Focus on What Matters: A Collection of Stoic Letters on Living Well

Around seven years ago, I decided that I was done with pointless entertainment and boredom. After years of going aimlessly through life, I just had enough of having no direction in life.

While many of us desire to become the rulers of our destiny, we can’t embark on that endeavor unless we master our inner world first. Otherwise, we will give up every time we experience a setback.

That’s how you protect your mood: By not feeling responsible for how others feel. Focus on yourself and be the best person you can be. And if others need your help, you can be there for them.

Show them sympathy, use comforting words, and even share their misery outwardly. But make sure that you do not inwardly grieve with them.”

Know what you can and cannot control! That’s the Stoic’s path to a happy life. If you set a high value on happiness, everything else must be valued less.

“Let us enquire what is the best, not what is the most customary, thing to do,

we watch TV shows we’re not even interested in just to “kill time.” Why kill something so precious? That’s what should really upset you. Not some insignificant message you read on Twitter from some person you don’t even know.

They believed in being compassionate, but remaining cautious of another person’s energy. To a Stoic, their own sanity is more important than feeling someone else’s pain.

We all need to be more conscious of how we spend our time. Most of us know this — we just don’t live it. We squander our time like it’s nothing.