Building upon many years of privately shared thoughts on the real benefits of Stoic Philosophy, Liam Milburn eventually published a selection of Stoic passages that had helped him to live well. They were accompanied by some of his own personal reflections. This blog hopes to continue his mission of encouraging the wisdom of Stoicism in the exercise of everyday life. All the reflections are taken from his notes, from late 1992 to early 2017.
Reflections
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Primary Sources
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Tuesday, January 29, 2019
Epictetus, Golden Sayings 75
If you have given way to anger, know that over and above the evil
involved therein, you have also strengthened the habit, and added fuel to the
fire.
If overcome by a temptation of the flesh, do not reckon it a single
defeat, but that you have also strengthened your dissolute habits.
Habits
and faculties are necessarily affected by the corresponding acts. Those
that were not there before, spring up; the rest gain in strength and
extent.
This is the account that Philosophers give of the origin of
diseases of the mind. Suppose you have once lusted after money. If
reason sufficient to produce a sense of evil be applied, then the lust is
checked, and the mind at once regains its original authority, whereas if
you have recourse to no remedy, you can no longer look for this return.
On
the contrary, the next time it is excited by the corresponding object, the
flame of desire leaps up more quickly than before. By frequent repetition,
the mind in the long run becomes callous; and thus this mental disease
produces confirmed avarice.
One who has had a fever, even when it has left him, is not in the same
condition of health as before, unless indeed his cure is complete.
Something of the same sort is true also of diseases of the mind. Behind,
there remains a legacy of traces and blisters, and unless these are
effectually erased, subsequent blows on the same spot will produce no
longer mere blisters, but sores.
If you do not wish to be prone to anger,
do not feed the habit; give it nothing which may tend its increase. At
first, keep quiet and count the days when you were not angry: "I used to
be angry every day, then every other day, next every two, next every three
days!"
And if you succeed in passing thirty days, sacrifice to the Gods in
thanksgiving.
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