product of your habits.
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Remember you have the power to have no opinion.
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Own the morning.
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Put yourself up for review (Interrogate yourself).
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Don’t suffer imagined troubles.
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Try to see the good in people.
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Never be overheard complaining…even to yourself.
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Two ears, one mouth…for a reason (Zeno)
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There is always something you can do.
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Don’t compare yourself to others.
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Live as if you’ve died and come back (every minute is bonus time).
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“The best revenge is not to be like that.” Marcus Aurelius
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Be strict with yourself and tolerant with others.
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Put every impression, emotion, to the test before acting on it.
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Learn something from everyone.
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Focus on process, not outcomes.
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Define what success means to you.
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Find a way to love everything that happens (Amor fati).
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Seek out challenges.
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Don’t follow the mob.
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Grab the “smooth handle.”
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Every person is an opportunity for kindness (Seneca)
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Say no (a lot).
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Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
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Find one thing that makes you wiser every day.
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What’s bad for the hive is bad for the bee (Marcus Aurelius)
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Don’t judge other people.
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Study the lives of the greats.
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Forgive, forgive, forgive.
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Make a little progress each day.
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Journal.
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Prepare for life’s inevitable setbacks (premeditatio malorum)
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Look for the poetry in ordinary things.
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To do wrong to one, is to do wrong to yourself. (sympatheia)
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Always choose “Alive Time.”
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Associate only with people that make you better.
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If someone offends you, realize you are complicit in taking offense.
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Fate behaves as she pleases…do not forget this.
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Possessions are yours only in trust.
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Don’t make your problems worse by bemoaning them.
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Accept success without arrogance, handle failure with indifference.
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Courage. Temperance. Justice. Wisdom. (Always).
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The obstacle is the way.
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Ego is the enemy.
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Stillness is the key.