Another forgotten intention

I woke up. I could not get back to sleep.

I thought about doing something to kill time. But everything that crossed my mind was something I knew that I would regret in the morning.

Maybe it would be mindless eating. Maybe watching a stupid video. Maybe catching up on latest Donald Trump drama.

What would it be?

I felt drawn toward distraction, unable to stop.

I thought of waking Bobbi. I knew that talking to her would keep me from a bad decision. But I didn’t want to disturb her sleep.

What would I do?

My mind was at full race, trying to convince me that none of my bad habits were that bad. I could pick the least bad one, and have done with it.

And then, good fortune, I picked up the device on which I’d been reading “The Daily Stoic.”

I remembered.

I’d gotten it at on January 1, and I’d decided to read one essay each day.Here it was January 16th. There it was January 4th—the last day I’d read.

I had not only failed to carry out my good intention, but I had forgotten that I’d decided to do it.

I decided that rereading the first four days, and reading forward to today would be not be something I’d regret.

And I didn’t regret it. Not at all.

Lessons from The Daily Stoic

My reading reminded me:

1. I need to remember what I can control and what I can’t.

2. The only thing that I can reasonably hope to control is my mind. And right now I don’t control it that well.

3. That all I do in the world is the product of I mind. Since I want to improve the world, I need to start with my own mind.

4. My main job in life is improving my mind.

5. The distractions of life are efforts by others to control my mind—and thus control me and what I do.

6. There are lots of things in my mind that I don’t want there. I need to clean it up.

Another lesson

There’s another lesson here.

Intention matters. I can change the world with my mind but only by forming an intention and holding that intention.

So I renew my intention to read the Daily Stoic every day.

There’s a good chance I’ll make that intention stick.

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