Reddit mentions of How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life

Recent changes have only made it worse for everyone too. Trust me, you are not alone. It's hard to feel like you have community right now especially. But when you go to get coffee you are actually surrounded by plenty of people experiencing the same thing.

Normal life isn't for everyone. Reddit's van dwellers sub has plenty of well thought-out evidence for that.

I would just advise, don't make it harder on yourself than life has to be. There's roughing it and there's being a martyr. Don't be a martyr. You can enjoy traveling the world or just camping out in the same place. But pursue what makes you happy.

And you are allowed to be happy. In spite of what those negative thoughts in your (and our) heads try to tell us so often. We really have to figure out how to keep those negative thoughts in check. And we have to define what is happy for each of us. But happy definitely does not mean ecstatically jumping up and down every day. It means more of something like being content with what you have and having gratitude for what you have. If you only have one cast-iron pot, love that pot and treat it well. That's happiness. It doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.

Thriving with Social Anxiety is a good book for the broad approach and has very practical advice for dealing with yourself when you have to deal with other people. And writing things out helps. You can keep a very simple journal of your thoughts using this bullet journal format (like bullet points, a fast journaling style) to work on your reactions to stress. Or you can also use a worksheet/grid format and have it ready for when you need a good way to evaluate negative experience. With a little practice you can handle it better. And just replace the words "anxiety" and "ptsd" in the linked sheets with anger, frustration, depression, whatever strong emotion is bothering you the most. All these emotions revolve around similar causes and the techniques are the same.

Having the information on your thoughts and techniques you are using in one place like in a journal is very helpful for staying focused on what you are working on. It's like an external memory system. And if you forget to do it for a while, it's still right there and you can pick up where you left off when you need it again. It's there for you. You can take it with you to therapy sessions as well to help keep track of what you really want to talk about.

The last thing I can offer is, we need more than just therapy. We need a way of embracing the world that lets us view it sometimes from a larger perspective (dialed out), and sometimes from a closer, nuts and bolts, day to day approach (dialed in). For that I've personally really grown to like reading about Stoicism. How to be a Stoic is a great introduction, written by a therapist. It's much more accessible than other books I've tried and it adds a layer on top of therapy that has helped me a lot.

Whatever road you take, don't be hard on yourself. You're working on it, you're trying to improve yourself. So cut yourself some slack, don't beat yourself up when you have an "anger episode". The more you work on it the fewer and farther between they will be. Don't get mad at yourself for getting mad, that only compounds the problem. Use the tools you gain to learn from each experience. And take a moment each day to appreciate where and who you are right now. Good luck!

They’re both by Massimo Pagliuci...

I’m gonna guess it is this first link here
How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life https://www.amazon.com/dp/1541644530/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_c_api_i_lu20CbT2HRD2H


Here’s the other one
How To Be A Stoic: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Living https://www.amazon.com/dp/184604507X/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_c_api_i_iv20Cb2NSJT2N

Read a bit about Stoicism. It may help you with these stressful moments in life.

I read a lot of non-fiction, but only one book recently i took to heart: How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life.

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I never though that from all things i'll fond a philosophy book. It's great! It's written in beautiful, modern language. It's make you think new things. It's connected me to the past as no history book ever could. And, as the title says - Stoicism is superbly relevant to our times.

Highly recommend it.

Long time listener first time caller.