The Good Life - 07/20/2023 - Six months alone
Six months. That’s how long Yumiko and I will be apart. Yumiko will have just half a year to establish our new life in Japan before I join her. Beginning from zero, she’ll do exactly what I did ten years ago when I came alone to America to break ground for our family’s new life here. I know the drill. Yumiko will need to open a bank account, get a driver’s license, buy a car, buy or rent us a house and then begin to establish a home. She’ll have practically nothing to start with, just the clothes in her suitcase, plus that old box of photos and memories which has followed us everywhere we’ve ever lived. She’ll have her freedom, and lots of free time alone to think. It’s a daunting challenge, much harder than it seems. As being alone with nothing in someplace new and disconnected, without an established routine and without our people and our pets is a little like being a castaway at sea, drifting and bobbing about in a rickety small boat very far beyond the sight of land—no ships, no connection and seemingly all alone. But then, one day, we spy some distant land on the horizon which is seemingly growing near, and we paddle towards it or maybe catch a lucky landward breeze. And soon there’s the surf, and then the shore, and our little boat is beached upon the warm sand, with a green forest beyond—sounds of life and fresh water flowing—and there, soon, our people are coming down the beach to join us. We’ve arrived. We’ve begun life again. That was indeed hard. But not impossible, fun in fact—and not nearly as bad as our fears may have first led us to believe.
The Good Life Meditation is my daily recitation and reminder of personal objectives and principles used in pursuit of a purposeful life in spite of a universe of seeming indifference. Learn more about The Good Life at my website GoingAlone.org or by reading my book Going Alone. And visit our Discord at: https://lnkd.in/gFgfGmY6
OBJECTIVES: 1. Be Always Ready to Die 2. Make Good Use of Time and Resources 3. Develop Good and Sound Life Principles 4. Cultivate Good Emotional Reactions 5. Perform Good Actions 6. Recognize True Limits and Opportunity 7. One Thing Slowly
PRINCIPLES: 1. Principle of War 2. Principle of Reason 3. Homunculus 4. Anchorhold 5. Home of Good and Evil 6. Principle of Purpose 7. Atomic Principle 8. Principle of Nature 9. The Pirate Ride 10. Principle of Maturity 11. Social Principle
12. Principle of Family 13. Public Speaking 14. Temperance 15. Life Will Not Go Well 16. The Horror Show 17. That Which Must Be Borne 18. The Feast of Offal 19. Distraction 20. Agency and The Great Indifference 21. The Best Seat in the House 22. The Restless Man 23. The Path of Wildness 24. The Great Life Adventure 25. The Risk of Avoiding Risk 26. Sin and Damnation 27. Complete Oblivion 28. The Season of Philosophy
29. Scriptwriting 30. Bullseye Aim 31. The Uphill Climb 32. Arena and Utility 33. Nothing IS enough 34. The Principle of Fun
#Stoic #Stoicism #StoicPhilosophy
My name is Kurt Bell.
You can learn more about The Good Life in my book Going Alone.
Be safe... But not too safe.