“Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: “Is this the condition that I feared?” It is precisely in times of immunity from care that the soul should toughen itself beforehand for occasions of greater stress, and it is while Fortune is kind that it should fortify itself against her violence. In days
of peace the soldier performs maneuvers, throws up earthworks with no enemy in sight, and wearies himself by gratuitous toil, in order that he may be equal to unavoidable toil. If you would not have a man flinch when the crisis comes, train him before it comes.” – Seneca
For the last 10 days, I have been partaking in a 10-day Stoic challenge (hat-tip to my man Brian O'hAonghuasa), not because these are novel ideas, but because they are a nice reminder of the Stoic virtues. It was a time to check-in with myself and question whether or not I was on the path, and what areas of my life I may need to work on. If you'd like to engage in the next challenge by Ryan Holiday, you can get involved here.
Rather than simply copying the 10-day challenge here, I want you guys to consider starting with just one day of a challenge this week. It will be a day of immersion into some of the virtues proposed by the Stoics, and if you can carry them forward, your life will be better.
1) Delete your social media apps. No, Seneca did not have Instagram, but you can be sure that the Stoics would not have been in favour of the dopamine drunkenness of the modern social media user. Detox for the day. Don't just treat it as a chore, treat it as a learning experience. Each time you think about using the app, ask yourself why? What is the goal? Is there a genuine reason? Part of Stoicism is self-reflection and
analysing one's thought process - very different to just being "emotionless".
2) No complaining. Look, we all love a good vent every now and then, but use this time to take a second. Take a breath, ask yourself what you could do to improve the situation? Oh, the weather is bad? And for what reason would you allow that to ruin your day? You can't go outside? There is no bad weather, only bad clothing. Create solutions by stepping back and reflecting, rather than whining. If your partner got mad at you
for "no reason", rather than reacting emotionally and being defensive, take ownership of the situation. Could you be wrong? Take ownership. It's your responsibility, even if it's not your fault.
3) Train hard in uncomfortable conditions. This is going to be more specific, purely because it's easy to do something that you like. You have a couple of options here:
A - Go to your local woods, grab a log, put it on your shoulder, and run/walk with it for 30 minutes. Each time it gets too sore/tiring, take a break for a couple of seconds. Put it back up there and get back to work. It's your responsibility to make this hard, so if it's easy, get a heavier log or find some hills.
B - 200 burpees (with the push-up) for time. Look, burpees are hard. They're not the greatest exercise for any one fitness component, but this is not about elite training, it's about building your character. Do 200 burpees as fast as you can. Again, the goal is to make this hard, so if you can casually crush 200 burpees, do 400. If you've never done burpees before, maybe do 100. Just make it hard. Your responsibility.
C - Hill runs. Find a hill nearby. Ideally, you want somewhere with between 60-100m of space to run.
Sprint up and walk back down as many times as you can in 10 minutes (probably 5-10 reps, depending on length of hill and current fitness). At the end, note how many reps you did (e.g. 8) and run that number in multiples of 100m. So, if you got 8 reps, finish off your session with an 800m run -- this won't be a sprint, but one final hard effort to finish you off. Empty the tank on this. Again, your responsibility.
I also appreciate one or two of the above may not be possible with the COVID-19 lockdown, but come up with something yourself. Simply pick a workout you would hate to do, and do it!
As I hope I have made clear, these are not necessarily the defining characteristics of Stoicism, not at all. However, they do fit in with the Stoic virtues, and the ultimate goal is for you to be able to extract generalisable lessons from this one day challenge. Of course, the ideal is that you would carry these forward; minimise your complaints, don't waste time on social media, push on when you are struggling, and so on.
If you want to go hardcore, sleep on the floor tonight, fast for a day or two, or hit yourself in the face with a hammer (don't do that...). There are many different ways of bringing Stoicism into your life, and I struggle to think of any downside to trying to express such virtues.
Most importantly, we want to know how you found this. If you do engage in this challenge, let us know. Of course, you won't be on your social media (I hope) on that day, so why not drop us an email after, or dare I say it, tag us in your Instagram story in the days after if you do decide to indulge again. Or, simply drop a post into our Facebook
Group.
Until next time... Keep it 2ez.
