Welcome, May!

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The past few weeks have been stressful. Training new employees, dealing with difficult customers, not sleeping well, not exercising (I’ve gained 20 pounds in the last two years), getting through family drama (two life-threatening events in the same day, 2000 miles apart: my dad’s heart attack in NM and a 9 year grandchild starting the rest of his life with Type 1 Diabetes) . . .  My CrossFit lifestyle withered into oblivion when I lost my job at the University in 2020, as Covid got going. Deep depression brought me to a standstill as I took a few months to try to reset. Since then, my physical status has been on steady decline. Now my daily schedule looks something like this: Work 3-11 pm (on a good day), Go to bed at 4 am, get up between 10:30 am and noon, get booted up and go back to work. If I get one day off a week I’m fortunate. At least I don’t have to work all night for now. That was the worst.  So I haven’t had time or energy to do much, even read, much less write. And since my

Bigger Plans

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"Whenever you find yourself blaming providence, turn it around in your mind and you will see that what has happened is in keeping with reason." (Epictetus, Discourses 3.17)

Ryan Holiday explains this perfectly. "Part of the reason we fight against the things that happen is that we're so focused on our plan that we forget that there might be a bigger plan we don't know about . . . . We also forget that we're not the only people who matter and that our loss might be someone else's gain."


I am learning not to get upset when things don't go my way. How about you? Epictetus teaches that there's a "reason" at work, far beyond ours. Yes, we should make plans but we should also be flexible for we simply do not understand enough of all things to make plans perfectly. Don't miss this though: Epictetus did not come up with this principle out of the blue. Reason led him to it. We know this because the same principle surfaces in other cultures--an objective and personal being has a purpose at work.

Life becomes much easier when we remember there are two parts to the equation: my subjectivity + a personal objectivity = guided reason.

Why should we shake our fist at God when things don't go our way? We don't know the number of hairs on the back of a Tibetan yak, so how can we say that God is to blame for our failed plans? We just don't know enough. Turn it around in your mind and see there's a greater mind at work. Be relieved of that responsibility, shift gears and try again.

Don't stop thinking big, though.

"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." (Rom. 8:28)

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