The Obstacle Is the Way

Recognize your power

Choose not to be harmed - and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed - and you haven’t been - Marcus Aurelius

Steady your nerves

What such a man needs is not courage but nerve control, cool headedness. This he can get only by practice. - Theodore Roosevelt

Control your emotions

Would you have a great empire? Rule over yourself. - Publius Syrus

• Uncertainty and fear are relieved by authority ( which my boss failed to do so), training is authority, with enough exposure, you can adapt out those perfecly ordinary, evne innate, fears that bred mostly from unfamiliarity.
• Antifragile, small dose of poision/pressure, not enough to kill you, but enough to stress the system, zone 2 training - > increase our tolerance for stress and uncertainty
• Apatheia: clam equanimity that comes with the absence of irrational or extreme emotions

When you worry, ask yourself, ‘What am I choosing to not see right now?’ What important things are you missing because you chose worry over introspection, alertness or wisdom? The Gift of fear - Gavin de Becker

• Does getting upset provide you with more options?

Does what happened keep you from acting with justic, generosity, self control, sanity, prudence, honesty, humility, straightforwardness? - Marcus Aurelius

Practice objectivity

Don’t ket hte force of an impression when it first hit you knock you off your feet; just say to it: hold on a momnet; let me see who you are and what you represent. Let me put you to the test. - Epictetus

• Prevent “resulting” thinking

The perceiving eye is weak; the observing eye is strong - The book of five rings Miyamoto Musashi

• Perceptions are the problem. They give us the “information” that we don’t need

Alter your perspective

Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the smae token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant. - Viktor Frankl

Is it up to you?

In life our first job is this, to divide and distinguish things into two categories: externals I cannot control, but the choices I make with regard to them I do control. Where will I find good and bad? In me, in my choices - Epictetus

• Would I have a chance?
• Otherwise it is Fool’s barand

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change

The courage to change the things I can

And the wisdom to know the difference. - Serenity Prayer

What is up to us?

• Our emotions
• Our judgements
• Our creativity
• Our attitude
• Our perspective
• Our desires
• Our decisions
• Our determination

live in the moment

the trick to forgetting the big picture is look at everything close up

• mindfuless

Think differently