A Stoic for any Season in the year ahead
In writing this, I first hope that you have all had a wonderful Christmas and a great start to the new year. I would also like to thank you all for your support throughout the year for A Stoic for Any Season and I hope some of what I have written has resonated with you.
This piece will just serve to keep all of my loyal subscribers in the loop as to my plans for 2025. So for those of you who are happy to skim through the odd article, you can stop reading here. However, I would also like to reiterate that my trademark wit will be evident throughout this piece. Which should be more than enough of a reason for you to read to the end I would hope!
A few too many resolutions for 2025
On Sunday the 5th of January I sat down with my girlfriend and put pen to paper as to my New Year’s resolutions for the year ahead. Amongst the mix of the deep, shallow, and outright bizarre, I have seen a number of opportunities to explore Stoicism further and share the outcome with you all.
Most prominent in my mind is the possibly disastrous commitment to run two marathons in 2025. I will be kicking this off with the Limerick marathon in May and an as-yet unplanned marathon abroad. I plan to write several pieces on Stoicism and marathon running throughout the year. All in keeping with the marathon runner’s worst personality trait, an inability to talk about anything other than marathon running.
I will be kicking off this running and Stoicism thread by discussing my chaotic first marathon in 2023. Particularly in how I balanced training and a job as a corporate solicitor (lawyer), much of which I attribute to my continued Stoic practice.
I have also taken the plunge and handed in my notice, to move countries with a new role. This has been a less than seamless process so far, one which has brought with it stresses and uncertainty to a degree I have been unacquainted with to this date.
Whether this was in rejecting the safe option of staying in my current employment, interviewing for the first time in six years, or simply doubting my every step off the well-worn trail. This may prove to be a misstep but one a leap I am glad to have taken in the first place. One which will require me to test myself on multiple levels and ensure that I rely on my Stoic practice every step of the way.
I will be keeping you all posted on how I manage this process by implementing Stoicism and expanding my practice throughout the course of this journey into the unknown.
Collaborations
In growing the channel and aiming to reach my goal of ensuring as many people as possible resonate with my writing, I aim to engage in several collaborations with other writers. This will allow me to flex my writing muscles and evaluate my approach to Stoicism by examining its practices from a different lens in each instance.
The first such collaboration of the New Year will be with
CT Dool the writer behind the fantastic
Grow Dangerously which I could not recommend highly enough. His Substack focuses on personal development and escaping the 9-5, which in the modern day there is something all of us can relate to within this overarching theme. So for all A Stoic for Any Season readers, I recommend you check out his work and subscribe to ensure you don’t miss out on any of CT’s articles.
A Stoic Thought for the New Year
Here in Ireland, we enjoyed an exceptionally mild Winter, “fantastic” I hear you all say. However, that was right up until late last week when the cold snap finally kicked in. The cold, dark, wet, and windy conditions have made the joys of staying wrapped up in bed into the dying minutes of the morning even more attractive. That is right up until a certain Marcus Aurelius quote pops into my head,
“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: ‘I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?’”
We are not born to lie warm within the covers, rather we are members of the human race and as such we are charged with the duty of contributing to such each day. We are blessed with the ability to make a positive difference to the greater whole with every passing moment.
So what excuse have you ready for the morning, “It is too cold”, “I am too tired”, “I am not ready for today”. I have been guilty of this, even yesterday morning I struggled with getting up given the return to a job I am leaving and the sudden coldness.
Yet when I get up consistently and make a solid habit of this bearing in mind the words of Marcus Aurelius, the burden of such gets easier each day. I become stronger by the effects of a journey with no true end. It may seem small, an extra hour or two in bed, but no excuses worked with Marcus, and in great or small nor should they with us.
In 2025, get up, get involved, and do not let the missteps of a year past keep you huddled beneath the covers.
