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    • Our Leadership
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  • Services
  • Calendar
  • Resources & Social Justice
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  • Blogs
    • Prairie Tidings (Church Blog)
    • Rev. Badger's 2019 Stoic Blog
    • The Practical Bard (Rev. Missy's Blog)
    • Little Druid on the Prairie (Rev. Lauren's Blog)
  • Policies
  • Contact Us
Mountain Ancestors Grove, ADF

A Year of Contemplation

Focus on what is Yours Alone (Day 248)

9/5/2019

 
Picture

Remember, then, if you deem what is by nature slavish to be free, and what is not your own to be yours, you will be shackled and miserable, blaming both gods and other people.”
Epictetus, Enchiridion, 1.3

​We’ve talked a dozen times, or more, about one of Stoicism’s core principles: don’t concern ourselves with things beyond our control. 

Fun fact: when we’re focused on an optimistic future, we’re convincing ourselves that a good future is a fact, but in reality it’s completely unknown AND outside of our control. 

Optimism, when unchecked by an appreciation of reality, can cause someone to die of a broken heart because while they’re busy focusing on a future in which they have no control, their opportunities to practice being present slip away, one moment after another. They watch optimism-imposed way-markers pass them by, one after another, on their journey. Their minds aren’t focused on what’s theirs and the present moment, their minds are dwelling in a non-existent future. 

Focus on what’s ours alone, and insist that our minds live in the reality-informed present moment, because without reality informing our present moment, it’ll be default-informed, instead, by delusion and false-truths. 

(See y’all tomorrow)

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    About the Blog

    Awakening the desire to explore Stoicism, and how it relates to his existing beliefs, Rev. William committed to working through the text, The Daily Stoic, a year-long journey to awaken the Stoic mind. 
    How things are structured can be found in the first post. 

    About the Author

    Born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, Rev. William attended Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado where in 2007 he graduated with a degree in Religious Studies, minoring in Psychology. Currently residing in Longmont, CO, he is one of the Priests and founder of Mountain Ancestors Grove.  He spends his time playing mandolin (and some guitar), writing, engaging in LGBTQIA+ advocacy and education, community service, and sharing a larger vision of how a polytheist perspective can lead to greater human understanding, acceptance, and gods be good, peace. 

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