Speaker 1Hello again, everybody. How you doing? Hope all is well. Another episode, as promised, on crafting and pursuing purpose. We're going to take our same approaches last time. And once again, if you have any questions or you want me to elaborate more on a point and we're not working together and there's no other way to reach me, please feel free, follow, message, whatever, philosophyastherapy__ny on Instagram, and I will do my best to get to that and create episodes that are useful for whoever's listening. So on that note, let's get into some questions with this idea of purpose. I want to start today off with a piece of Japanese philosophy called Ikigai, which translates to reason for being. There are a lot of great books on this. And essentially, for me, again, I just turn things into questions. It's kind of how I look at things. So Ikigai is comprised of thinking about the following. What are you good at? What do you love? What do you think the world needs? And what can you be paid for? So we answer these questions, and then the convergence point is where Ikigai lives. Right? So those are four great questions, I think, to start off with that'll get us moving towards either cultivating a new sense of purpose or a more powerful connection to our current sense of purpose. Right? So those are great. Think about those four. And here's a few more. What qualities are you developing? Which of your actions that you regularly regularly take are the least necessary? What are your most common excuses? And where do they come from? Do your actions match your words? Why? Why not? How and how not? What have you accomplished? This month? And how have you grown this month? So that growth? I think let's kind of interpret that once again, kind of broadly. So not only maybe have you saved more money? That's a good question for sure. Again, back to Ikigai for a little bit, right? But how have you pursue? How have you pursued what you what you love? How have you worked on cultivating the things you're good at to become better? How have you maybe brought up some of your weaker skills? Or how have you, you know, made progress in filling a need, or a perceived need for the world? Right? So we're talking here about ethical self cultivation, you getting better. And then also moral development, right? So you influencing the world in a more positive way, and you offering, let's say, better things to the world. So taking account of that progress through that through those questions, I think, is a solid idea. All right, so let's move on to the, the prompt for this discussion. which kind of connects again to one of the questions as a lot of these will. But I think looking at it in this way might make it a little more clear. So one second. Skills I should develop are list three. I should develop those skills because think about the why, I think really important. And then I will develop these skills by. So that's the actual program of development, right? And I think by skills, we can replace that or think of that again, broadly, like it could be working on a resume. It could be like writing. It could be the skill of being patient to the skill of being confident, which is a skill, right? So thinking about not only what we need to do, why we need to do it, and then how we should do it, I think is a really good, a good idea. And it's something that can work for a lot of different things, right? Those three sort of lenses. What do I need to do? Why bother? How will I be able to do it? And then how we should do it, I think is a really good, a good idea. Get it done. Additionally, I think thinking of the three things that will discourage us from pursuing this development and identifying them. And then, yeah, one, two, three, once again, with the prompt sort of framework and addressing each, but how we can deal with these moments or these sources of discouragement better and why they might be so discouraging is a useful exercise, self-writing, or again, go for a walk, I think, and on these things. So hope that was helpful. And thought-provoking. Let's now get into a little bit of philosophy to help us out here. So this is going to be coming from Epictetus, another Stoic philosopher today. You too will be at one time a wrestler, at another, a gladiator, then a philosopher, then an orator, but with your whole soul, nothing at all. This is another piece of encouragement, similar to what Seneca said, right? For, or with who is everywhere is nowhere. We have to commit to things is what this makes me think of, right? Especially with purpose, right? We have to be something, then we should try to be good, the best at that something. Right? So again, not creating all these different goals that don't even serve each other, but instead spending time to think about what our path and purpose in life should be such that we can follow it more ardently, right? More passionately, more consistently. Well, so we'll stick with Epictetus a little bit here. And these are more questions, but this is great, right? He says, clearly define the person you want to be. Clearly, that's the key element there, right? Also why writing I think is so powerful. It's more clear than thinking. Thinking is difficult. We've got a lot of thoughts going on. It's rare for me that I work myself into better thinking by only thinking about my thoughts. And that whole sentence, that's evidence enough that what I just said is true, right? So we have to maybe write about this is my suggestion there. Right? Who exactly do you want to be? What kind of person do you want to be? What are your personal ideals? Whom do you admire? Right? What are their special traits that you could work to also develop in your own way? Okay. Explicitly identify the kind of person you aspire to become. If you have a daybook, write down who you're trying to be so that you can refer to this self-definition, right? So this to me is one of the greatest purposes we could have, developing ourselves. And ultimately, I think, at the end of the day, most other purposes will only ever really serve that purpose. Right? So it's maybe the largest purpose we have is the fact that no matter what we're doing, even if it's seemingly nothing, which there's no such thing as nothing, right? If you're living, you're making a self, which is also maybe what I'm trying to convey, right? The most omnipresent purpose is creation of the self. And again, he suggests writing here, which is great to do it more precisely. So things to think about. Focus on your main duty. There is a time and a place for diversion and amusement, but you should never allow them to override your true purposes. Another great piece of advice. And then we'll end it here. Another piece from Epictetus titled, Start Living Your Ideals. Once you have determined the spiritual principles you wish to exemplify, again, you've set out this purpose for yourself. Abide by these as if they were laws. Don't mind if others don't share your convictions. How long can you afford to put off who you really want to be? Your nobler self cannot wait any longer. Put your principles into practice now. Stop the excuses and the procrastination. This is your life. You aren't a child anymore. The sooner you set yourself to your spiritual program, the happier you will be. The longer you wait, the more you will be vulnerable to mediocrity and feel filled with shame and regret because you know you're capable of better. From this instant on, vow to stop disappointing yourself. So a little bit about Epictetus, right? Before I end this episode, he wrote nothing down, right? Nothing we have from him was written by him. It was all written by his students. So I'd have to imagine this would be a part of the class where students were practicing that sort of philosophy as a way of life, philosophy as therapy, right? He viewed his school as a hospital for people who were suffering from anxiety and depression. So of course, this is thousands of years ago, right? Ancient Greece. So we're thinking about a time before modern psychology had developed. So here he is telling us to create a purpose and abide by it and asking us to always sort of check in with ourselves, right? So the idea of stop disappointing yourself first involves that you create an image of yourself that you're pursuing, right? Because in order to be disappointed, you have to fail at something, right? I think another piece of advice from him that works, right after that sentence is to try to apply self-scrutiny, right? To examine ourselves, but to do so as kindly as we can, which doesn't mean that there are times when we have to be tough on ourselves. Of course those exist, but generally, right? Especially if we're doing it as frequently as we should, we should try to be kind. So in the pursuit of our own personal purposes that we've crafted, right? We want to be practicing this sort of like philosophical, the ancient word for it is, or not even necessarily just ancient, right? It's still in Greek a little bit. You'll hear it in Greek speaking. What you'll hear when people speak Greek, like prosecute means like vigilance, sort of watching over yourself. And the goal of that, or the reason why you would practice that type of vigilance is you're trying to master yourself, right? So self-mastery is the overall aim there. So we want to do that frequently and why not do it kindly when, whenever possible, right? So we're not being too hard on ourselves basically, but we need in order to have a fulfilling life, as he's saying here, we need a challenge ourselves to become more confident. That's very purposeful, to become more patient, to become more balanced, right? So keep that in mind. Again, Hope the question prompt, a few quotes, framework is good. Let me know if you have other suggestions. But that'll be it for this session. Right at 10 minutes. Okay. Thank you for listening. Talk to you soon.
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