50 (Short) Rules For Life From The Stoics

  • Focus on what you can control.

  • You control how you respond to things.

  • Ask yourself, “Is this essential?”

  • Meditate on your mortality every day.

  • Value time more than money/possessions.

  • You are the product of your habits.

  • Remember you have the power to have no opinion.

  • Own the morning.

  • Put yourself up for review (Interrogate yourself).

  • Don’t suffer imagined troubles.

  • Try to see the good in people.

  • Never be overheard complaining…even to yourself.

  • Two ears, one mouth…for a reason (Zeno)

  • There is always something you can do.

  • Don’t compare yourself to others.

  • Live as if you’ve died and come back (every minute is bonus time).

  • “The best revenge is not to be like that.” Marcus Aurelius

  • Be strict with yourself and tolerant with others.

  • Put every impression, emotion, to the test before acting on it.

  • Learn something from everyone.

  • Focus on process, not outcomes.

  • Define what success means to you.

  • Find a way to love everything that happens (Amor fati).

  • Seek out challenges.

  • Don’t follow the mob.

  • Grab the “smooth handle.”

  • Every person is an opportunity for kindness (Seneca)

  • Say no (a lot).

  • Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

  • Find one thing that makes you wiser every day.

  • What’s bad for the hive is bad for the bee (Marcus Aurelius)

  • Don’t judge other people.

  • Study the lives of the greats.

  • Forgive, forgive, forgive.

  • Make a little progress each day.

  • Journal.

  • Prepare for life’s inevitable setbacks (premeditatio malorum)

  • Look for the poetry in ordinary things.

  • To do wrong to one, is to do wrong to yourself. (sympatheia)

  • Always choose “Alive Time.”

  • Associate only with people that make you better.

  • If someone offends you, realize you are complicit in taking offense.

  • Fate behaves as she pleases…do not forget this.

  • Possessions are yours only in trust.

  • Don’t make your problems worse by bemoaning them.

  • Accept success without arrogance, handle failure with indifference.

  • Courage. Temperance. Justice. Wisdom. (Always).

  • The obstacle is the way.

  • Ego is the enemy.

  • Stillness is the key.