50 Very Short Rules for a Good Life From the Stoics

  1. Focus on what you can control.
  2. You control how you respond to things.
  3. Ask yourself, “Is this essential?”
  4. Meditate on your mortality every day.
  5. Value time more than money and possessions.
  6. You are the product of your habits.
  7. Remember you have the power to have no opinion.
  8. Own the morning.
  9. Put yourself up for review. Interrogate yourself.
  10. Don’t suffer imagined troubles.
  11. Try to see the good in people.
  12. Never be overheard complaining—even to yourself.
  13. Two ears, one mouth for a reason.
  14. There is always something you can do.
  15. Don’t compare yourself to others.
  16. Live as if you’ve died and come back (every minute is bonus time).
  17. “The best revenge is not to be like that.” —Marcus Aurelius
  18. Be strict with yourself and tolerant with others.
  19. Put every impression, emotion, to the test before acting on it.
  20. Learn something from everyone.
  21. Focus on process, not outcomes.
  22. Define what success means to you.
  23. Find a way to love everything that happens.
  24. Seek out challenges.
  25. Don’t follow the mob.
  26. Grab the “smooth handle.”
  27. Every person is an opportunity for kindness.
  28. Say no (a lot).
  29. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
  30. Find one thing that makes you wiser every day.
  31. What’s bad for the hive is bad for the bee.
  32. Don’t judge other people.
  33. Study the lives of the greats.
  34. Forgive, forgive, forgive.
  35. Make a little progress each day.
  36. Journal.
  37. Prepare for life’s inevitable setbacks.
  38. Look for the poetry in ordinary things.
  39. To do wrong to one, is to do wrong to yourself.
  40. Always choose “alive time.”
  41. Associate only with people that make you better.
  42. If someone offends you, realize you are complicit in taking offense.
  43. Fate behaves as she pleases…do not forget this.
  44. Possessions are yours only in trust.
  45. Don’t make your problems worse by bemoaning them.
  46. Accept success without arrogance, handle failure with indifference.
  47. Courage. Temperance. Justice. Wisdom. (Always).
  48. The obstacle is the way.
  49. Ego is the enemy.
  50. Stillness is the key.

50 Very Short Rules for a Good Life From the Stoics

On the “Good Guys with Guns” Hypothesis

Guns don’t keep you safer:

[Dr. Fridel’s] findings show that looser concealed-carry laws had little impact on mass shootings and increased a state’s gun homicide rate by 11%. Higher rates of firearm ownership overall, meanwhile, was associated with a 53.5% increase in the likelihood of a mass shooting.

New research puts the ‘good guy with a gun’ idea to rest: Loose concealed-carry laws are linked to more firearm homicides

Anti-Vaxxers are Sheeple, Too

Donald G. McNeil Jr, calling for stricter federal mandates to combat COVID-19, shares my observation about the anti-vaccine movement’s central hypocrisy (via Daring Fireball):

Many writers, including Michael Fitzpatrick, author of “Defeating Autism, a Damaging Delusion” and Seth Mnookin, author of “The Panic Virus,” have shown that the anti-vaccine movement is not merely a self-help group of concerned mothers. It is a business pushed by millionaires: the sellers of vitamin and herbal supplements, the directors of unregulated clinics prescribing chelation drugs, detoxifying purges and hyperbaric chambers, the seekers of fame and tax-deductible donations.

What Is Biden Waiting For?