While no one needs to memorize large lists of rules to practice Stoicism, a small list may be helpful. The exercise for this week is to set up a few rules for living with others that you’ll try to follow over the course of the week. By the end of the week you’ll see whether these rules of living are helpful for you.
Write down some rules. Try no more than three to start so that they are easy to remember. Feel free to try just one to keep things focused. You can borrow from Seneca’s plentiful list of rules or derive your own from the Stoic virtues or the dichotomy of control.
Review this list each morning, and take a minute or two to envision a situation where your rules of living would apply. Imagine yourself acting according to those rules.
It may also be useful to review the list each night and see how well you stuck to your rules throughout the day. If you had trouble remembering your rules, think about why that may have been.
As our friend Preecha discovered in his Buddhist practice, clear, easy-to-remember rules can help you pay more attention to your actions as you go about your day, and keep you from behaving mindlessly. Additionally, remembering simple rules can help clarify and encourage you to act in a specific situation, since you’ve already decided how to act in—and perhaps mentally rehearsed—a similar situation beforehand. These two benefits apply to any type of rule. If you set up rules derived from Stoic principles concerning human nature and the Stoic virtues, Seneca promises yet another benefit: You will excel in shaping your character for the better, allowing you to “soar aloft, and strive to make [your] way to the gods.”1
Did setting rules help you pay more attention to your actions throughout the week? Was it easier to decide how to act in certain situations that you would normally have found challenging? Or did this exercise not resonate much with you at all? Write about your experiences with this exercise.
