Do Not Take Things Personally

You have the tendency be overly sensitive. You give other people so much power to hurt you. When the did or said something that you deem to be offensive, you are quick to take it personally.

This is not the kind of person you want to be.

You take yourself too seriously. And more often than not,you indulge yourself in a vicious cycle of over thinking and self pity. Please be aware that this is a very weak and detrimental trait. If you want to be a better person, you should learn how to distance yourself from this propensity.

My dearest friend, know that other people cannot hurt you. Only you can hurt yourself. External factors,such as other people’s actions and words, cannot hurt you. But how you relate and interpret these encounters can.

Stoically Dealing With Stress At Work

From time to time, when things get difficult at work, you get stressed and anxious. The quantity of outstanding tasks can get overwhelming especially when the deadline is looming around. Some of these outstanding tasks are quite complicated that needs time consuming research.

From time to time, you have to make difficult phone calls with unpleasant and unhappy clients. For somebody like you who detest conflicts, these kind of phone calls can be dreadful.

These situations stress you out, especially when you were still new in the organisation. Although your self-confidence has improved, because of the expertise and experience that you have gained over the years, difficult work situations can still overwhelm you at times.

But you know what, as you have learned time and time again, there is actually nothing to worry about. Being stressed at work is a waste of your time and energy, because no matter how out of control work sometimes seems to, you are always able to rise above it.

You are always able to manage your work, however complicated they can be from time to time. The best way to deal with the complexities and challenges at work is to focus on what you can control.

Although you can feel frustrated sometimes, know that this state of frustration is temporary. Eventually, you will be able to overcome the obstacles in front of you as you always do.

Week 3 on Live Like A Stoic: Giving Advice to One’s Self

The exercise for the third week on a Stoic workbook, Live Like A Stoic: 52 Exercises for Cultivating A Good Life, is quite interesting. This week, we will write advices to ourselves on our own problems.

What I find more interesting in this exercise is that we will use the second or third person form. So, instead of writing, ‘I am afraid’, one could write ‘you are afraid’ or John is afraid. In other words, it is like writing letters to ourselves. And I kinda love writing letters.

One of the many Stoic practices is to look into our own situation objectively. And to learn how to give ourselves an advice the way we give others.

A friend of mine was diagnosed with an illness. This diagnosis has changed the way he lives his life. For somebody who is healthy like myself, it is easy to say: that is life. The sooner he accepts his new situation the better his life will be.

But I wonder, if I got the diagnosis myself, will I also be able to say c’est la vie with equanimity? of perhaps, like my friend, I will say: why me?