The Good Life - 09/13/2023 - Slipping quietly out the back
Updated: 6 days ago
It’s becoming harder now to engage deeply at work. Everyone suddenly seems so young. They have mortgages and young kids. Or they’re younger still and haven’t yet begun willingly piling such important adult responsibility onto their lives—all that is ahead for them. We have nothing in common. They all have so much riding on their work, that there’s no clear window to any other way to be. They’re all fully engaged with their jobs and careers. They have to be. As there’s seemingly no other way. I know this condition well. As it is exactly how I lived these last thirty-six years of hard labor. Day in and day out. A long and seemingly endless trudge and sometimes drudge of sometimes painful necessity. The workaday life.
But now, I’m like a runner who can’t—or doesn’t want to—keep up. I’m falling back from the pack each day, and eyeballing breaks in the brush at the side of the road. Maybe I can slip off this road without anyone noticing? I think there’s a quiet stream down there amidst the trees. Maybe there’s a nice place to sit alone and away from all this mad rush? A little peace at last at the end of the day. The others can keep running without me. They’ve clearly got everything under control. Look at them! So young, and smart, and healthy and ambitious and eager! They are nothing like me. My absence should hardly be noticed if I just slip away.
Now, I’m starting to see why some of my friends who have already retired didn’t want a party. And they didn’t want any fuss or fanfare as they left. They just sought to slip out quietly on their last day of work; leaving soon after lunch and walking alone to their car, driving away then out the back end of the parking lot without ever looking back. I always thought that was strange. I couldn’t understand why they did that. Now, I think I’m starting to see.
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.
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
8. Maintain Balance
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
35. Being Ready
#Stoic #Stoicism #StoicPhilosophy #GoingAlone #TheGoodLife #TrueLimitsAndOpportunity
My name is Kurt Bell
Learn more about The Good Life in my book Going Alone
Be safe... But not too safe