Will Smith and Perception

Daily Meditations — 4/1/2022

You’re kidding yourself if you didn’t think I would miss an opportunity to see how Stoicism and Eudaimonia apply here!

When we cannot control our emotions, we seek to control the actions of others, their behaviors.

The world is a duplicitous and malevolent place. Many will speak evil about us behind our backs and to our faces…

So what?

We cannot control or change them.

Attacking or speaking evil about them only makes them right about our shortcomings.

Words and actions mean absolutely nothing until we make thwm mean something. Nothing is anything until our emotions make them into something.

Is a tree a house for us? No.
If we make the tree into beams is it a house? No.
It is a house when we make it a house.
And even then, is it a home? No!
The house becomes a home when we make it a home.

And it is the same with the words of others.

Hate, spite, jealousy, jokes, teases and slights are no different than praise, love, adoration, or compliments — they are all just words…they become hateful or loving when our perception twists them…
After all…Does a masochist’s perception not make them lust to be hurt?

Perception.

Adjust your perception and you are truly invincible.

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These are distillations from my coming book “YouDaimonia: the Ancient Philosophy of Human Flourishing.”