• About
    • Mission & Vision
    • Our Leadership
    • ADF: A Druid Fellowship
    • Photos
  • Services
  • Calendar
  • Resources & Social Justice
  • Membership
  • 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
  • Blog
  • About
    • Mission & Vision
    • Our Leadership
    • ADF: A Druid Fellowship
    • Photos
  • Services
  • Calendar
  • Resources & Social Justice
  • Membership
  • 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
  • Blog
Mountain Ancestors Grove, ADF

A Year of Contemplation

You Choose the Outcome (Day 318)

11/14/2019

 
Picture

He was sent to prison. But the observation ‘he has suffered evil,’ is an addition coming from you.”
Epictetus, Discourses, 3.8.5b-6a

The thing/action/result simply “is”. It’s not personal, or laden with feelings. It’s objective.

How we attach to it, or personalize it, or dramatize it - how it was unjust, or an utter tragedy, or that it was done maliciously - is all on us. 

Ryan Holiday, in The Daily Stoic, highlights the lesson of how beginning with acceptance can lead to potential personal transformation by citing the life-experiences of one of my own personal heroes: Malcolm X. 

Back when he was known by the surname given to him by the oppressors of his ancestors, Little, Malcolm was tried, found guilty of crimes, and sentenced to prison. Like Epictetus says in the above quote, “He was sent to prison.” 

When he was released, he came out educated, pious, and driven to help first his community, and later in life, the civil rights movement and American culture as a whole. To me, that doesn’t sound like someone who, like Epictetus said, “has suffered evil.” That sounds like someone took the resources they had, and chose to make his experience as a man incarcerated as positive as possible. 

Regarding acceptance: Holiday notes that it, “... isn’t passive. It’s the first step in an active process toward self-improvement.” (The Daily Stoic, 339)

A wise observation. 

May we all have the fortitude to choose to see it that way. 

(See y’all tomorrow) 

Comments are closed.

    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. 

    Archives

    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.