Embodying Stoicism
I’m seven weeks into my Daily Stoic journal practice, and something shifted this week. I’m not just reading about Stoic philosophy anymore. I’m not just understanding the concepts. I think I’m actually embodying them now. I’ve grown with more acceptance.
That might not sound like much, but for someone who spent the first few weeks spiraling when plans changed, it’s everything.
The Buck Stops Here
Week 7 started with a gut punch of accountability. Day 43 reminded me: the buck stops with me. Not with my circumstances. Not with my 5-year-old son. Not with my business challenges. With me.
Marcus Aurelius put it simply: if you judge good and evil by your own choices, there’s no room left for blaming gods or being hostile to others. Harry Truman knew it at the highest level – the chain ended at his desk. No one else to blame.
As the president of my own life, I control my attitudes and responses. That’s plenty. That’s everything.
It all starts and ends with me. It’s all up to me. It’s how I respond to things that happen. Things happen, but I have to respond to them to the best of my abilities.
Stop Complaining, Start Moving
Day 44 drove it home: complaining accomplishes nothing. Never has, never will.
The issue you’re complaining about will still be there waiting for you. Might as well take action to move forward if you can, or just get through it. Most of the time, by putting in consistent work and effort, you’ll get an outcome. Maybe not the outcome you wanted, but an outcome you can build with.
I caught myself here. The business launch I did this week didn’t get the social media response I thought it would. But looking back, I didn’t really do much of the work I intended. I did passive promotion and hoped it would hit a vast audience with their hands raised ready to work with me.
Reality check: I have to go out there and do the outreach to get the things I want. I’ve done it before. I know I can do it again. The work is the work. No shortcuts.
Accept the Events, Choose the Response
Day 45 made it clear: accept the events for what they are, then build with it. You choose the outcome and how you feel about it.
Malcolm X went to prison a criminal. He left educated, religious, and motivated – a man who would help the struggle for civil rights. Same prison. Different judgment. Different outcome.
The event happens. That’s objective. Your judgment about it determines whether you suffer or grow from it.
I’ve been testing this daily:
- Son interrupts my schedule: it just is, adjust and move
- Business pivot while maintaining revenue: the work is the work, keep building
- Morning gets blown up: build with what I have, don’t fight what I don’t
Control what I can control (the work). Whatever happens, happens (the outcome).
Everything Is Change
Day 46 brought me back to a truth I’d learned on Day 40: everything is change. Embrace it. Flow with it.
Heraclitus said no man steps in the same river twice. The river has changed, and so has the man.
I realize that it’ll never be perfect, but I aim to flow with it as much as I can. That’s the practice. Not flowing perfectly. Not never resisting. Just aiming to flow more than I fight.
Some days I flow beautifully. Some days I resist more. But I keep aiming, keep adjusting, keep moving.
Hope and Fear: Two Sides of the Same Coin
Day 47 revealed something I hadn’t seen clearly: hope and fear are the same thing. Both are projections into the future about things I don’t control. Both pull me out of the present moment.
I hoped my business launch would work effortlessly. I feared it wouldn’t get traction. Both were sending my thoughts too far ahead instead of adapting to present circumstances.
The shift: do the work, don’t worry about the outcome being good or bad. Control what I can control (the work). Whatever happens, happens (the outcome).
More often than not, consistent work gets you an outcome. Just maybe not THE outcome you wanted. But you can build with any outcome if you accept it instead of fighting it.
Stay in Your Lane
Day 48 reminded me: judge yourself, not others. Philosophy is for scraping your own barnacles off your own ship, not inspecting everyone else’s hull.
This connected back to my Day 29 breakthrough about isolation. I’d been judging people by whether they did what I did – ultras, 75 Hard, business grind. That was using philosophy as a weapon.
Now I’m learning: stay in my lane. They’re on their own journey. I just gotta stay focused on mine.
Your lane: your schedule, your phone discipline, your response to your son, your business decisions, your effort, your barnacles.
Their lane: everything else.
The Four Habits
Day 49 gave me a measuring stick. Marcus’s four critical habits of the Stoic mind:
- Accept only what is true – Things just are, not good or bad
- Work for the common good – Be good to all regardless of situation
- Match needs and wants with what’s in our control – Don’t hope for or fear specific outcomes
- Embrace what nature has in store – Amor fati, love whatever happens
Am I practicing good Stoic thoughts? I’d like to think I am. I know it’s never ending, just like showering. But even getting 1% better is a win daily.
The one I’m strongest at: embracing what nature has in store. They are neither good nor bad. They just are.
The one I need the most work on: matching my needs and wants. I catch myself thinking something is a need but in reality it’s just a want. There’s a bunch of sales happening right now, and in my mind I think I need these things. But I already have them. They’re just wants.
What’s Actually Different?
Seven weeks in, what’s changed isn’t what I know – it’s how I show up.
I’ve grown with more acceptance. More acceptance means less fighting reality, which means more energy for building.
The business launch didn’t hit – acceptance, not spiral. The schedule gets disrupted – acceptance, adjust, move. My son interrupts – acceptance, pause, respond. The evening depletes me – acceptance (still working on the response here).
The Evening Struggle
I need to be honest about where I’m still failing. When my energy is low during the latter part of the day, I catch myself just aimlessly scrolling on social media on my phone. It’s like I’m looking for something, but in reality I have everything I need.
I think it’s a little bit of everything. Escape. Just doing something without having to put more thought into things. Maybe hoping an idea will spark something within myself.
But that scroll doesn’t actually recharge me. It drains me more. I know what actually helps when depleted: walk, move, sauna, actual rest. Not fake rest scrolling.
This is still my biggest leak. The place where philosophy meets resistance and resistance still wins too often.
It’s Still a Build in Process
I’ll have good days and bad days, but it’s all up to me. Not “good days and bad days happen TO me” – but “it’s all up to me.” I’m taking ownership even of the variance.
Week 7 taught me that embodying Stoicism isn’t about perfection. It’s about practicing acceptance so consistently that it becomes your default response instead of the exception.
Some days I embody it fully. Some days I forget and fight. But each day, I’m practicing. Each day, that 1% compounds.
The work is never done. Just like showering. But that’s okay.
Because I’m not the same person who started this practice 49 days ago. That person would’ve spiraled at the business launch not hitting. That person would’ve melted down when evening energy crashed. That person doom scrolled without even noticing he was doing it.
This person catches himself. Adjusts. Keeps moving. Accepts more, fights less.
That’s embodiment. Imperfect, ongoing, but real.
Seven weeks down. The practice continues.