How To Implement Stoicism In A Bullet Journal Spread
I'm reading the Daily Stoic - though I'm very far behind. I have been using a habit tracker to ensure I read daily, and I read 2 pages (2 days' worth) a day, so at least I'm progressing. I'm considering how to incorporate the principles into my daily life.
- The Discipline of Perception
- The Discipline of Action
- The Discipline of Will
- Good Thoughts
- Good Words
- Good Deeds
1. Journaling
When I did a little research into who had covered this topic, it seemed to be mostly about writing a daily journal, perhaps with prompts inspired by the Stoics. This is fine, but not what I had in mind.
2. 3 Over-arching Concepts in the Book
Right now I'm still on Part 1, which deals largely with how occurrences, events and incidents aren't necessarily good or bad but are assigned these values by our thoughts. There's some thought given to differentiating between fact and opinion too. I'll have to wait till I'm done with the book to understand Parts 2 & 3.
3. Parallel To Zoroastrianism
This is the 3-fold path of Asha according to Zoroastrianism. I confess I picked this up from Bohemian Rhapsody, the Freddie Mercury biopic - and misremembered it as "Right Thoughts Right Words Right Action" which is an album by the band Franz Ferdinand. These 3 pillars don't map exactly to the sections of the Daily Stoic, but there is a common theme of guarding the mind against harmful thoughts which will lead to sub-optimal actions and outcomes. That's the concept I want to capture.
4. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy
This involves reframing thoughts and uses mindfulness practices that have some connection to Stoicism too. It's about avoiding assigning undue value to what occurs to us throughout the day.
5. A Spread for Collecting Thoughts
I'm imagining the page (or the upper part of a page) split in two. On one side (say, the left) we collect rational truths as we encounter them. On the other side, we collect thoughts that are biased and don't serve us. Collecting the 'bad' thoughts may seem counterproductive, but by identifying them, we can realize how we repeated false narratives.
6. Connecting Thoughts To Actions
Truths that are discovered get connected to an action to take (or better yet an action already taken); either through drawing a line or mapping both the thought and the action with common symbols (*, +, x, #, ~ as examples).
7. Countering Untruths
A thought from the 'bad' column could be connected back through a line to a reframed thought that is more rational and true, which let's you keep populating the 'good' column.
8. Habit Tracking The Bad Thoughts
Once a collection of bad thought patterns starts to form, they could be collected into a habit tracker. Every time you have one of these untrue/irrational opinions, you tick a box. The goal of course is to see a reduction in the daily frequency of these thoughts and enact a downward trend.
9. The Discipline of Will (Part 3)
Since I haven't read this part of the book, I'm not clear what it addresses, and I'm mostly guessing at the content of Part 2. Once I'm done reading the book, maybe I can expand these ideas.
10. Quantification
Assigning numeric values to qualities and subjective experiences can help increase rationality and objectivity. Data tracking moods, and emotions can be part of this process.
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