L02 · Lens
Judgement, not event
Locate the disturbance in the opinion about the event, then test and revise that opinion before assenting to it.
Use: Insult, anger, catastrophising, hurt pride.
Boundary: Does not deny real harm; it limits the second wound added by interpretation.
Cues
Showing 17 of 17 cues
“Excellence withers without an adversary. It is not what you endure that matters, but how you endure it.”
“If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.”
“It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.”
“It’s time you realized that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet.”
“The greatest remedy for anger is delay.”
“Reason gives each side time to plead; moreover, she herself demands adjournment, that she may have sufficient scope for the discovery of the truth; whereas anger is in a hurry: reason wishes to give a just decision; anger wishes its decision to be thought just. ... The sword of justice is ill-placed in the hands of an angry man.”
“We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more in imagination than in reality.”
“Be like the cliff against which the waves continually break; but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.”
“I don't add to my troubles.”
“To bear trials with a calm mind robs misfortune of its strength and burden.”
“For a start, don’t be carried away by [the impression’s] vividness, but say: Wait for me a bit, impression; let me take a look at you and what you are about, let me test you. Next, don’t let it lead you on by painting a picture of what comes next. Otherwise, it is off and away, taking you wherever it wishes. Instead, confront it with another impression, a fine and noble impression, and dismiss this foul one.”
“For, unless you perfectly understand the principle from which anyone acts, how should you know if he acts ill?”
· Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 6.58; Robin Hard translation in Sayings and Anecdotes (2012)
“When someone said to Diogenes, ‘Most people laugh at you’, he replied, ‘And doubtless donkeys laugh at them; but just as they pay no heed to the donkeys, I pay none to them.’”
“If you come across any special trait of meanness or stupidity. .you must be careful not to let it annoy or distress you, but to look upon it merely as an addition to your knowledge - a new fact to be considered in studying the character of humanity. Your attitude towards it will be that of the mineralogist who stumbles upon a very characteristic specimen of a mineral.”
“It is not things that trouble us, but our judgements about things.”
“Begin therefore from little things. Is a little oil spilt? A little wine stolen? Say to yourself, “This is the price paid for equanimity, for tranquillity, and nothing is to be had for nothing.”
What did they think they gained?
When injured, ask: what good or harm did this person think would come of their action? Is my sense of good and evil the same as theirs, or different?