What is the one unconventional piece of Stoic advice that has significantly improved your life?

Step back. Draw back. Stop right there and free yourself of this burden.

It was so straight to the point and harsh that it seemed a completely new perspective but it was actually the greatest unconventional advice I ever listened to.

And those dreams can not come true without our actions, efforts and consistency. We are afraid of making a mistake and we curse ourselves if do any.

Why does Hollywood (except Atilla and Agora) ignore the Late Roman Empire in favour of the early one?

what do you do in this situation? You curse yourself. You feel down and broke. You crush yourself with the burden of doing something wrong.

We act to derive results. We want results to be driven because we want to become better in every portion of life. We want to become better because we have dreams.

We pursue our dreams because we want to become more fulfilled and happy. We want to become happy because we think that after doing so much toil we deserve to be happy.

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It shakes you to the core but makes you more stable afterward.

But you feel all of this because you consider yourself a significant being. You think of yourself as someone who did all and still got nothing.

But first, how to judge a revolutionary, unconventional and life-changing quote:

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It was such an unconventional and strange advice that I kept thinking about it for days. It completely shredded the skin of my thinking and gave rebirth to my thoughts.

SENECA says: “Laugh on yourself”.

LOVE.

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It challenges your existing beliefs and outlook on life.

We have to keep moving while laughing at ourselves because we are not that much significant.

When we keep looking, things gradually open themselves to us and we are born again after every new discovery or even after reading a life-changing quote or a book.

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This quote completely changes our perspective, it challenges our existing beliefs that you will always get what you strive for, it completely makes us hopeless by pinpointing the straight truth but slowly makes us someone who may not need help in difficult times.

After years of practicing this strange piece of advice, I gradually realized that this quote was not unconventional and strange at all but at its core, it was the truest wisdom of stoics.

What is that quote?

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You may sometimes give up on your dreams because that is just not meant to happen.

I read 30+ books and 1000+ quotes on stoicism and the philosophies of pioneer Stoic philosophers. And the most unconventional quote by a stoic is this:

You have made yourself hostile by not doing something wrong. You have enslaved yourself by aligning your happiness with your actions and results.

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Just get up and get something done because no matter what, you should not stop your virtuous actions which are a conviction of a well-lived life.

It completely changes your perspective about yourself and frees you from a huge burden you are carrying on your shoulders every day without any reason.

And the quote of SENECA checks all the boxes and leaves us in astonishment.

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It makes us realize that it’s not always what we expect but still, we have to keep going without needing any external force or motivation because our inner voice tells us that neither this is our point to stop or get disappointed nor anything should be our stop.

“We often believe that we are so significant that everything has to go our way and according to our thinking. What SENECA suggests is “Draw back further and laugh”.

The complete quote goes like this:

Who has experienced what they called a happy accident (bestiality)?

We align our happiness and satisfaction with our actions and their results. We feel proud of ourselves for putting in effort to be happy every day, each day.

I have been studying the philosophy of stoicism for a long time and the most unconventional thing I have come across so far is a life-changing and revolutionary quote from SENECA.

It makes you more satisfied and fulfilled.

Hello,hope y'all doin good, i came to Quora to share my strange story , a very weird one , a story when luck smiled at me ,maybe u will enjoy it , let's begin,have fun... A year ago ,I was a real porn addicted(btw I was 18) ,but never had sex before, I don't have a gf I didn't try to find one even ,always thinking to go to find a sex worker but then I just don't , everyday watching different bodies getting fucked and everyday enjoying. One day, I was watching porn, a big ass lady with big boobs ,just after seeing her the image of my female cousin poped in my mind, (let's introduce her : she's 35 years old , very big ass , nice boobs ,not very big but nice,always wearing tight clothes , she's divorced ) and I thought of me fucking her ,I never had sexual desires for her but now I do days went by and when I met her I was so horny ,I couldn't stay with the family cz my penis was clearly erected , I realized this is my first time I get horny for one of my family ,it not illegal in my country.well to make a long story short( if u want details just text me I will tell u 😊),I decided to give her signs that I want to fuck her,finally I decided to have sex and with my cousin , I thought it is the best beggining for me, i started touching her when I came across her in a narrow place , make her feel my hard cock when we hug , I thought it will hard and I will be ashamed but no , I felt nothing and she said nothing , probably she thought it was by mistake,anyways, I decided then to talk with her about sex, waited for her to be alone in a room and talk with her, I confessed everything about me watching porn and addicted..etc,she said it's normal and u are growing up and u must have sex,well at that time I was like whaaat????? Well I didn't control myself and asked her for sex ( horny like I Ve never been before) she said that she will think Abt it ,2 weeka went by then she called me ,telling that she reserved a room in a hotel and we meet tonight ,we met,and bruuhh, sex is great , I mean, I had to find a pirstitue ,what I was waiting for to have such a feeling ????, I will never forget that night, I started kissing her she was kissing hard ,she misses sex so bad , she sucked my dick and swallowed my semen ,I felt I'm in a dream , then when fucked ,her ass was very big and the anus was open ,didn't struggle to get my hard cock inside it , she was obviously missing sex , she was shouting ,fuck me yh fuck me , I go fast after every word until I cum , we did that 3 times , then we went to her pussy , using condoms I fucked her so hard the moans were higher , everything was perfect ,in the end I asked her to lick her body , licked pussy ,ass, boobs,then she sucked my cock until we sleeped ,all I know that she was dirty ,well before even having sex with her I knew she is an open minded woman , and a woman that looks that she donesnt know anything , but she knows everything, but never expected having sex with her ,well she was horny and that helped...but no one of us regretted that sex ever.. We still have sex from time to time ,and I started having sex with sex workers , joining threesomes..etc If u want pics of her text me.

Why?

You regret doing this and doing that. You don't feel gratitude toward life and you see the very nature of life as crushing instead of fulfilling and satisfactory.

You will not always get what you want. Sometimes, things get out of our control. You may not get your desired thing even by giving in all the world you have.

Do airline pilots try to avoid turbulence? How can you tell if your flight has been rerouted due to weather conditions or other factors?

Because that’s not happiness and you will not always achieve results. You will not always get something out of your efforts.

It completely changes you from head to toe.

You not only read such a quote but live it. You never forget it. It becomes part of your everyday life.

It gives meaning to your actions. Don’t underestimate this one. Giving meaning means it drives you so crazy that you keep on doing your actions without focusing on results, failures and even success.

It may look simple to you but let’s break it down.

During my theology study, I read hundreds of books from ancient to modern religions and their philosophies and outlook on life.

My outlook on the very nature of life and myself completely changed and everything seemed to change a lot.

You only observe a broken part but don't understand its significance in the long chain of life.

I came back from the dead after reading this SENECA quote.

And most important of all, the more we live this quote by applying it to practical life through our experiences, the more we understand its depth and how helpful it is.

It drives you to a dark abyss where you comprehend its meaning through your own experiences and then come back to the light on your own.

During my study of stoicism which is a philosophy of action, romanticizing suffering and virtuous wisdom. Wisdom which truly helps us to live with conviction and action without giving much importance to our suffering.

Yes, we consider ourselves significant. We get up every day and go out there to make the most out of life. We consider ourselves important because we act.

But instead of commending, feeling proud and happy, SENECA suggests that we should laugh.

Life exists in moments and you should live every moment. This chain of moments is the very nature of life which is complete and whole not broken and incomplete.

Well, drawback and laugh because that is not the truth. The truth is that not everything will go your way and you don't have to worry about it.