Pragmatic And Principled

The Daily Stoic for August 7th, “Pragmatic And Principled”.

“Wherever a person can live, there one can also live well; life is also in the demands of court, there too one can live well.”
—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 5.16

Recently, I was reminded that you can’t trust people. There’s this person I met here. He was a fellow blogger, apparently a digital nomad, writing about financial independence and stuff like that. He contacted me online and asked me some questions, and I did my best to help him. We even met in person and had a nice conversation.

It seemed to me like a legit guy. Turns out, it’s just one more fake guru pretending to be someone else. There are lots of people like him out there. They copy other people’s stuff and talk about things they have not experienced. At 38, I should have known the first time we talked. The worst thing is, he abused my trust. It’s this kind of people who would sell his mother online for two months worth of salary.

Pragmatic And Principled

But he fooled me. I am still kind of naive, perhaps. But I really believe we need to have principles in what we do.

There are so much smoke and mirrors in the blogging world… And I can understand that. We all want money, don’t we? But you need to have principles. You have to be authentic and have values. That really shows on your work (and yes, your blog is, or should be, your work).

Obviously, you can make good money by selling smoke. Lots of people do that. But in the long run, happiness, and being grateful of who you are and your work is not a matter of how much money you have in the bank, or how famous you are, or how many people admire you.

As the stoics always say, this happiness comes from inside. From feeling at ease with ourselves. From looking at the mirror and knowing that you stand for what you say, and you say what you stand for.

Conclusion

Today’s Daily Stoic, “Pragmatic And Principled”, discusses that being pragmatic, and even ambitious, it’s not at odds with having principles. Happiness is not measured by followers or readers.