Prepared And Active

The Daily Stoic for June 18th. “Prepared and active”.

“Let Fate find us prepared and active. Here is the great soul—the one who surrenders to Fate. The opposite is the weak and degenerate one, who struggles with and has a poor regard for the order of the world, and seeks to correct the faults of the gods rather than their own.”
—SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 107.12

“… and seeks to correct the faults of the gods rather than their own”. That’s probably a good definition of how my mind works.

I am always worrying. I’m the kind of person who’s always thinking on the worst case scenario. On what could go wrong. Sometimes, to ridiculous extents. In business, for instance, I always worry not only about things that could go wrong because of me or my team but things that could go wrong with my customers for external reasons.

Even though I would say I’m a positive person, there’s always this constant buzzing when something can go wrong.

And I need to stop it because that makes me always be worried about the future, I need to let go and learn to relax and have confidence.

Prepared And Active

Curiously enough, today’s stoic asks for something that seems counterintuitive to me. “Let fate find us prepared” by “surrendering to fate”. That definition of “prepared” is probably the exact opposite of what I just described above.

And it’s true that most Asian philosophies teach you to accept what life brings you and just let go. I have been meditating for quite some time, so one would think I should have learned something…

Most probably then, my approach is wrong. I am worrying so much, that I am constantly struggling, trying to bend the world under my rules when, in fact, I should be bending myself to it…  Neo scene in Matrix with the spoon, anyone? 🙂

Am I able to let go and accept whatever the future holds? Not quite sure, but I am decided to try it.

Conclusion

Today’s Daily Stoic, “Prepared And Active”, asks us to be prepared for whatever the future brings us by letting go and not fighting it. This may sound counterintuitive, but I am decided to give it a go.