4 Little Wonder Bites
📖 Current Read; 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living — Ryan Holiday
The Daily Stoic Meditation for May 16th outlines a clear way to stay clear of hotheadedness, for it is an awful trait to have!
“If you don’t wish to be a hot-head, don’t feed your habit. Try as a first step to remain calm and count the days you haven’t been angry. I used to be angry every day, now every other day, then every third or fourth . . . if you make it as far as 30 days, thank God! For habit is first weakened and then obliterated. When you can say ‘I didn’t lose my temper today, or the next day, or for three or four months, but kept my cool under provocation,’ you will know you are in better health.”
— EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 2.18.11b–14
Hot-headedness.
What?
Someone who is a hothead is simply a person who reacts quickly and carelessly to events, usually with anger or violence.
These people are usually very angry and can hurt many people!
Especially if the do not learn to contain their fiery fury.
The Risks Of Anger?
There’s a great number of risks that come with being hot-headed, especially if you do not learn to control and minimise it.
Risks such as:
- Lashing out
- Making a serious mistake
- Hurting people (especially those you care for)
- Losing friends
- Getting fired
- Ending up hurt yourself!
Being hotheaded is a very negative trait, as nobody wants to be around someone who always resorts to violence.
Ensure that you work to control this.
The Chain Method
What Is It?
The chain method is a great strategy used to curb hotheadedness, or any other bad habit you may have acquired.
The chain method simply regards not feeding the habit.
In this case, the habit is anger, and becoming hotheaded. If you do not fuel this fire, you’ll gradually become less angry and much more calm!
The Steps
The two main steps to this method are:
- Try to remain calm in each situation that may anger you
- Count all the days or occasions where you’ve remained calm and not lashed out
With each day you remain calm, it forms a chain! A very pleasing chain that encourages you to keep going with the good work.
The satisfaction you’ll likely feel when seeing the chain develop encourages you to keep going and keep calm!
After 30 days (even though it may take less or more time, it truly varies), as Epictetus outlines, if you have stayed calm each time, the habit is getting closer and closer to being entirely obliterated!
This is a clear sign of better health.
Stay consistent and stay calm, until eventually, you destroy the anger.
Idea of the Week. 💭
Learn, Practice, Train
This idea offers insight into why a combination of these 3 virtues can bring exceptional results and progress.
Do not just practice a single one, but implement all 3 together.
Learn
Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, attitudes, and preferences.
Learning is a lifelong process that we all take part in! Each day, we learn more about the world.
The Benefits Of Lifelong Learning?
There’s many great benefits to implementing some form of learning into your daily life!
The main benefits are:
- Keeping a healthy, active mind
- It can build your confidence
- It can help combat doubt and anxiety
- It alleviates boredom
- It offers a way to connect with others!
A little each day can go a long way.
Practice
Practice is the process of repeating something consistently and effectively, often in order to strengthen the skill or improve it.
You may often hear the phrase ‘practice makes perfect’, and although perfection cannot actually be attained, with practice, you can get pretty close.
Train
Training is the process of enhancing and improving your current skills!
Training is often linked to sports and athletes, but really, it can apply to anyone.
Anyone can train their body, heart and mind with sufficient effort!
Train — Why?
Training is ever so important in the cycle of continuous improvement.
With learning, you are simply acquiring knowledge.
With practice and training, however, you are ensuring that those skills compound and get stronger. You are keeping them alive!
The Cycle
It becomes evident that, rather than just the first component, learning, you need all three, together.
Without learning, what’s the point in the other 2 steps?
Without practice, you may fall short in improvement.
Without training, you run the risk of losing your hard earned skills!
Make a point to implement all three steps, learn, practice and train, for that is the key to continuous improvement and success.
Quote of the Week. 🗣
On The Psyche
André Aciman, in his latest essay collection ‘Homo Irrealis’, when talking about Rome, Freud and the irrealis mood.
Perhaps the question to ask is, how does Freud come up with the most brilliant metaphor in the history of psychology, stating that the psyche, like Rome, is not one thing, that identity itself is not one thing either, but a confluence of many movable and shifty, transient parts that trade places, change faces, don and doff all manner of masks, lie, cheat, steal from one to give to the other — which is why we don’t know who we are or what we want or why we can’t find forgiveness for sins we’re not even sure we’ve ever committed?
— Homo Irrealis, In Freud’s Shadow, Part 1.
To end, here’s a question from me! ⚡️
How can you make a point to….
- Learn
Work to absorb as much knowledge as you can, about any field or subject!
2. Practice
Take what you’ve learnt and put yourself to the test. What needs improving?
3. Train
Consistently go at improving yourself, your skills and your knowledge each day. Consistency is key.
Thanks for reading!
Until next week,
Sam. 😆
