Stop fooling yourself. My story is the beginning of the path to a healthy and bright spirit
Greetings, reader!
The article I wrote primarily serves as a kind of “desk essay”, on the occasion of my return, capable of returning me to that warm time when I began to become a “man of wisdom”!
In general, on my telegram channel @adametsderschopfer_life I generally share my opinion about my life and some aspects of life, so join me =)
I am writing this article and others, among other things, for some self-esteem, the opportunity to look at myself “through time,” to express thoughts on “paper” to evaluate my own thinking and being in general. I do this publicly, because often an outside perspective helps resolve some problems or misunderstandings!
Let's go!
First steps
February, 2023, I’m a 21-year-old guy, living a very strange life filled with fears and ambiguities, I come to the conclusion that it seems it’s time to change something in my life. And we are not talking about “success” or something like that, but about the desire to control one’s own consciousness, curb vices and express a high-quality love for life.
The first thing I started with was the environment and problems. I was lucky to meet, long before these events, a person who at that time was not yet my deep-rooted friend, but had a warm attitude towards the problems of other people, a desire to help them, and was also a psychologist. Since he was not a practicing psychologist, I became a gift for him)) (An important clarification is that the man is much older than me, and with some life experience behind him, in addition to psychology)
And over the course of several months of literally weekly (sometimes even several times a week) meetings, I managed to understand the important rule that this man so vehemently hammered into me – Don't lie to yourself! Almost every meeting we touched on a similar topic, and at first I convinced myself that I was being honest with myself, but every day, the boundaries became clearer and clearer, which made it possible to see how much deception was behind myself.
Wisdom
2023. June. During this period, we completed some psychoanalysis of my life, and my life beacon of “finding myself” began to shine incredibly brightly!
Afterwards, I came to the idea of wanting to read books, because as I accepted for myself, there is quite a lot of truth in them, and then I began to struggle with my many years of aversion to them. A friend recommended reading an incredible book about the love of life by Viktor Frankl, “Say Yes to Life!” This work made an incredible impression on me and made me think about many aspects and complexities of life. During the same period I podcast Nick Chernobaev with Denis Semenikhin I learned about the book from Denis “Choice” – Edith Eva Eger. It made the same impression on me as Frank’s book, but unlike Frankl’s book, it sank into my heart much deeper and at the time of writing this article I have already given more than 5 such books to my friends and family.
After realizing that the pressing problems that were clogging my head had been resolved, I came across a rather interesting podcast called “Introduction to Stoicism”
I will say this, the podcast is so full and interesting that I still listen to it over and over again.
But to continue, it is important to talk about one more thing.
During this same period, I met creativity of Denis Seminikhinjust after the podcast I mentioned above! And this man, no matter what he said, about the fact that he is rich and therefore he can talk like that or something else, I discarded such opinions and listened to this man, because the man is incredibly well-read and talks about very good things, including giving examples from your life experience.
So, after getting acquainted with the podcast about stoicism and Denis, I gained a desire to “know wisdom.” I bought Seneca’s book “Moral Letters to Lucilius” and started reading. I moved quite far, but all this did not bear the proper fruit.
Once again, listening to the podcast “Introduction to Stoicism” — I didn’t catch the main idea (I’ll describe it in my own words): “The love of wisdom cannot be learned alone.” And then I suggested to my friend that I study Stoicism. But study not in the sense that we sit with a can of beer and conditionally “bazaar” for wisdom, but by daily reading and meeting once a week to discuss the understanding of one of the letters read in order.
Similar format, based on book selection Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius.
For more than a year now, at the time of writing this article we are already at letter 59, it has turned out to be an incredibly exciting journey of incorporating Stoicism into our lives and using it. And yes, I forgot to mention that this is not about studying Stoicism for what is called “scientific purposes,” but for developing a love for wisdom and applied learning of Stoicism. That is, reading each letter is accompanied not only by the arrival of the day for its discussion and detailed analysis, taking into account life situations, but by rethinking one’s own behavior and the desire to follow the learned rules from a particular letter read.
Someone will ask – Why is it so difficult, why complicate the study of something like this, because you can study everything in a month =)?
But, here is an important mention that stuck in my head completely, from the podcast speaker “Introduction to Stoicism” (again, in your own words): “Understanding of a philosophy written thousands of years ago cannot be gained in a year; sometimes even a lifetime is not enough!”
At the moment, I am in incredible harmony with my own creation and the awareness of what I have yet to learn… During this period of studying a small part of Stoicism, I read a lot of books at the same time, here is a list of what I read, and what helped me gain yourself and control over your own mind:
Viktor Frankl “Say Yes to Life!”
Edith Eva Eger “Choice”
Nassim Taleb
“Risking my own skin”
“Antifragile”
“Black swan”
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi “Flow”
Jim Lawless “Go Where It's Scary”
Also, I really liked podcast series from Brian Tracy
Well, again, I’ll mention that at the start of my journey, I often followed creativity Denis Seminikhin.
Of course, this is only a small part of what I have done over the past period of becoming a person of healthy spirit, and this is only a small part of where I started…
I urge you to write everything you think about this, and how you got out of the “life bondage” and routine that “sucked you in”…
