Hello, ! I believe you want to flourish in your endeavors. But the Stoics understood how well our brain persuades us to postpone difficult work. Luckily, they found ways to work around that resistance and make challenging action easier. And now, together with psychology and neuroscience techniques, you can make deliberate changes to how you think and behave, to give yourself a better chance of doing the hard things your ambitions require. If you missed the last edition on 17 Maxims For A Good Life, you can catch up right here.
“Lay hold of to-day’s task, and you will not need to depend so much upon to-morrow’s.” — Seneca, Letters 1.2
The Athenians laughed when Demosthenes tried to address them. His speech was bland, his voice weak, and his breath frequently interrupted his arguments. The public life he wanted required an ability he had yet to develop.
According to Plutarch, after another rejection Demosthenes headed home distressed. The actor Satyrus saw this and followed him. Our orator complained that he worked harder than other speakers, yet audiences preferred men he considered beneath him.
He was near to despair.
Satyrus asked him to recite a passage from a tragedy. When Demosthenes finished, the actor delivered the same words with such expression that they seemed transformed. Demosthenes recognized…