"Remove the sense of injury and the injury itself will disappear" - Marc Aurelius

 One of the greatest minds of Philosophy of ancient times - Marc Aurelius once said those words...

The funny thing about this is - that these words were coming from the mouth of the mightest person in the world that the human knew that time - he could have just execute everyone that cross him, banish those people (which for some was the punishment greater than death), and he choose not to.

Why - because his mind, his stoic approach was able to distance it from such actions, and for him no harm from saying words - even the grievest - that just was not his problem. He was on a stance that Injury/harm is just in the mind of person offended - the words can harm you only if you let them. 

Should we let words hurt us? We sometime allow - but this does not mean we should allow this to happen. 

I am trying to think outside of such boundaries - this is difficult and will not be possible all the time - but even if from time to time i am able to follow the words of MA than i am already a winner. 

We sometimes here words coming from the different people - even the ones closed to us - then we need to think if those words are really hurting us - or might it be - that they only hurt our pride, and this should be irrelevant. The pride is something that is uselless - this only brings us down, and is not helping at all.

"Whenever someone has done wrong by you, immediately consider what notion of good or evil they had in doing it. For when you see that, you’ll feel compassion, instead of astonishment or rage."

Journal Log 8th of October...

 The autumn is here - and i feel like autumn myself - everything is falling down, and is just murky and dark. 

I just struggle to survive day after day - not going into details, topics that i cannot control, but at the same time i know that this is the only way we can have at all any influence on the things arround us - so the question is how to involve oneself - should we at all interviene or let it go - let it slip. and just watch projects crumbling down around us. 

This seems to be the motif of my life at least last couple of years - when i am the one that is mostly pushing toward the order in the ocean of chaos... that is not the best situation... i should not be responsible for restoring order in the chaos of our situation... this will not end up well...

Work on the things you have influence on ...

 Stoic approach is to make sure we know how to divide things we should plan and focus working on. 

The main division line is based on "Control", "Influence". Specificaly to make sure we know what and how we can control and influence... Epikret implemented  three groups 

1. Complete Out of control

2. Complete in Control

3. Middle control 

We should be focused on no 2 & 3 - wherever we do not have a shred of control we should be able to let it go - as our efforts to put it under control are futile and would not bring us any good. In contrary it would only do us harm - as we would be frustrated with the zero outcome of our actions. 

Think about all the time & actions you took to work on something that is just not worth your time - sometimes it would be better to sleep during that time - as it would be more ... efficient/effective.

The initial thing is to make sure we know the difference and we are able to walk away from the fight - which we cannot win in the first place.

.... Let it go...

Stay the f...k away

 Staying away - is something the most difficult part - staying away from problems, topics that are not assigned to us - especially if we feel very strongly they should be assigned to us, or we at least should be in the loop.

This is the problme we sometimes do meet, encounter - face... how to make sure we do not care that we are being omited by pass, etc...

I know i should not care - but sometimes it is just hard. Will keep strugling. One time i am winning sometimes i am loosing (most of the time)

Life seems like a Sinusoid ...

 it seems that i cannot catch a break - any time something is going up - and turning positive - another thing is blowing in my face. 

It is also like no matter what i would do - the outcome would be the same.

And here is the golden rule - "do not give a shit"... patience and humility - is the way to go - finding something else to do outside of work - this is the way to go.

Just before my PTO - i had already started the positive WoW - adding trainings/language learning etc - and it worked fine. I was able to do something outside office hours - i was starting to feel positive change - but the hollidays have turned everything into shit - now i am just starting to get back - and i feel positive again - becasue it seems to work.

I again have hope!

... at last.... maybe it is going to be fine

 At last - today we received a good news - she finaly made it to the School that she wanted - maybe not as a first choice, but hey... that is why you can always dream big.

but to be honest i think she was less stressed than us - the atmosphere at home was a dissaster... seriously... my wife was totally freaking out - and she was showing everyone - here only me - that she is not happy about - everything... now it can be finaly over - but let's see... we have 6 hours journey ahead of us today - so we will see... 

but for now i am happy... and the vacation for me starts in a week ;-) - roadtrip!!

... Once every few weeks ...

 ... there is a good day - a day when even if you are not able to say - "everything is perfect" - you are almost there. You just have this feeling inside your head/mind - that it is just fine! they way it should be. Positive even about such a stupid thing like going to the store to get yourself a deo ;-) or something similar. 

It is not that from now on everything will be perfect - it is just the moment when even the very wrong things about work (mostly it is about work) are not going to spoil your day, nothing will. Even if this is not the most exciting day - you are not looking into anything magnificient - you are just looking into very very small thing - like this shop, like walking the dog, like... i would say have a beer but it might sounds a little like one step closer to AA meeting - which in fact it is very far.

Very small thing - like a walk 2-3-4 and more kilometers with someone to get an ice cream. Just something very small, just to be able to get some rest - and maybe not that poluted air. 

Today i am there - i feel ok. Strange thing maybe due to some conversations with my wife ;-) but maybe not ;-)