If You Want To Be Steady

I am blogging everyday (or nearly everyday) on The Daily Stoic.

This stoic is about judgements. We should filter external influences through our own judgements. Good and bad. We should use reason to accomplish this or our world will dive into chaos. This is where I struggle a bit with what is considered good reason and bad reason. What one person finds reasonable another finds unreasonable. I don’t know that there is an answer to that.

An example of bad reasoning that I recently went through was having a drink because I have a lot of alcohol in the house. This is something I’ve always sort of struggled with. I’ll drink because it’s there and because I need to get rid of it so I can start my journey down the path of not drinking as much. The thing is that I’m already on that journey so the reasoning is false. And maybe that’s the correct reasoning.

Daily Stoics: Control, Purpose, Corruption, and Addiction

I am blogging everyday (or nearly everyday) on The Daily Stoic.

Catching up on several of these because of family being and town and my lack of effort in making this a regular part of my day.

Thursday - The Big Three

Perception, action, and will are the three disciplines of stoicism. This hit me from a working perspective. I control my own perceptions. I direct my actions. I need to willingly accept things outside my control. This last one is of particular importance because I tend to push against things that are out of my control. I’ve made a career out of it and it’s allowed me to be successful. It’s also led to a lot of anxiety and loss of sleep. It’s gotten better since those incidents and I still have some ways to improve.

Friday - Clarify Your Intentions

Begin with an end in mind. Set a goal. I tend to not done that even for work. I’ve never done a five year plan. I have wanted to advance my career to the management level, so I guess that is some sort of goal. After that though I didn’t have a goal for what next. Which has led to a few years of struggling to find what’s next. I’ve tried to just enjoy life because I don’t want to be so focused on a career that my family and friends miss out.

I’m a bit of an enthusiast for trying and doing new things. Maybe that could be a goal. Either way I need to have some direction or else I am just lending myself to my indulgences which spiral into a chaotic existence. I’ve been there. I don’t want to return.

Saturday - Where, Who, What, and Why

Who are you? Is a simple enough question and deep. If you think about it you may give a superficial answer. When you get down to the core of the question though, it’s who are you and what do you stand for. I’m striving to do this. How much is too much searching?

I read and listen to a great deal of self-improvement content. At one point, I thought that was part of the problem. There were too many voices telling me I need to do this or that. I’ve since pulled back on the self-help advice stuff. I think I may have gone too far at one point and wasn’t getting enough of it. I think one of the core things about me is that I want to constantly improve everyday. It’s just how much of that is too much?

Sunday - Seven Clear Functions of the Mind

This talks about pollution or corruption. I wasn’t totally clear on this as it doesn’t describe pollution or corruption except to talk about what clog’s the mind’s proper function. It’s not clear and what one person considers pollution and corruption doesn’t necessarily constitute another person’s corruption or pollution. To me this is one of the more vague ones that pulls me out of the daily stoic.

Monday - Seeing Our Addictions

I read this at five in the morning because I couldn’t sleep. The idea is to identify our addictions and abstain from them for true freedom. examples given are cups of coffee in the morning or the constant need to check social media. For me it’s definitely alcohol and video games. Which I think was the cause of a lack of sleep. I had been drinking with friends for the most of the day. Instead of stopping (like I’m trying to work on) I had a few more drinks. I was also playing video games then went straight to be (trying to read before bed). Check that I went and watched some TV.

Video games and alcohol are the two things I’ve identified and I’m trying to work on. The question is what other addictions do I have. What other addictions in my day-to-day do I have that I need to work on? And if I have a purpose in the video game, does that mean it’s an addiction?

Today - What We Control and What We Don’t

This was a really interesting one because it presents what is in our control (thoughts) and what’s out of our control (everything else). The body was of particular note to me because how could we not be in control of our body. Then I started to think that we really don’t have much control of our body. It ages, it gets sick, it breaks bone after we’ve made a decision to ride a hand rail.

Be Ruthless to the Things That Don't Matter

I am blogging everyday (or nearly everyday) on The Daily Stoic.

This stoic is one I try to teach new people to IT and security. In 2005 I got stationed at a submarine school in Norfolk, VA. This is where i first experienced the feeling of being overwhelmed. It was self induced. I was saying yes to everything and getting overworked which is funny because in the Navy when you get shore duty you usually cut out of work early. Still, I was some how stressed out and overworked. My chief at the time gave me quite possibly the most important advice in my young career. He said, “Just say no.”

That realization helped me determine what was worth my time and what wasn’t. When you get good at work and gain a reputation for doing good work, more work tends to follow. It’s very important to determine what matters and what doesn’t. My security engineering team is the team that picks up the work other teams can’t pick up. We’ve implemented technology and then passed it off, because the other work didn’t have the time or skill set. We recently took badge photos for 700+ corporate employees because the physical security group (one man and remote) wasn’t able to support that function.

We have access to the badge systems and we’re usually the ones that meet the technicians when they come on site. I don’t mind being a back up, but I don’t want to be the primary either. I’ve pushed hard to have every thing run through our physical security person, instead of my guys who are often reached out to solve local physical security issues. We’ve got our own work and if there is that much physical security work then the company needs to hire more people for that function. That’s the case I’ve made and it seems to resonate.

I consider myself a generalist in security, which means I’m able to jump in multiple areas and do the work. That can quickly become overwhelming for myself and my team, so I ascribe to the stoic for today. Determine what truly matters and say no to the rest. Ask the question, “what value will this bring me?” If it’s very little or nothing then say no. 7

Education is Freedom

I am blogging everyday (or nearly everyday) on The Daily Stoic.

Day two is about how education is freedom. The willingness to pick up a book and learn. To meditate on words of wisdom for our own self-improvement. Freedom is not for the most well educated, but for those willing to put the effort in to educate themselves. Education is freedom.

I had a thought about this. That thought has gone by the wayside with the sound of text messages coming in. Life can be distracting. Television, streaming services, social media, and much more. For me it’s mostly video games. I enjoy playing video games and that can sometimes override my desire to read and learn more about life. With the daily stoic and the refocus of my life I’m trying to make that less of a thing. I’ve spent most of today working on projects and doing chores around the house. I’m ready to play video games. First I had to read the daily stoic and write up this blog post.

This goes back to yesterday’s Control and Choice post. I control how I respond to things. Being more productive is something that makes me happy and that means educating myself further. Every time I’ve had a bad day and I’ve read, I become more at piece. That’s not today. Today was a good day and now it’s time for video games.

Control and Choice

I am blogging everyday (or nearly everyday) on The Daily Stoic.

I almost forgot day one. It’s possible that I could write thoughts on how I stopped what I was doing (playing video games) to do my daily blog post. Instead I plan to write about something that happened earlier in the day.

I had a good day today. I was quite the productive adult (shit I forgot about my laundry). I got up, worked, and then worked out. After that I did some chores around the house and then left to run some errands. Before leaving, I opened a letter from my insurance company. They were asking me why I went to one of my many rehab appointments in November. The appointment is fairly obvious. I fractured my finger, so I need to go see a physical therapist about the finger. This is a big insurance company just looking to save a buck and require that I respond with details and if I’ve lawyered up (WTF?!?).

I responded to the basics and made sure to write in at the top, “It’s rehab!” For the lawyer question I asked, “Do I need to?” I put it in an envelope and put it in my mailbox for delivery. They said I had 10 days to respond. The letter was dated December 04, 2019. I just pulled it out of the mail today, December 23, 2019. Has the period to respond already past? Am I in for a fight with the insurance company over one rehab appointment? really?!? This has happened before with my daughter. She went to the same appointment nine times. Insurance wouldn’t cover three of them…

I realized that how I responded in the letter didn’t matter. The person that would receive the letter would probably sympathize, but ultimately have a process they needed to follow. The real entity I was mad at was our health care system. How insurance is just another profitable entity and if they have to pay out on your behalf they lose money. I’m already at a high-deductible, so they’re not getting as much money out of me as someone who pays a good chunk of their pay check for insurance they more or may not use. Unfortunately, it’s a business and I can’t change that by writing snarky response.

The stoic control and choice is about what we can and can’t control and how we respond to it. I responded poorly in the above scenario above. It felt good at the time, but someone who has no control over the insurance company process, now has to deal with it. I just hope they don’t feel like I’m attacking them.