Your article is inspiring – I encourage everyone reading this comment to read it.
And you’re absolutely right that wallowing in misery achieves nothing but shorten our days further. The only problems worth focusing on are the ones we can do something about.
I love that you’re focusing on making the most of your days. But I’m also glad to hear you’re trying a new treatment, and I hope it works out for you.
Yeah— the new one is called PDL1V, and I’ll find out in late May whether it’s effective. In the meantime I’m getting walloped by some side effects, but right now that is the nature of much cancer treatment.
In awe of you and your wife. We walked this path years ago. Not with your grace. And yet my husband is still here - amazing his doctors and inside right now watching a baseball game, feet up.
May you arrive at your destination with the grace and the love of your lovely wife. Whenever that may be - and may you be sitting, years from now, wondering at it all, imbued with the same grace.
It's been hard. Glad your husband is still with us—treatment works for many people. Recurrent / metastatic squamous cell carcinoma is almost always fatal, though. Tough draw, but we're still working on it.
gratitude - I often picture lying in a hospital bed at the end of my life, maybe due to age or some unexpected tragedy or illness, maybe the window is too high to see outside, I can't get up to see.. I picture the grass, the birds, the trees , how I'd love to simply walk out there and observe richly, inhale it all in, yet imagining I can't because my body is too weak. This little meditation helps me so often to appreciate the very smallest things.. to then go walking and find pleasure, a new awareness. It could be just a dandelion wrapped around another, two playful birds swooping, the soft sound of rain on budding leaves, or simply the time away from the internet to think on one's life and recover a sense of one's own sense of bliss and thankfulness
David, a deeply moving way to cultivate gratitude. I like your meditation practice that serves as a reminder to appreciate the here and now—the dandelions, the birds, the soothing sounds of nature. Thank you for sharing this method; it's a beautiful way to reconnect with the wonders around us and within us. Keep cherishing those moments of bliss and thankfulness. <3
"Anger is like trying to burn someone else by setting yourself on fire." This couldn't have been said better and is unfortunately all too true. You should explore bed-rotting if you haven't done so already. It falls under the same category, trying to spite someone or anyone with your misery, but only harming yourself instead.
It is strange how people have failed to realize or acknowledge this for two thousand years, even today, but stoicism has an almost complete philosophical overlap with the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads. The vast majority of concepts of stoicism are found in these two religious texts. That's not to say that one derives from the other; each just validates the other.
This is so good. Marcus Aurelius is one of my favorites. Reminding our own selves that we can only control our own thoughts and not the events that happen to us is the best way to handle all the things we have no way of predicting. But we can practice mindset.
Shawna, agree with you. Marcus Aurelius has such timeless wisdom on the power of our thoughts and how we can shape our experience through them. It’s all about focusing on what we can control—our reactions and mindset.
I was only speaking to somebody today and saying how people don’t seem to realise you don’t always have to say something.
It’s like a compulsive action we have where we feel like we have to respond to everything and a lot of the time when we stand back and actually think, we say why the fuck did I say that?
"Anger" strikes home, it reminds me of my reactions when I was young and having a tantrum. I was angry in a diffuse, random manner that sought to just burn down everything around me.
____
“You always have the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.”
Great. I recall and get a lot from my "social media" scrolling as it's restricted to Substack + YouTube and I only watch stuff I value or read stuff(sorry to use that word again) I know will be edifying. And hopefully entertaining too. I love that one about it's ok not to have an opinion. I am an opinionated person and I do have Opinions on a lot of topics,probably wrong ones in some fields. But we also live in a society,certainly all my life that started out in the 1950s in which having "an opinion" is almost de rigeur. Most of the commercial media,once newspapers,then tv,also radio and much social radio exploits people's proclivity to be opininated and makes its money one way or another out of it.
We get subtly educated that not to have an opinion is to be I'll informed. The media purpose is to keep us well informed so we can converse at dinner parties and understand why reintroducing CONSCRIPTION is good. So it's relaxing to feel it's not necessary to have an opinion about everything.
I've been reading some of the stoics while dying from a squamous cell carcinoma infestation: https://jakeseliger.com/2023/09/18/stoic-philosophy-finding-a-meaningful-life-and-the-cancer-treatment-struggle/
Sorry to hear about your struggle.
Your article is inspiring – I encourage everyone reading this comment to read it.
And you’re absolutely right that wallowing in misery achieves nothing but shorten our days further. The only problems worth focusing on are the ones we can do something about.
I love that you’re focusing on making the most of your days. But I’m also glad to hear you’re trying a new treatment, and I hope it works out for you.
Yeah— the new one is called PDL1V, and I’ll find out in late May whether it’s effective. In the meantime I’m getting walloped by some side effects, but right now that is the nature of much cancer treatment.
In awe of you and your wife. We walked this path years ago. Not with your grace. And yet my husband is still here - amazing his doctors and inside right now watching a baseball game, feet up.
May you arrive at your destination with the grace and the love of your lovely wife. Whenever that may be - and may you be sitting, years from now, wondering at it all, imbued with the same grace.
It's been hard. Glad your husband is still with us—treatment works for many people. Recurrent / metastatic squamous cell carcinoma is almost always fatal, though. Tough draw, but we're still working on it.
Presumptuous, but my arms around you both. Strength.
gratitude - I often picture lying in a hospital bed at the end of my life, maybe due to age or some unexpected tragedy or illness, maybe the window is too high to see outside, I can't get up to see.. I picture the grass, the birds, the trees , how I'd love to simply walk out there and observe richly, inhale it all in, yet imagining I can't because my body is too weak. This little meditation helps me so often to appreciate the very smallest things.. to then go walking and find pleasure, a new awareness. It could be just a dandelion wrapped around another, two playful birds swooping, the soft sound of rain on budding leaves, or simply the time away from the internet to think on one's life and recover a sense of one's own sense of bliss and thankfulness
That made me cry.
David, a deeply moving way to cultivate gratitude. I like your meditation practice that serves as a reminder to appreciate the here and now—the dandelions, the birds, the soothing sounds of nature. Thank you for sharing this method; it's a beautiful way to reconnect with the wonders around us and within us. Keep cherishing those moments of bliss and thankfulness. <3
Thanks, I'm glad you found something good in it
"Anger is like trying to burn someone else by setting yourself on fire." This couldn't have been said better and is unfortunately all too true. You should explore bed-rotting if you haven't done so already. It falls under the same category, trying to spite someone or anyone with your misery, but only harming yourself instead.
There's a Buddhist saying : "Anger is like picking up hot coals to throw at someone else."
in the end, it is us that gets all the burn.
I'm just leaving a comment to boost metrics and show support.
I liked your comment in support of your objective.
I liked yours in support of your handle.
It is strange how people have failed to realize or acknowledge this for two thousand years, even today, but stoicism has an almost complete philosophical overlap with the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads. The vast majority of concepts of stoicism are found in these two religious texts. That's not to say that one derives from the other; each just validates the other.
Love Marcus Aurelius. My 13-year-old is already reading the book I have of his "Meditations". Never too early, IMHO!
Love your annotations - they often add something new and useful to the original quote.
And, ....
>I have no opinion about this.
... nicely done :).
This is fantastic. I love the stoics and have often thought about making a similar post on my site. Marcus Aurelius was timeless in many ways.
This is so good. Marcus Aurelius is one of my favorites. Reminding our own selves that we can only control our own thoughts and not the events that happen to us is the best way to handle all the things we have no way of predicting. But we can practice mindset.
Shawna, agree with you. Marcus Aurelius has such timeless wisdom on the power of our thoughts and how we can shape our experience through them. It’s all about focusing on what we can control—our reactions and mindset.
He should’ve spent less time writing and more time raising Commodus properly
It wouldn't have made any difference. Children arrive in the world with their own destiny.
He was trying to save Rome.
Oof, that last one hit. Thank you 🙏
he saved the best for last, Natalie 😆
💯
2 of my favorite Aurelian quotes:
This is the mark of perfection of character -- to spend each day as if it were my last, without frenzy, laziness, or any pretending.
What we do echoes in eternity.
I loved “Meditations”. Such an inspiring book. Also, “I have no opinion about this”. Haha!
I was only speaking to somebody today and saying how people don’t seem to realise you don’t always have to say something.
It’s like a compulsive action we have where we feel like we have to respond to everything and a lot of the time when we stand back and actually think, we say why the fuck did I say that?
"Anger" strikes home, it reminds me of my reactions when I was young and having a tantrum. I was angry in a diffuse, random manner that sought to just burn down everything around me.
____
“You always have the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.”
(No opinion.)
Well done!
Great. I recall and get a lot from my "social media" scrolling as it's restricted to Substack + YouTube and I only watch stuff I value or read stuff(sorry to use that word again) I know will be edifying. And hopefully entertaining too. I love that one about it's ok not to have an opinion. I am an opinionated person and I do have Opinions on a lot of topics,probably wrong ones in some fields. But we also live in a society,certainly all my life that started out in the 1950s in which having "an opinion" is almost de rigeur. Most of the commercial media,once newspapers,then tv,also radio and much social radio exploits people's proclivity to be opininated and makes its money one way or another out of it.
We get subtly educated that not to have an opinion is to be I'll informed. The media purpose is to keep us well informed so we can converse at dinner parties and understand why reintroducing CONSCRIPTION is good. So it's relaxing to feel it's not necessary to have an opinion about everything.