In a world captivated by optimisation, one metric is often overlooked
What is stoic joy, and how can it improve your life?
Almost every morning, I journal.
I use a gratitude journal, I write notes on the previous day, and I refer to The Daily Stoic.
This practice is meditative, centring and helps me collect my thoughts.
With those thoughts, I go out into the world and attempt to improve myself by 1% every single day. If I do that consistently enough, I should live a pretty good life.
A recent reading from The Daily Stoic caught my attention, it read like this:
So, what is stoic joy, and how does it differ from regular old joy?
The way I like to think about it is internal vs external.
Regular joy is external—it is derived from things, people and experiences. It requires a deliverable before it is activated.
Stoic joy is internal—it is cultivated within you, it is an everlasting well that you can continually find nourishment in. It requires nothing but awareness.
Regular joy is derived from life going well or good things happening to you or around you, whereas stoic joy is a state of being... it just is.
This tweet of mine below here gives a pretty decent summation of the concept:
In a world cluttered by thoughts… soured by want… overwhelmed by gluttony, it is a rare and highly undervalued skill.
Aka inner peace.
This is the metric I want to be optimising for. This is the thing I care most about.
Regardless of what is happening around me - good or bad, right or wrong, rich or poor, up or down. I want to be able to check in and answer yes to these questions.
Am I at peace?
Am I full of gratitude?
If yes, carry on.
If no, locate the problem and fire some gratitude at it until the answer is yes.
Here’s the catch, though...
Being at peace and accepting of what is does not mean pulling up short or accepting failure and poor performance.
No no no.
No way, no sir, no how!
I still have the expectation of myself that I will work hard for what I want and find ways to push myself mentally and physically to continue to evolve. But, a very important but… it means my ability to be happy and joyous is not predicated on any given indicator or the concept of modern-day ‘success’.
Too often in life, the idea of optimisation is bandied around for fitness, finance, relationships, entrepreneurship, business, education and career... but almost never for pure joy.
Why not?
Is it not desirable to be at peace?
To be simply at peace with yourself despite the misgivings of a world fuelled by fear and power is not a good thing? It’s not enough?
Look, I get it. Every part of our world is saying otherwise:
Buy this
Want more
Consume that
Fight for equality
This sports result
Make sure you earn
Care about this injustice
Buy a bigger and better thing
That famous person’s indiscretion
It is never-ending.
Some of these are important, don’t get me wrong.
But before fighting these battles, ensure that you have one the battle inside… the fight for your own joy.
Stoic joy is concrete and reliable…
Regular joy is fleeting and unreliable…
Life is tough enough to need to rely on external events to govern our joy. Let’s look within to cultivate the joy and inner peace we need to make life easier.
This is impenetrable; this is operating from a place of power.
Set some time aside tonight to reflect on the stoic joy—the joy that comes from purpose, excellence, and duty.
Find that, earn that, and you will never go without.
With gratitude,
SAV 🙏
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