Wow, have I really written ten of these things? Time flies when your quarantining… It is only noon, but today has been a GREAT day. I woke up on time without an alarm (ha), my children CRUSHED their remote-learning assignments with a smile, every teacher I have interacted with today has been so positive. Trust me, this doesn’t happen everyday. I have learned to appreciate days like this when they happen because I know challenging days are also part of the equation. As they say “you’ve got to take the bad with the good”. Seneca stated, “Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a se ..read more

“If your purpose is something larger than you-to accomplish something, to prove something to yourself-then suddenly everything becomes easier and more difficult” -Ryan Holiday Whether slowly over time you developed an intrinsic motivation toward self improvement or you’ve had an “epiphany” that has jolted you toward personal success, your time has inevitably become more occupied. The road toward success is a busy one. What generally separates successful people from their unproductive counterparts is effort. There is no secret to success. If you work hard enough and for long enough, you will re ..read more

Hold yourself to the highest standard, while giving everyone else the benefit of the doubt. Another difficult component of Stoicism is to allow others to be imperfect and not let their flaws affect you on your path to greatness. This can often seem almost impossible, especially for a middle-schooler. We can get so caught up in what others think of us and become persuaded by popular trends, we forget that all of those things are actually our of our control and not worth our energy. And why aren’t they worth our attention? Because they exist whether we focus on them or not! Marcus Aurelius state ..read more

Stillness is the Key The culture in the United States and more specifically the Northeast is, as they say, hustle and bustle. Many of us live face-paced lives and we tend to miss a lot of things happening around us. We miss obscure events in nature and small experiences with our families and friends because we develop this tunnel vision towards the “next thing”. We create this habit of living life as a destination instead of a journey. In addition to our pace, we give too much control to distractions. We allow so many things into our life and afford them an emotional response when in reality ..read more

“Show Me Your Shoulders…” In mid-March Governor Charlie Baker issued a “stay-at-home” advisory. Recently this government recommendation has been extended through May 18th. For most of us, staying at home all day goes against our very nature. We are social people, we no not like being tied down. As the saying goes, “places to go and people to see”. However, an unfortunate consequence of being forced to stay in one place, is the likelihood that you do just that….stay in one place! The great Stoics spent their lives developing their minds and harnessing their emotions. However, they did not advan ..read more

The Buildings are closed, but schools are open. So Governor Charlie Baker announced yesterday that school buildings will remain closed for the remainder of the 2019/2020 school year. However, the education of our youth must continue. We have recently transitioned to required remote learning and this will continue until the end of the school year in June. This will require a significant CHANGE in thinking for it to work, both for the students and the teachers. Stoic philosophy can help us determine where specifically, we can direct our efforts. Change What You Can—Forget the Rest  The sing ..read more

None of us signed up for this…but here we are. “Wherever we are, whatever we’re doing and wherever we are going, we owe it to ourselves, to our art, to the world to do it well...We will be and do many things in our lives. Some are prestigious, some are onerous, non are beneath us. To whatever we face, our job is to respond with: hard work, honesty and helping others as best we can…you should never have to ask yourself, But what am I supposed to do now? Because you should know the answer: your job” -Ryan Holiday When I began the process of moving out of the classroom and into administration, I ..read more

In 2013 the United States was navigating through a difficult economic recession. During this time, we received great words of wisdom from a seemingly unlikely source, a rock musician named Henry Rollins. Henry gave a commencement speech at Woodbury University and although his words were focused on a vastly different national concern, I think they are as relevant during the COVID-19 crisis as they were almost a decade ago. Here are a few selected pieces from that speech: “We live in very interesting times…When you’re going into an..environment that looks pretty scary, it is easy to lose your mo ..read more

“Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant” -Victor Frankl This quote from Frankl reminds me of a similar expression from George Elliot which states that, “it’s never too late to be who you might have been”. The latter quote is one that I have used many times while counseling students and one that I have tried to use as personal motivation. Life typically comes at you fast. We can easily get stuck reacting instead of proactively mapping out a path fo ..read more

This is my first blog in what I hope becomes a great two-way resource for the Stoklosa community (and beyond) to sharpen the tools necessary to live a happy, successful, virtuous and STOIC life. I want to begin by stating that much of what I present here is NOT my own. Many great minds throughout history have already posed articulate and thoughtful views on the world and how to navigate it. I am merely using their thoughts to create discussion points. Why do this? Because where better to invest you time, than in yourself? Let me begin with a quote from Epictetus, a famous Stoic Philosopher ..read more