Preparing for a Challenging Day: How Stoic Philosophy Can Help

18 Mar 2024 · 1 min

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0:40

Short spoken monologue (YouTube) by Charles Cormier describing stoic techniques for preparing for a challenging day. The speaker recounts deliberately exposing himself to minor discomfort (walking without a T‑shirt) and practicing negative visualization each morning—imagining people arguing, lying, stealing, or attacking—to reduce shock and blunt emotional reactions when real hostility occurs.

Chapters

And I used to walk around without a T shirt on to get myself out of my comfort zone and prepare myself for the shit that I'm going to deal with in the day, you know, throughout the day. Another thing too is in the morning, which is another little stoic philosophy is I would watch Marcus riddles yesterday. I would tell myself today people are going to argue with you, they're going to fight with you, they're going to spit on you, they're going to throw shit at you, they're going to cheat, they're going to lie, they're going to steal, they're going just going to be awful. And then when you put yourself in that type of mindset, yes, it sounds negative and bad, but then when it does happen, I'm prepared for it. It doesn't shock me, doesn't stun me. It doesn't stun my sting, my heart. So I'm kind of expecting it.