Sorry for anyone dealing with smoke... We get it here most years and it's terrible. We bought an air cleaner to use during that time. Half the time it's stupid campers setting the fires, and apparently this year some of them were deliberate arson!? It's apparently right-wing extremists trying to frame climate change activists. Like WTF? I never believed it was climate change activists because they care about the Earth obviously. It's pretty bad when factions are actually framing each other.


My latest thing to worry about - AI. There's a lot of talk about how it will eliminate many jobs in the next ten years. I'm hoping it's just fear mongering.


I was really bothered by several articles I read, but then I got this today: (Daily Stoic email):

Banks are failing. Inflation is nuts. Interest rates are the highest they’ve been in years. The stock market is flat, except in the moments that it plummets precipitously. Companies are laying people off…round after round of layoffs. When you check out at the grocery store, you can’t help but sigh at the “new normal,” at how insanely expensive everything seems to be these days.
It’s enough to make anyone’s stomach turn. To make them nervous, insecure, anxious, even terrified.
Except, of course, if you’re a Stoic.
Now this is not because many of the Stoics were so rich as to be above these things. Yes, it’s true that Seneca was one of the wealthiest men in Rome. And that Marcus inherited a fortune. Cicero came from a self-made family and then made his own fortune going from humble beginnings to compile a massive fortune as he climbed the legal profession and then into politics. But with or without this wealth, the Stoics were able to withstand economic and financial uncertainty (in fact, Seneca practiced abject poverty once a month, so he could, as he said, remind himself that this was nothing to fear.)
The reason the ancients were able to feel secure in times of insecurity, stable in moments of change, is the same reason it’s possible for you in the modern world to do it. By not focusing on the macro, by setting up systems, by rooting ones’ happiness not in material things, the wise person is able to cultivate an attitude and a lifestyle that is immune to the daily headlines as well as the temporary conditions of the market. They don’t sweat quarterly earnings reports, they aren’t trying to find the next big thing, or some get rich quick scheme–they are focused on good habits, on maximizing their gains in the areas they control, on minimizing mistakes and emotional decisions, and thinking long term. Jeff Bezos has talked about how he built Amazon around “the things that don’t change.” This is how a Stoic approaches their finances and building wealth and a career.
Forget the shiny, new thing. What is timeless? What is tried and true? What forces contribute the most to success (patience and time were Tolstoy’s answer)? This is where our effort must be directed. There is no magical solution, no silver bullet, no moment when one is simply above these things. No, it requires a shift–a transformation–in your philosophy which then must be translation into daily, daily action.
That is the way out…and through.