Vol. 24 - Try The Opposite, The New Cigs Inside, A New Hurdle

Happy Friday :)

Good afternoon.

Again, thanks for the new subscribers and the gift subscriptions. I am so grateful to have people who care about what I write about. I promised myself I’d start doing this for personal reasons—to get my thoughts out there and not worry about how I write them or what I say after a week of constantly editing and reworking my freelance work.

Try the opposite

An interesting piece of stoicism this week I read about is actually in one of my favorite books called “The Daily Stoic.” I read a brief sentence from Epictetus, a famous Stoic who had many of the most important ideas modern-day Stoics follow.

What assistance can we find in the fight against habit? Try the opposite!” - Epictetus, Discourses, 1.27.4

Much like most of the time I read something that stands out to me throughout the week, this hit me at the right time. I was frustrated with my habits of doing things throughout the day that served no purpose in helping me grow as a man.

These habits are formed, at least for me, through years of trying to find comfort in myself and my daily life. I struggle with a lot of discomfort with myself in many situations, and it’s human nature to just find any kind of comfort. I am lucky I don’t do anything physically harmful for myself, but these are habits that don’t do any good for me either.

This quote from Epictetus can mean many things, but it reminds me of an interesting psychology theory from Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl. He would treat patients with issues by telling them to do the opposite of what they are doing. The famous example was of a man who was struggling with insomnia; he asked the man to try not to fall asleep. The theory is basically saying the human mind's shifting focus can let it do what it’s actually supposed to do.

You Seinfeld fans might remember an episode in which George Constanza improved his life by doing the exact opposite of what he usually does. Ryan Holiday mentions this episode in his book The Daily Stoic.

That episode was of course the comedic, absurd version of this idea, but it’s an interesting theory. Even Epictetus thought about this two thousand years ago. This is the outside-the-box thinking that led philosophers like him to get banned from Rome—which is a conversation for another day.

I’m not saying we all should just do the opposite of what we have been doing, but it’s something to think about. The way I do things is obviously not getting me to where I want to be. I am grateful, but I know I can do so much more. So, I think it’s time to change things up, and this is giving me ideas and actual motivation and direction to exactly what I want to do.

The New Cigs Inside

I listened to one of my favorite comedy podcasts this week and an idea the host had was so interesting to me. He talked about how the comment sections on social media were basically today’s “smoking cigarettes inside.”

This was a throwaway bit, but as somebody who has thought a lot about the social media era over the last 10 years, it drew a perfect analogy.

At one point in the world, smoking indoors in public places was considered 100% normal. That is insane to think about today.

Today, going online and commenting on things under posts is normal. Saying hateful things, talking shit to people who don’t deserve any negativity, or even being really creepy with people of the opposite sex. This is all second nature to many people in the world.

I would life to imagine that someday, we evolve as humans enough to have some kind of idea of how to properly carry ourselves online. But, I get more and more uncertain that day will ever come every time I log into my social media apps.

Dad Update

For those who are interested, my dad will update his Caring Bridge soon with the new update.

Unfortunately, the CAR T therapy didn’t work as well as we hoped, and now the next step is a bone marrow transplant.

This is a day I have been worried about for about 13 years now. I remember always hoping that something else would work before we ever got to this point because this was always the “last shot” of treatment for him. I can’t believe it’s been this long and we are here.

On a positive note, my dad and my family are positive and more confident than I ever thought during this stage of his cancer battle. I am no doctor and this medical stuff confuses me, but what I have learned about this transplant has amazed me.

My dad will have much more info on it soon on his caring bridge, so please check this Facebook page in the next week or two.

I have been preparing for this for a long time and I always imagined myself as the one donating the bone marrow, but I believe they found several 10/10 matches to my dad in the database and that’s great.

Thank you all for the prayers and the generous donations to my dad over the last several years. It helps my family so much with medical bills and the craziness of all this.

2025 is going to be a bumpy road, but I have a lot of confidence that my dad is ready to fight and get over this big hurdle, even though it’s scary, and get out on the other side. This transplant opens up so many opportunities to fight this cancer.

Thanks for reading <3

Colten