Stoic Exercises
Mar. 27th, 2020 03:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithStoic exercises develop fortitude and perseverance in the face of hardships.
My personal favorite is staying out in the rain. For practice, most people want a light rain, warm to moderate. Harder or colder rain is for experts, because the risk of getting sick from it runs higher. I'm also fond of the Renaissance faire observation: "You can only get so wet." That is, if you have to work all day somewhere you can't wear a raincoat, you are going to get 100% wet, and there is no point trying to avoid it. Once you are soaked, you can't get any wetter no matter what happens. It can all be fixed at the end of the day with a towel and a change of clothes.
It's important to understand how your body reacts to stress, which things you can endure easily, which you can if you push, and which you really need to avoid because they'll flatten you. Knowing your limits helps you make prudent choices and avoid problems. It also reduces the tendency to panic under stress, and keeping your cool is a vital life skill, because panic can kill you. No problem is so bad that panic can't make it a lot worse.
My personal favorite is staying out in the rain. For practice, most people want a light rain, warm to moderate. Harder or colder rain is for experts, because the risk of getting sick from it runs higher. I'm also fond of the Renaissance faire observation: "You can only get so wet." That is, if you have to work all day somewhere you can't wear a raincoat, you are going to get 100% wet, and there is no point trying to avoid it. Once you are soaked, you can't get any wetter no matter what happens. It can all be fixed at the end of the day with a towel and a change of clothes.
It's important to understand how your body reacts to stress, which things you can endure easily, which you can if you push, and which you really need to avoid because they'll flatten you. Knowing your limits helps you make prudent choices and avoid problems. It also reduces the tendency to panic under stress, and keeping your cool is a vital life skill, because panic can kill you. No problem is so bad that panic can't make it a lot worse.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2020-03-28 01:17 am (UTC)Some people need coping skills every day. But everyone needs them some days. I find that people who have an easy life most of the time have difficulty coping when it's not easy. But there are ways to develop those skills without screwing up your life.