Happy Sunday Friend!

Welcome back to another musing! I’m glad you’re here!

Here is 1 quote I’m musing, 2 Ideas, 3 of my favorite things from the week, and 1 question. If you find it useful or interesting, please feel free to forward this along to some friends or others!

One Quote I’m Musing

“Everything that happens is either endurable or not. If it’s endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining. If it’s unendurable… then stop complaining. Your destruction will mean its end as well. Just remember: you can endure anything your mind can make endurable, by treating it as in your interest to do so.”

-Marcus Aurelius

It’s About Endurance

The human body and mind are designed for struggle, for endurance. We are at our happiest when we overcome an obstacle, achieve a goal. The next best thing is to see the next hill on the horizon that we’ll tackle.

Albert Camus writes in The Myth of Sisyphus “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

It’s about endurance (and the discipline it takes). Take any text (religious or otherwise) that is written with guidance on living well and you’ll find the concepts of endurance.

Oxford says endurance is “The ability to keep doing something difficult, unpleasant, or painful for a long time” and “The ability to withstand hardship or adversity”.

Wikipedia has a definition that I particularly like. “the ability of an organism to exert itself and remain active for a long period of time, as well as its ability to resist, withstand, recover from and have immunity to trauma, wounds, or fatigue.”

Hebrew’s 12:11 talks about how no discipline seems pleasant when we’re going through it. Later, however, those that have been trained by it feel a sense of rectitude and peace.

Why is endurance so important? Because as we work towards our goals, enduring the struggles, the hardships along the way, we put ourselves together; improving our life as we continually move forward, toward something better. Endurance builds resilience, and resilience helps us persevere.

The obstacle before us doesn’t look so bad if we’ve overcome other obstacles; endured lesser and greater hardships, any hardships at all make the next more manageable.

To Endure, Act

We’ll either get through it or we won’t. Complaining won’t somehow make it easier, in fact, it makes it more difficult, because we are focused on defeat rather than realizing we can endure most anything simply because we believe we can.

The problem seems insurmountable only because we haven’t acted. We waste our lives by putting off action. Find the action you can take today, take now, and take that course of action.

Like Marcus said, we’ll either succeed or we won’t when we act. But we will always fail if we don’t.

Dig Deep

Epictetus reminds us “Prudent people look beyond the incident itself and seek to form the habit of putting it to good use. On the occasion of an accidental event, don’t just react in a haphazard fashion: remember to turn inward and ask what resources you have for dealing with it.”

Don’t just go into mindless survival mode, endure by understanding the situation you find yourself in and then respond accordingly. Also, not everything needs a reaction.

Keep Going

When you look back, you’ll see how far you’ve come. But to get there, we must commit to putting in the work. There’s a famous shoe company out there that says to “Just Do It”.

Tired, scared, sick of the grind? Go anyway, go through the motions if you have to, but get it done. Keep moving forward. Endure. Don’t give in to the tiny whisper of immediate gratification. Don’t take today off; start and finish today, see what tomorrow looks like, maybe take tomorrow off. Take the gratification of having built endured. If tomorrow arrives and you’re still burnt out, still tired; then consider the rest. But odds are that when you get to tomorrow, you won’t need it.

I’ll leave you with one last quote that is both humorous and surprisingly deep.

It’s from Bojack Horseman.

“BoJack: Life's a b**** and then you die, right?
Diane: Sometimes. Sometimes life's a b***** and then you keep living.”

Two Ideas From Me

There isn’t anything in this life you are competing with save one thing. Your past self.
Read and be a little smarter than they were. Workout to get a little more fit.

Get 1% better every day, and you’ll be more than 300% better in a year than you were yesterday.
Those butterflies in your stomach giving you anxiety, they’re yours. You can turn that feeling from anxiety to anticipation, to excitement. It’s your energy, use it how you need it.

Three Favorite Things From Others

Information - How do we link the Army’s application of information to all warfighting functions and methods of warfare? ADP 3-13 was released just a few days ago! | More
Cybersecurity Framework as Art. It’s quite the feat to make something like a cybersecurity controls register appealing, yet alone aesthetically pleasing. Check it out! Tor-Ståle Hansen build out a visualization of the most referenced controls in NIST SP 800-53. It’s not only useful, its stunningly attractive. | More
“Practice is the price you pay today to be better tomorrow.” - James Clear, Author.

One Question

What is something you really wish you had the courage to do?

Follow up: Think of a step you can take to start in the next five minutes.

Shoot Me Your Feedback!

Which is your favorite? What else do you want to see or what should I eliminate? Any other suggestions? Just send a tweet to @erichaupt on Twitter and put #SundayMusings at the end so I can find it. Or, eric@erichaupt.com for long form email.

Have a wonderful week, I’ll see you Sunday.
-e