Hey friends!

Recently, I've learnt a bit about Stoicism and I thought you might find it interesting.

What is Stoicism?

Stoicism is a school of thought founded in 304 BC by Zeno of Citium, based on the virtues of Wisdom, Temperance, Courage and Justice.
According to the Stoics, living a good life is finding the right combination of, and balancing out, the 4 Stoic virtues.

The 4 Stoic virtues

Wisdom

Wisdom is knowing the difference between what is good, what is bad and what is indifferent. The most interesting one of these is the category of "indifferent". These are things that are not good or bad. Things like money, success and possessions should fall into this category. You would rather have them than not, but you are fundamentally indifferent as to whether or not you have them. In other words, if you catch yourself focusing too hard on any of these things, you remind yourself you are fundamentally indifferent to this thing and they are not the things which ultimately lead to a fulfilling life.

Temperance

Temperance refers to the development of things like self restraint, self discipline and self control. This is finding a balance between things that are short-term fulfilling (such as video games or fast food) and things that are long-term meaningful (connections with family/friends or having a nice holiday and so on).

Courage

Courage helps us face our fears and accept things we cannot change. Courage is not the elimination of fear and anxiety. Rather, it is allowing yourself to feel these things, but not letting them control you. You don't let what others do or say about you change your principles or values and you accept the possibility of failure.

Justice

How we treat others. "The virtue of Justice means doing what is right and fair by ensuring that everyone gets equal treatment under the law. It means seeing yourself as part of a larger whole and treating everyone with the same respect and dignity........ Practicing justice can be very difficult because it means having a deep understanding that the world is not fair. It means understanding that there will always be people that get everything handed to them and others who have to fight for everything." - Jay, Mind By Design

Hope you found this interesting! I've left a link below (Quote of the week section) for a video you might enjoy.

Thanks for reading!

Some of my favourite things

Planning exercise

Yearly review
I did this a couple of weeks ago, it's great for reflecting on the past year and planning the next. (If you want to check out the template I use, here's the link https://www.tobysblog.me/yearly-review-template/)

Alternative Browser

"Refoorest"
A great browser that plants real life trees every time you search the internet. The best bit is, it uses some of the major search engines for its results, so it doesn't compromise any of your searches!
If you want to give it a go, here's the link
https://vrlps.co/opce4p7/cp

Study with me/focus music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKNiV9UHPPo&t=76s
Found this game changing (after not getting much done for a couple of weeks!).

Quote of the week

“You can either experience the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The choice is yours.” - YouTube comments section on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_Rz7mY8Lyc (where a lot of the information in this newsletter came from)

Have a great week!
Cheers, Toby