Do you feel like you are kind of a crusty old shell of something that used to be a fun and cool person? Like a sea urchin someone removed from the sea fifty years ago, hollowed out, and filled with hard candies from the seventies that have since become dusty?

This happens to everyone from time to time.  

You probably still want to make progress in your life, though.

When I first started writing Bullish (here I shall “oh sweet summer child” myself), I envisioned it as a series of articles for already-high achievers who wanted to MAX THEIR SHIT OUT. I knew – as a successful, unencumbered person who even had great biceps – that I was in a brief season in life where the shit had not hit the fan. I knew the shit would hit the fan later, and I wrote about it obsessively. MAX YOUR SHIT OUT, MAKE PROGRESS, PREPARE YOUR FUTURE SELF FOR DOOMSDAY.

I was surprised, then, to start getting so many questions from people dealing with bad shit now, already. At one Bullish Conference, we did an opening roundtable where one person mentioned dealing with migraines, and then something like twenty percent of the remaining attendees also disclosed that they have serious migraines, and then fortunately there was a workshop on succeeding despite limitations by Esmé Wang, who has written about schizophrenia and late-stage Lyme Disease, and who, among many useful tips, talked about writing a book from bed on her phone. 

Does Bullish disproportionately attract migraine sufferers? It is very possible.

Let’s talk about how to move your life forward when you are a dried-out husk of a person. 

Don’t put tasks on your list that you know you don’t have the personality for

I have had many business ideas that were dependent on doing something like, “Go around to local stores and sell them on this idea.” I will never do that. Not even once. Doing this just one time would take weeks of my life energy, like that torture machine they put Westley on in The Princess Bride.

If you are an eldritch horror, you are not the person to do that task. 

Does the task actually need done? 

If it was assigned to you by a boss, discuss with the boss how the overall project will be more effective if you instead do some other, specific thing that you are an expert in, and the sprightly social task goes to some person on whom you will now lay numerous, sincere compliments. “I was just thinking that our new hire, Brad, has an amazing ability to build relationships with IT vendors, so I think he’d be very successful at presenting our offering to delivery drivers. It would be a growth opportunity for him.”

What if it wasn’t a boss? Did you do this? If you assigned this task to yourself, go look in the mirror: You are Gollum and you would want your ring back if you cared enough, right? What were you thinking? Now seriously:

What was the endgame of that task? To sell something? To publicize something? To get a new job?  In order to make progress, you need to keep your end goal in sight. 

How can you reach that endgame in a way that turns your personality – or the dank remains of your personality at this time – into a strength? What can you do that Brad cannot and how can you use it to achieve your aims? Can you build relationships with other dank souls and malcontents? Can you make a name for yourself by publicly hating something? Can you methodically do a large task so detailed that Brad would forget who he is halfway through?

Are you in a hiring position? You can hire a chipper personality. Do not abuse that person or make them sad. You can’t completely abnegate the emotional labor burden of interacting with humans professionally. But a “cheerful demeanor,” a “good phone personality,” the “ability to express excitement to prospects about our offerings” are all things you can hire for. Plenty of people are naturally bubbly and extroverted and have not found a way to monetize this characteristic, so you could form a mutually beneficial professional relationship with such a person. 

Feminists talk a lot about emotional labor. The point of recognizing emotional labor isn’t that no one should do it – it’s that it’s real work. What’s great about that is that you can pay someone to do it, and when you pay someone to do it, you don’t have to. Make progress by finding this person and enlisting them ASAP.

And remember: only assign yourself Dark Arts from now on.

Already a dried-out husk? You are INVINCIBLE

There is a Chinese expression “to eat bitterness,” meaning to suck it up and do something unpleasant. Is your life already bitter? Do things kind of suck? How much more bitterness could you absorb into your life and not even notice? Can you make progress in your life by doing that, at least for a time?

When your life is charmed, it’s quite a blow to have to lock yourself in a room and study biochem or do those tedious physical therapy exercises that are going to fix your back. But there comes a point of stoicism in the life of a desiccated woodland tree-witch whose rage has deadened into stoic glowering and beetles. BRING IT, you are numb to the punishment these tasks bring!

Begin the tasks that are too painful for the sweet, tender-skinned above-ground people. 

I wrote in this article about breakups:

Finally, heartbreak can be helpful. It drowns out a lot of other things, like muscle soreness from really solid exercising, or boredom from monotonous forms of work. Go organize all the receipts for your taxes. Run. Take the cat to the vet. Do 500 calf raises. Make flashcards of French verb conjugations. Heartbreak  will numb you to the little trials and boredoms that bog down happy people.

Just do really productive, somewhat-boring things repetitively and stoically in order to improve your life, so that when you feel better, you’ll look around and say, “Holy shit, the sun is shining again and my job is amazing and I can do six pullups in a row and I speak French?”

You will now make progress in your own life by taking a course that you hate but that will put you well above your peers, or crunching so much data that the presentation of this data to a decision maker will frighten them. Are you filled with hate? How much hate can you encompass in the bone-chilling void that is your psyche at this time? Do more things the tenderhearted cannot bear. It’s leg day at the gym. Let your quads burn like you want to burn your enemies.  

Slowly and stoically, set up your future self

Some of us identify as a “Wednesday” and some of us as a “Morticia,” but sometimes, you absolutely cannot be bothered to style your gothic hair and form human words with your mouth. You are Lurch. And you know what Lurch does for the Addams family? He is a butler. 

You will be your own butler. 

And I wrote in this article about how to be productive when you’re a little tipsy:

Think of drunk-you as the lovably inexact personal assistant to sober-you.

Go ahead and have some more wine. Now what does sober-you need to get started tomorrow? An outfit? Great, get that ready.

A packed lunch? Pack her one of those mason jar salads so she doesn’t have to worry about lunch and can stay at her desk working. You can make a mason jar salad while inebriated: Just put the dressing at the bottom, and something that’s not lettuce on top of that, and some lettuce on the top. If you don’t have any lettuce, just throw some food in a jar. Many cultures have different ideas of what constitutes “salad.” A jar of meat and candy is a salad if you believe it in your heart.

A Post-It on her monitor reminding her of her top priority? Do it.

Certain documents and emails all in one place? Great idea! Most of the time that people procrastinate on a task, it’s because they don’t have all their materials together, and they don’t know clearly what the steps should be. Two drinks in the night before is a great time to work that out.

Now tomorrow-you can get started first thing in the morning.

The same principle applies, except you are not drunk. You are a Frankensteinian force of (un)nature, moving things where they need to be, rearranging your haunted mansion. Prop up a corpse in the corner! Festive! Choose a Powerpoint template and make a title slide as though you are making it for a completely different person who likes giving presentations. Set it up as much as you can for your future self. Headshot? Page numbers? Lurch can do this well enough.

It seems likely that you will eventually have a future self who is more like the daywalkers, laughing and brunching and signing emails “Cheers!” If you think that will happen in a few days, get all your future self’s clothes ready and clean out their inbox. If you think it’ll be a lot longer until they’re back, stop buying things that a large assemblage of stolen body parts unnaturally imbued with life wouldn’t need and aggressively save money so later they can live in a rotting tree stump in a haunted forest without having to go into the village to buy spider parts and cauldrons.

Look, sometimes, you fulfill your childhood potential, and sometimes you’re just a compost bin behind a face. That’s okay. It happens to everyone. 

There’s no need to feel guilty about already feeling bad. It’s possible to arrange your work to be a better fit for your inescapable knowledge of human decay. Where are my sea witches? Where are my raccoon people? Let’s do this.

The post How to Make Progress When You’re Just a Dried-out Husk of a Person first appeared on GetBullish Shop | Blog | Community.

Updated for 2024

So, people say “Inbox Zero” to you – the idea that your email inbox should be at zero or near-zero at all times – and you laugh uproariously, right?

Those Silicon Valley slimeballs with their Soylent and their empty inboxes and, I don’t know, probably a $400 smart backpack that monitors how many times a day they clench their stupid buttcheeks.

Because you don’t have 200 unanswered emails waiting for you, you have thousands. So many thousands.

Yeah, cool. On it.

I think it’s possible for some people to have an enormously full inbox and just pick and choose from it they things they like, and ignore the rest. This may be generational; Gen Z doesn’t seem to care. Or people who do this may simply be so low-anxiety they’re basically dead. Not the worst way to be.

But for many people, a full inbox is a very, very poorly organized to-do list full of bad feelings.

So let’s work it out. I’m going to assume you’re using Gmail.

So, first, you cheat: Make a folder called “To Be Processed” and put everything more than about four weeks old in it.

This is a lie. You will never process these emails.

This is much like putting unwanted food back in the fridge, knowing you are going to let it spoil and then, later, you’ll have no choice but to throw it out. You will not apologize for this. It is your inbox and you owe forthrightness about it to no one.

If anyone asks you about one of these emails, which will almost certainly never happen, you can say, “Ah, I think that got stuck in the processing area of my email. What can I do for you now?” It sounds like you have a very specific system and are very busy and organized.

Now, regarding the last four weeks of email – deal with the low-hanging fruit first.

Mark any spam as such. Unsubscribe from promotions if you’ve got the energy, but you can also just delete them for now. Once your inbox is empty, an unwanted promotional email landing in it is much more offensive and you’ll be more motivated to unsubscribe from those emails as they come in. If you are reluctant to delete promotional emails because you might actually want what’s in them, delete the emails and add “check out URL.com and decide whether to buy” to your to-do list.

Emails from friends? Who even does that anymore? Archive, then text the person (or Facebook message, etc.). Emailing a reply will only invite more emails. 

Any emails that just seem kind of stale, like the moment has passed? Or you just don’t know what to do about them? Put them in the “To Be Processed” folder along with the old emails. Tell yourself that replying now would just remind the person that you let their email sit and rot, and they’d much prefer a fresh email or call from you later. 

Do you have a boss who would be upset if you just archived all their emails? I’ve gotcha, no worries. Ask for a meeting to catch up on some things. Bring a notepad. Make a few bullet points ahead of time about the major areas of discussion. Then try, “I’ve got a lot of emails, so I thought it would be easier to just sit down for a few minutes and talk about priorities and anything else you need from me right now.” Find out what the boss wants to hear back from you on. Then archive their emails, and do the stuff on the notepad.

You can do this with other people, too. Do you have a handful of old, complicated messages from the same person? How about, “Hey, we have a lot to talk about with the XYZ project and a couple other things – can we catch up over coffee this week?”

Now, are you down to 20-100 emails that represent real tasks?  Great. 

Most of the items in your in-box that represent to-do items are not particularly more important than the to-do items that aren’t represented by emails in your inbox, but they take on an outsized importance because they’re sitting in your cursèd inbox, breathing like swamp creatures just waiting in a dim bog for you to sink and become theirs, forever. These to-do items need put in their place and these emails need to die.

Open a Google doc or Google Sheets or other spreadsheet or whatever online thing you use for a to-do list. I use Airtable. Write down what the tasks are. Each task should begin with a verb. “Mark Smedkoff” is not a task. “Reply to Mark Smedkoff” begins with a verb, which is better, but not very specific. What do you need to do in order to reply? We’re looking for something like, “Tell Mark Smedkoff no to his project” or “Email Mark Smedkoff old 2021 taxes,” in which case you will probably need to add another to-do: “Find old 2021 taxes.”

If the email from Mark said nothing except, essentially, “Send me the 2021 taxes,” archive the email. If the email contains necessary information:

• Copy the URL of the email (works in gmail and probably other webmail)
• If using a document, make the to-do list item a link to this email
• If using a spreadsheet (I use Airtable), add a column for email URLs
• Archive the email

Do you have bills in there? Maybe bills you can’t pay just yet? Open another goddamn spreadsheet called Bills. Make columns for Name, Amount, Due, and URL. Paste the URL. Archive the emails. Now you can at least sort your unpaid bills by urgency, amount, whether your lights get turned off, etc., rather than by the intensity of the anxiety the emails give you in your inbox.

Do you have some emails that you really should just write back to instead of making a to-do, since the to-do list item is really quick, except that you don’t want to, so then you get frustrated and stop emptying your inbox? Oh hell no, we’re not going to hit a roadblock this far in!

Just because a task is short doesn’t mean it isn’t emotionally exhausting. Put “Tell Polly I cannot be a bridesmaid” as the to-do. Add the URL of the email. Archive the email. You’ve kept that email long enough, she can wait until you finish your inbox and move on to your to-do list. You never liked her that much anyway.

Do you have some emails that you’re keeping because they contain special information, even though you don’t really have an action item about them, but, I mean, you might in the future? If you’re keeping promotional emails from a company that competes with yours, or event invites from the much more accomplished and famous version of you, put those in a folder called “Swipe file.” If it’s more of a useful fact you want to retain, consider copying it someplace more accessible (many of my bases in Airtable have a tab called “FYI” for this type of information).

But overall, don’t be too precious. Do you really need to file away something that has been in your inbox for months (or years!) without you needing to look at it? Gmail is searchable. Archive it. Now. It’ll be there later when you need it, which will probably be never.

Now what about all those people who will actually be getting a reply?

Virtually everyone in society has the same email problem. We have too much email, and we get behind. It’s OK to acknowledge this. Don’t lie and tell people their message went to spam, or that you wrote a reply but left it in Drafts. Just tell them, “Sorry I dropped the thread on this, hoping to pick it back up” or “Pardon me, my inbox got a little out of control – can we schedule a call to reinitiate this?”

Here’s a favorite of mine: “I’m closing out my 2023 emails, and I found this dropped thread from way back. I love this idea, maybe we can do something similar in 2024…” What does it mean to close out your 2023 emails? No one knows, but that just makes you sound like you have a really specific system that maybe you should write some punchy little 5-Minute Email Master book about, you glorious beast.

Do this until your inbox is empty.

So hey, you just fixed your inbox.

But it’s going to get full again. That’s fine, you just need to do this process regularly. You’re never done cleaning anything. You got a sparkly fresh bathtub? How long’s that going to last? We have to perform mundane tasks repeatedly until we die, so you’ll live better if you acknowledge this and do it proactively rather than live in filth and chaos and still have to do the tasks eventually anyway. Put “inbox cleaning” on your damn calendar. How about every Friday from 3-4pm? That’s a good time because you can use “I was just clearing out my inbox for the week” in future catch-up emails to people.

But don’t send people emails Friday at 4, that’s just rude. Queue them up (I use the Boomerang extension for Gmail) for Monday morning, as in “I was clearing out my inbox from last week and wanted to pick this back up.” You look so on top of things!

Just do this now — it might take a couple days — and then do it once a week or once a month forever, or as long as email is still a thing.

Finally, can you cut down on future email?

Now that your inbox is empty, you’ll want to unsubscribe or delete promotional email as soon as it hits.

Maybe you want to move certain conversations to group text, or Slack, or to a project management situation in Asana or Basecamp or Airtable. I use Airtable for tasks I assign to others. Each line in one of my Airtable spreadsheets eliminates 2 or more emails – the one where I would assign the task and the one where the person would tell me the task is done, and potentially various emails along the lines of “Is this done yet?”

If you run a company, maybe it’s time for a helpdesk system like Helpscout, where each email becomes a ticket and you can assign it to someone else with the click of a button.

But mainly: put your to-do items where they belong. Not half on a to-do list and half in your inbox, shrouded in small talk and guilt.

Go forth and be free! Open Gmail on your phone in the bar and when you see the “you have no emails!” screen, leave the phone upturned on the table and watch people regard you with mystery and awe.

The post How to Go From Inbox 20,000 to Inbox Zero in One Hour first appeared on GetBullish Shop | Blog | Community.

Updated 2023

Last evening I was at a networking event for women in my (very) male dominated field. I felt awful and awkward and didn’t understand why until it dawned on me: I’m horribly embarrassed of my employer.

It’s a small company with a single owner, who is thought of by those that know him to be a barely competent name-dropping status seeker, to put it generously. His reputation precedes him in our small geographic area. He forces his clueless hand into nearly all of our interactions with clients and partners, leading to confusion, delays and increased costs. My colleagues and I spend as much time managing him as we do on work for our clients, which is the only reason the company still exists. I moved from a related field and took this position not knowing his reputation or anyone in the field every well. I found out later that he hired me mostly because of my previous work with high profile (in our industry) clients and expected an introduction.

The solution would be to move on to a different company, but I have been here only a year and am still getting my bearings in this field. I’m worried that the owner’s reputation tarnishes the reputation of the company and will make it difficult to move on to a better company. I’m embarrassed to tell people where I work in case they know the owner or have heard of him, but that’s the first question anyone asks. I’m even too embarrassed to add the company to my LinkedIn profile. But I also need to form relationships to help move on to a better company!

How do I manage and separate my professional reputation from that of my employer? Is that even possible?

Yikes! You definitely want to move on to a better company, and “only a year” sounds like more than enough time in this man’s employ. It sounds like anyone in your field would be impressed that you stuck it out that long.

The goal of your networking should be to make it clear that you are a highly competent class act, currently underserved by your job, so that someone will hire you away.

Develop some stock phrases and a new elevator pitch

For example, “I’ve been in property analysis for about five years, and most excited about moving the industry over to the AwesomeAnalysis software platform. So I’ve been leading that at Gross Dude International. In the next five years I’d like to move more into the technology side of property analysis here in Dallas.” See, I made a sandwich there! A sandwich where the bread is all about you and your career, and the filling is your terrible job but also the fact that you are the best thing at it.

You have a career that is separate from your job

You need to feed and nurture that career. Obviously, that involves networking, but can also involve volunteering and intellectual involvement. You can write articles on LinkedIn, you can do research no one asked you to do and that is over the heads of lots of other people. You can be a thought leader. You can give speeches. Even if you don’t think you’re in anywhere near that kind of position, sometimes there’s a panel discussion being put together, and they would be open to someone representing “the next generation” of practitioners in the field. If you’re young, that can be an asset – you’re the youth voice! If you can get involved in a group for women or any other identity group in your field (where your boss can’t follow you), also fantastic.

So, I don’t know exactly what your field is, but surely there are books and research papers to read, mentors to discuss intellectual issues with, technologies to learn, and other ways to fill your head full of things to talk about at networking events other than your job.

If you’ve just been talking about the fascinating new industry report where you plowed through the data and drew some interesting conclusions, then I think people will get it when you say, “Right now I’m at Gross Dude International, heading up the XYZ project.” Do use the “right now.” People in professional situations use such tamped-down, milquetoast language that “I work for this guy right now” is more than enough of a signal that you share their opinion, but are too classy to say too much.

And then go ahead and apply for new jobs directly! Do your best to quantify and document what you’ve accomplished in the past year and boldly go forth.

Finally, I’ll say that I get a lot of questions from women along the lines of “I want to leave my job but I feel guilty/unsure of myself.”

A dude in a shitty job would not feel guilty. Please consult your inner bro. Go watch some movies about Wall Street and recalibrate a little bit. Men (well, American men from certain cultural backgrounds) are socialized to take the next best opportunity and not look back. I’m not someone who uncritically tells women to act like men in every case, but this is one area where I think it’s appropriate. Most companies have very little loyalty to their workers; you don’t need to show a nonhuman entity more loyalty than it shows you.

The post Q&A: When (and How!) to Leave a Bad Boss first appeared on GetBullish Shop | Blog | Community.

Hi Jen, I am 20 years old, and I just read about 30 of your blog posts. I recently left my hometown, quit my dead end jobs, and moved to Silicon Valley to intern at a tech company. While here, I decided to leave the college I attended back home and transfer to a college in a new city filled with new opportunities. I have been reading books & blog posts, and watching endless TED Talks about everything from being okay with failure to how to read body language. To say I am overwhelmed by information is an understatement. I love to make big sweeping statements like “it’s like I am Thomas the Tank Engine and I decided to become The Re 620 (which according to Google is the most powerful train in the world).”

I am suddenly faced with decisions and responsibilities I never expected to have. I now want to travel the world alone, start my own company, learn a language, and so much more. Dreams I did not have a mere five months ago. I found your blog today in one of my researching rampages, and I have already written down about 20 quotes from various posts in my “Commonplace Book” (as inspired by Ryan Holiday, my role model for devouring books). But as I was reading all your posts, a feeling that creeps up whenever I am researching how to be a badass did its creeping. “Okay, this is great, this is awesome! I can do this! Fuck yeah, I am going to work my ass off, have multiple skills and jobs, and become awesome.”

But then a voice in my head tells me to get a grip. You see, I understand that motivation doesn’t last. I have the quotes about how you just have to do it and not wait for confidence. I’ve read that book about habits and that other book about leaning in. But the knowledge section of my brain refuses to speak to the decision making section, which means I keep coming to the same conclusion. I am just not good enough. I am not meant to be the woman who triumphs over sexism, insecurities, and life circumstances. I just can’t do it. I don’t want to be coddled. I hate people feeling sorry for me. I am not a victim. I am not asking for a confidence boost or a “you’re so great you can do it” speech. I don’t fear failure as much as I fear achieving a life I hate. I have these huge ambitions, I have this fire for adventure and hard work. I am terrified that I am going to settle because of this icky feeling.

What is your advice to young women who were raised by parents who believed girls were meant to become teachers and then quit their jobs to stay at home and raise god fearing children? Who were nothing but mediocre in school. Who gave up on science and math in fifth grade because it was for boys, and now they feel like it is too late. Who want to run companies but are too afraid to talk to their superiors.

Hi there, I like you a lot! So let’s start with that.

You’re only 20. And you already up and moved to Silicon Valley, and realized that your upbringing was sexist and full of shit. That’s incredible. A lot of people never break free. And the longer you wait, the harder it gets. You have to just rip off the Band-Aid. Thank god you didn’t marry a boy from your hometown. Thank god.

Being able to emotionally break free from things – your family, your hometown, relationships that aren’t working, jobs that aren’t for you – is, I think, the most important factor for success and happiness. It’s the opposite of what girls are so often taught. Attach, attach, attach. Stay close to home. Oxytocin. Whatever.

So here’s the thing: you are overwhelmed with information.

I was just reading Seneca’s On Stoicism, because that’s apparently a thing I do. I’m not telling you to read it, because you’re already overwhelmed with information. I’ll just tell you the part I think you should know, which is that Seneca, in his letters to his friend Lucilius, shares some ideas about reading that have fallen out of favor and deserve a re-airing. In our culture, we tend to valorize reading – it’s all good, the more the better – and we prize being broadly educated from a variety of sources. And Seneca tells Lucilius to watch out for these things, or his head will become a goddamn mess. Specifically, Seneca says to pick a few authors and read everything those authors have written – don’t go dancing around with too many other writers. And he says not to take in more information than you can process.

I’m not saying you should live your whole life by those rules, but those seem to be some healthy ideas for right now. The second one, at least.

Just do a couple of things right now: Do really well in your internship and try to get hired in a full-time job. Try to build relationships with other people in your job. (Even if your internship ends without a job offer, who knows who will be hiring whom over the next decade or two?) Finish school. And learn to live your life. That’s all for now. Really. That’s a lot.

You have plenty of time to travel the world. You have plenty of time to start a business. I think you’re freezing up because you’re looking ten steps ahead. Just look one or two steps ahead. And when you get there, another one or two steps ahead. You’ll get there at the same pace.

Also, when you enter the job market – well, employers want you to be young and hungry and talented, but also a little bit of a blank slate. They don’t really want you to have a million other projects because they want to mold you into their perfect worker. That’s a little freeing. You can definitely be that.

Put down the personal development lit for awhile. If you hear about an interesting book or TED talk, just save the information somewhere for later. Maybe you’ll never need it. That’s okay.

Stop thinking about sexism, if possible. Not forever, but just for right now. You don’t need multiple income streams until you’ve established yourself with one good, solid main income stream. Stop thinking about confidence. Just get good at your internship. Really good. Ask people how to do things. Ask how and where they learned. I don’t know what you’re studying in school, but get good at things, for real. No bullshit. This is the stage of life for laying down real skills. It’s also great that you’re only 20 – it’s totally fine for you not to know anything, as long as you want to learn. So learn. And practice. And get really good. Keep learning and improving at real live job skills. And then one day you will be 22 and you will meet a 20 year old who thinks he knows something but does not, and you will find yourself suddenly confident, because he is full of shit and you are not.

You’re allowed to just be in the phase of life you’re in right now.

Try to make some friends who live the kind of lives you want to have. This is a lot gentler on yourself than looking at role models way above you, or begging for mentors, or reading motivational advice that just intimidates you. Make actual friends in your new city. Have fun. Talk about life. Let them help drown out the voices.

See also: Bullish: How to Improve Your Life When Friends and Family Tell You to Be Realistic

The post Bullish Q&A: When Your Sexist Family Raised You to Be Less Than You Can Be first appeared on GetBullish Shop | Blog | Community.

The holidays are right around the corner and you may have a little downtime coming up – or at least a little thinking time. You can use this time to hibernate (valid) OR you can set yourself up for a super amazing, fulfilling, and values-oriented 2023. Or some of both!

I first introduced the idea of lifestyle/career design in 2011, in Bullish: Screw New Year’s Resolutions — Try Designing Your Career. Since the original article, we’ve held live “Design Your 20XX” workshops at the Bullish Conference and online, and I’ve looked at some people’s plans, and had the experience of my own plans greatly morphing over the last few years.

Why plan your 2023?

You’ll probably find like half a million “New Year’s Resolutions” articles and posts in the next couple of months, but I’m bored by these resolutions and for the most part, so are the people who make them. Everyone’s made at least one resolution that didn’t last past Valentine’s Day. And that helps no one.

Here at Bullish, we believe in:

• living deliberately
• proactively designing your life and career
• saying a guilt-free goodbye to things that aren’t priorities
• living with style, gravitas, meaning, and panache

This 21-page workbook is meant to be printed, taken someplace quiet, and passionately scribbled on, so pour yourself a cocktail and get to work! This workbook is designed to help you focus, get rid of things that don’t further your goals and make sure that you’re living deliberately and productively. Join us this year to prepare for a kickass 2023. Get Design Your 2023 here – you’ll be able to download it immediately after checkout.

Get “Design Your 2023” here

The post Design Your 2023 – Give your future self a badass year first appeared on GetBullish Shop | Blog | Community.

Updated for 2025

This post was created entirely by humans (not AI). Why would you want to read something no one could be bothered to write?

I’m pretty sure it’s a small sliver of the population who really celebrates Valentine’s Day with the iconic chocolates, flowers, fancy dinner, etc. I mean…that’s pretty much people in new relationships trying to impress each other, right?

But what are the alternatives?

Post anti-Valentine’s Day stuff to Facebook?

Sit at home with that person you’ve been dating for six years, talking about how much the price of flowers is artificially inflated during this unnecessary consumerist extravaganza, and let’s just make some pasta and watch TV?

Buy yourself some chocolates and eat them all? That might be fun, but if you wait until tomorrow, all the chocolate goes on sale.

Our suggestion is: make your future self your valentine.

I’ve done a lot of talking about future selves, but my main points are always:

1) You can’t know exactly what your future self will want.

According to Daniel Gilbert in Stumbling On Happiness, we are really, really bad at predicting what our future selves will want. (Also according to Gilbert, we all think we are more different from the average person than we really are. Would you enjoy living by the water and commuting to the city when you’re 45? Just go ask some 45 year olds if they like that. Statistically speaking, you-at-45 will likely be more like them-at-45 than you-now.)

2) While you can’t know exactly what kinds of things your future self will want, those things will require resources and options.

Your future self would like a fat bank account, a great network, a stellar professional reputation, and the freedom to go and do what she pleases, whatever that may be. If it turns out that your future self wants to cast off all her worldly possessions and go live in an ashram, your future self can donate the money to some noble cause and go do that; if it turns out she has a stroke of genius at age 39, or 46, or 63, and invents something, she’d need the money for startup capital, and she’ll want to be able to pick up the phone (that is, the phones we all have implanted in our minds by 2035) and be one step closer to getting her product in stores. Or maybe she’s just going to get sick. That happens. Take care of her now so, when she’s waiting for test results, she doesn’t have to worry about losing her house. You will not regret creating resources and options for your future self.

That got a little serious, no? No problem! Here are some fun suggestions for making your future self your Valentine.

Are you getting off work this evening with no big plans? Stop by the store and buy your future self a nice card.

A really nice one. She’s worth it. Write something for your next-year self. (Hey gorgeous, guess what I’m doing this year to hook you up? We should have a promotion by fall!) Seal the card, put your name on the envelope, put it in a drawer.

Buy a nice bottle of prosecco (um, all bottles of prosecco are nice), and have a drink while planning what you can do for yourself-in-twenty-years.

You ever read one of those books/blogs about self-love, and it feels a little silly? It’s a lot easier to feel “love” for your future self — she will be substantially different from you. You’re not just saying mantras to yourself in the mirror, here. The pleasurable part of this (other than the prosecco) is that, when you’re thinking about yourself-in-twenty-years, there’s really not a huge rush to add items to your to-do list now. You can make a list of gifts (gifts, as in “a lake house,” or “a fat 401K,” or “skin that has been protected by the finest sunscreens”) you’d like to give your future self, and start on it in 2025, or 2035.

It’s sometimes easy to imagine that a lot of the things you’re spending your time on right now are things you won’t be very interested in in twenty years. So maybe thinking about your future self even takes some items off of your to-do list, to make room for the new.

If you’re in the throes of a new romance with someone who’s making you a steak (or a tofu steak) tonight, have fun. But if not, there are more ways to observe the day than just grumping about it. Your future self may be a stylish, powerful, somewhat intimidating lady, but I promise she’ll appreciate your attention.

Want more Bullish? Here are some posts that talk about future selves.

Bullish Life: Should You Slow Down Your Career for a Guy?

Bullish Life: Breaking Free From Terrible Situations

Bullish: How to Ask for More Money, Part I

Bullish: Extreme Advance Planning for Very Smart Women

The post Bullish: Make Your Future Self Your Valentine first appeared on GetBullish Shop | Blog | Community.

Updated March 2025

Every December, people do a lot of baking or whatever it is that people do. But also, deadlines tend to be pushed til January. Whole days stretch by and you can’t remember anything happening during them. Like December 27 through 30th … was even is that? Somewhere in there, should you choose to accept this mission, is a fine time to get some mental space to design the new year to your liking.

I first introduced the idea of lifestyle/career design wayyy back in 2011, in Bullish: Screw New Year’s Resolutions — Try Designing Your Career.

Since the original article, we’ve held live “Design Your 201x” workshops a half-dozen Bullish Conferences, and I’ve looked at some people’s plans, and had the experience of my own plans greatly morphing over the last few years.

Why lifestyle design?

I am bored by New Years resolutions because they are usually either pledges not to do things, or optimistic but unexamined pledges to do repetitive actions without a real accounting of the costs and rewards of those activities. Why do we make a resolution to lose 30 pounds or enter all our receipts into Quickbooks? Because we’re “supposed to.” Not a good enough reason, which is why resolutions usually peter out around February.

Resolutions usually deal with small things. Plans deal with big things. I believe in planning for the big things. Let the little things fall where they may.

If you want to start a business or apply to grad school or change careers, those are multi-month projects for which things need to happen in a particular order, and with ongoing gusto over a long period of time. If unexamined crap is getting in the way (volunteering where you’re not really making an impact, training for a marathon for which you cannot recall why you signed up, being a bridesmaid three times in one year because you really liked those people in high school), the big stuff gets pushed out and your energy is frittered away on the wrong things.

Planning is also fun. When you have a whole year ahead, especially if you are a young person with few family commitments, you really can do almost anything, even if you don’t have much disposable income. Make a point to learn about scotch so you feel awesomely confident ordering at the bar and offering drinks to friends at home. Learn a crazy skill you could turn into a second career one day even though now it’s just for fun. Decide how you want to look and then make a standing salon appointment, if applicable, or get rid of all the old clothes that don’t match your new look, or watch makeup and hair tutorials on Youtube and DIY it. Find out how to get the attention of your elected representatives and then write letters or angle for appointments to advocate for causes that matter. Do it regularly enough that at least the staffers know your name. Learn Italian. Meditate. One woman at the Bullish Conference shared that she wanted to spend more time with her bunnies. This is free, and sort of a good deed as well. But even something so easy (and SO FLUFFY) sometimes doesn’t happen unless you plan it.

Once I declared that in the upcoming year, I would start 12 businesses in 12 months. The idea was that they would use some common resources, and that I would then kill of the bad ones and just keep what worked best, like I was my own personal venture capital firm. Failing at that (due not only to outrageous overoptimism, which I do not regret, but also unexpectedly being a pregnant person in unremitting misery!) still meant that I started, like, two businesses, which is still more than most people start in a year.

Built into my plan another year was the knowledge that, as I finished my master’s and started businesses, I would be making less money. So I didn’t feel too bad when that, in fact, happened. One of the benefits of developing a plan is knowing what doesn’t fit or isn’t a priority, so as to dispense with unnecessary guilt.

There really aren’t rules for planning your new year, but here are some ideas.

Start by brainstorming the most awesome life imaginable.

Here’s something I wrote before I had kids:

Yeah, I pretty much did that. For awhile, until my priorities changed.

When you develop a vision of your ideal year, you can make deliberate decisions to put those things into practice, or to let some of it go for bigger things. Or some of it can wait; in fact, some things, you appreciate more when you’ve spent longer working on them. But you want that vision in mind so you can see how achievable much of your vision probably is, and so you can make deliberate decisions.

Don’t just think about goals; think about values.

I spoke to a woman the other day who told me about her consulting career. I didn’t really understand her field, so, since I had no intelligent comment to make about the subject matter, I said, with what I hope was a devious and conspiratorial glint in my eye: “It sounds like you really enjoy being right.”

“Yes!” she said, surprised. “I think I do.” A lot of times a goal is just a means to an end. What you really want is the feeling at the end of that goal.

I have come to the realization that I value physical freedom more than just about anything else — both the physical freedom to sit where I want and nap and drink alcohol and shower at weird times and the broader physical freedom to travel and be productive from any city or country. That’s not a goal. That is a guiding force to determine what goals make the cut.

Vote something off the island.

There’s probably something in your upcoming plans that needs to go. Either it’s just there because you think it’s “supposed” to be, or it’s something you’ve been doing a long time but is no longer providing benefits to you, or it’s just something that can wait, until the next new year or beyond.

For me, in many years, this item has been “get a six-pack.” I’m pretty sure I know how to do this (see Bullish: Weight Lifting for Ladies and Unicorns), but I can’t see quite what the rewards would be. I could write an article called, “How to Get a Six-Pack,” and this article would be accompanied by a picture of my abs. I’m shrugging. Shrug. Showing off your abs is no way to make friends. Also, I could probably write a book with the time and effort it would take to get a six-pack, and a book still exists if you get really sick or gain 15 pounds. Six-packs are really ephemeral. They’re not even useful for sex. Shrug.

At one Bullish Conference workshop, an attendee shared that she was striking “find a life partner” from her list. Yes, it’s fine to postpone that a year when you’re 26! (Or when you’re 35 or 62, for that matter.) If you’re volunteering for something that mainly involves arguing in meetings with other volunteers, quit. Seriously. Kill something on the list. This also gives you a chance to make that finger-across-the-throat gesture that people make in movies to indicate that they want someone killed.

A plan should generally fit on one page (you can push the details off to a separate to-do list).

But a plan doesn’t have to be a list. You could make a flowchart or mind map, or a weird squiggly drawing with words jammed in it. Personally, I think creating on paper allows for more creativity than, say, typing into a Word document. You could even go for some sparkly colored markers — no judgments. You could make a timeline, like the ones you may have made in social studies many years ago (draw big projects as happening across several months). Or try declaring a theme for each month of the year. You could try writing your projects and goals on post-its and rearranging them until it feels right.

(See also Bullish: Extreme Advance Planning For Very Smart Women and Bullish: Use The Holidays To Get Ahead.)

Here’s something else I wrote way back when:

My own new year is full of unknowns. I am gestating a lady-fetus, due in March. People in New York sometimes get on lists for child care before they’re even pregnant. I am not doing this. If I worked 9-to-5 in an office, I would. Instead, I consider it a great pleasure to play it by ear. Let’s meet the baby before making any big decisions, you know? I don’t want to have to decide now what my future self will want. My future self is a more advanced version of me. I don’t know exactly what she’ll want. I just know that she wants options. I specifically want the freedom to want different things at different times.

I am also in a pilot for a TV show in which I would be a series regular (an “expert” on a reality show). These things very often do not work out. But if this one does, I’d be spending some serious time in Los Angeles. (I was once on a TV set where a woman with a baby hired a local sitter to hold the baby off-set when she was filming. Since a lot of TV is waiting around for six hours to spend 45 minutes filming something, the babysitter didn’t even have that much to do. Some things are surprisingly do-able with sufficient capital and will-to-power.)

So my plan for the new year is a bit of an anti-plan. How much can I accomplish while committing to very little — location-wise — on my calendar? It turns out you have to plan to not plan things. Instead of teaching ongoing live classes, I want to teach ongoing online classes. I want to save the in-person stuff for big, hotly-anticipated, expertly-executed one-time events: conferences, speaking gigs, bootcamps, mixers where people who know each other from online are SO EXCITED to finally meet. So I’m planning monthly webinars. There will always be another Bullish Conference. There will be new businesses where I can genuinely help people — but from Brooklyn or Los Angeles, or Buenos Aires, or the beach.

A few reflections on that. The TV show didn’t work out. The baby and the conference worked out great. Some thoughts for the future of the “Design Your 201x” process:

• Let’s schedule regular check-ins with ourselves to refine the plan. Put April 1, July 1, and October 1 in your calendar right now. Better yet, take the entire day off on those days.
• Where’s your business model? Where in this plan does the money come from? If you have to vote something off the island, you probably want to keep what’s making the money and what’s the absolutely most awesome. And see if you can cut parts of your life that don’t fall into either category.
• An important part of the Design Your 201x workbook is asking for help. I heard in our most recent webinar that many people did not ask for help, and were in fact terrified to. There’s a reason the checkbox is there! As well as the part about asking well in advance — evidence suggests that people are much more likely to say yes when you ask very far in advance. That means now!

Now is a fantastic time to design your new year. In December, things quiet down, and probably no one expects that much of you. People around you are coasting.

Whether you hole up for a cozy weekend alone (with bunnies?), take a solo trip someplace warm, or just barricade yourself in the guest room at Grandma’s with a cup of coffee and a notebook, now is the time to mastermind the next year of your life.

The current Design Your 20XX digital download is available here.

The post Bullish: How To Attack the New Year Like A Badass first appeared on GetBullish Shop | Blog | Community.

Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic is a collection of letters about morality from Roman philosopher and senator Seneca (c. 4 BC – AD65) to his friend Lucilius. Stoic philosophy holds that our inner life matters more than outward circumstances, and that we ought to seek wisdom, justice, and virtue while practicing moderation, discipline, and self-control – and that to do so would make one “self-sufficient, immune to suffering, superior to the wounds and upsets of life.” Which, for a school of Hellenistic philosophy, sounds really fucking useful right now, right?

If you’ve ever been interested in reading books about stoicism, developing a more stoic personality, or just learning how to practice stoicism in general – or just found yourself taken in by occasional stoic philosophy quotes and wondered, “Just WTF, ancient Rome?” – consider this a goddamn motherfucking introduction.

We’ve adapted several of Seneca’s letters into modern vernacular, R-rated English. Did we translate this from the original Latin? Fucking no. Why did we do this? Why the fuck not, motherfucker, we want you to read this shit.

by Jennifer Dziura

I Got Sick on a Motherfucking Boat – But You, My Friend, Are Sick in Your Goddamn Mind

Apparently I’ll agree to motherfucking anything, based on the fact that I recently agreed to try and fucking go somewhere on a stupid-ass motherfucking boat.

The sea was perfectly fucking calm when we left, and it was just a short trip, so I didn’t think the stupid fucking storm clouds would turn into some kind of big fucking problem. I guess it’s safer to sail near the shore, but I wanted to keep this shit short, so I just headed straight across the water.

And sure enough, when we had gotten halfway – so what’s the fucking point of turning back – the waves got all choppy and shit and I was getting real fucked up, so I asked the helmsman to take me to shore, any shore. He said the coastline was all rocky and shit and it wasn’t safe, but at that point I was so seasick that I didn’t fucking care. I demanded that that dude PARK THE FUCKING BOAT. Fuck that guy.

When we got close, I jumped into the cold water, because that’s what a motherfucking stoic fucking does. Then I crawled up on the rocks. Then I suffered. And suffered more!

Remember the fucking Odyssey? Yeah, I think I know why Odysseus took 20 fucking years to go from one stupid Greek island to another fucking stupid Greek island. Greece is not that big. It’s because the dude was fucking seasick all the time, and crashed himself into all kinds of fucking stupid places just to get off the fucking ocean.

I rested awhile and rubbed oil all over my whole body because I’m a motherfucking Roman and that’s how we do our shit. And then I started thinking about how easily we forget how fucking weak we are.

Like, sometimes your feet hurt, and you say, oh, I must have twisted my ankle. And then it gets worse, and you kind of know what it is, but you deny it, even to yourself. And then when your feet are TOTALLY FUCKED, only then do you admit you’ve got the motherfucking gout, bitch.

That’s how we treat our motherfucking health. When you’re a little bit sick, you ignore it. Only when it gets bad do you finally deal with that shit.

The even more fucked-up thing about people is that, with the spirit, it’s completely the opposite. The more fucked up you are, the less you even realize it. Think about when you’re barely asleep. You’re like, “Hey, this is an awesome dream, let me stay in this warm-ass bed and keep having this dream.” But when you’re really fucking asleep, you don’t know you’re asleep.

People don’t admit they’re fucked up because they’re too deep into how fucked up they are.

You can only tell people about your dreams when you wake up. And you can only admit how fucked up you are when you wake the fuck up from how fucked up you are.

And there’s only one thing that can wake you the fuck up. You know what that it? Motherfucking wisdom, man. Motherfucking wisdom.

You have other shit to do? Fuck that. Fuck you.

Wisdom is your new goddamn job. You got nothing else to do, asshole. Somebody wants you to do something else? Fuck that. You’re awake now. Say no. You can’t just try to get wisdom when you’ve got some free fucking time. You gotta go 100%.

Look, now that you’re awake, you’re wisdom’s bitch. You don’t tell wisdom when you’ve got some time. Wisdom demands all your time and then fucking tells you when you’ve got a few minutes left over for your other stupid shit.

Get all the other stupid crap out of your brain and just do one fucking thing for fucking once. And that thing is wisdom. Work on it. Do this constantly, and you’ll start to notice a BIG FUCKING DIFFERENCE between you and other people. You’ll end up way the fuck ahead of them – and not that fucking far behind the actual fucking gods!

What’s the difference between you and the gods, anyway? Well, the gods will fucking last longer, haha. But here’s one thing where you can be better than the gods. The gods fear nothing because they’re motherfucking gods. That’s nice, but it doesn’t exactly require a lot of effort. Of course a fucking god isn’t fucking afraid of much.

But you! You, my friend. If you’re afraid of nothing, that’s all you. That’s you working on your fucking self. That’s you, with all the weaknesses of a human, achieving the fearlessness of a god.

That’s dope, bitch. That’s wisdom.

•••

Update: Hear a dramatic reading of the post!

•••

Hey fuckers, that was some fucking Seneca, more or less. Are we working on our fucking selves yet? Does peace come from within? Have we found meaning yet? Want more stoicism? Here’s the goddamn book. And make sure you read the other installments in Letters from a Motherfucking Stoic.

New to Bullish? We write about careers and business from a feminist perspective, and also about making the workplace and the world better. Founder Jen Dziura was once a philosophy major, if you’re wondering about the weirdness you just read. Sign up below for more! And check out our online store.

The post Letters from a Motherfucking Stoic: I Got Sick on a Motherfucking Boat – But You, My Friend, Are Sick in Your Goddamn Mind first appeared on GetBullish Shop | Blog | Community.

Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic is a collection of letters about morality from Roman philosopher and senator Seneca (c. 4 BC – AD65) to his friend Lucilius. Stoic philosophy holds that our inner life matters more than outward circumstances, and that we ought to seek wisdom, justice, and virtue while practicing moderation, discipline, and self-control – and that to do so would make one “self-sufficient, immune to suffering, superior to the wounds and upsets of life.” Which, for a school of Hellenistic philosophy, sounds really fucking useful right now, right?

If you’ve ever been interested in reading books about stoicism, developing a more stoic personality, or just learning how to practice stoicism in general – or just found yourself taken in by occasional stoic philosophy quotes and wondered, “Just WTF, ancient Rome?” – consider this a goddamn motherfucking introduction. Or if you’re just like, WTF GRIEF WHY IS THERE SO MUCH OF YOU? The Stoics thought about that a whole fucking lot.

We’ve adapted several of Seneca’s letters into modern vernacular, R-rated English. Did we translate this from the original Latin? Fucking no. Why did we do this? Why the fuck not, motherfucker, we want you to read this shit.

by Jennifer Dziura

How to be Motherfucking Stoic When Everybody Fucking Dies

Hey, I’m sorry your friend Flaccus died. He was a real cool bro. But you shouldn’t grieve too goddamn much over it.

I mean, I’d like to recommend that you don’t grieve at all. Maybe that’s not realistic, but it really is better that way. Who’s that stoic, though? Even a real badass motherfucking stoic still feels a twinge when someone dies. But just a twinge, man.

We can forgive ourselves for crying, as long as we’re in control of it. There’s a middle way between not crying at all, and fucking weeping and wailing. Most people who are just weeping and wailing everywhere are showing off their grief. They want to prove to us that they’re really fucking sad. We get it. Nobody grieves like that just for themselves.

You might ask, “Am I really just supposed to forget my dead friend, you asshole?” No, asshole. I’m saying that people who grieve don’t really grieve for that long. And if your way of remembering is grieving, then you’re not going to remember for very long, either. Pretty soon, you’ll smile at some jokes or puppies or shit. As soon as you let in the outside world, your grief starts to fade.

Instead, let’s think of the good times we had with our friends. I mean, if every time you think about Flaccus it causes you pain, how often are you gonna think about him? My teacher Attalus used to say that remembering good times with our dead friends is like enjoying fruits that are a little bitter, but in a good way, or wine that’s kind of stanky but has its own stanky charms. But then you just wait, and eventually you can remember the good times without the bitterness or the stankiness.

I disagree, but that’s just me. Thinking of my long-gone friends is sort of sweet and chill for me. Why? Because I’m a goddamn stoic. Even when I was with my friends, I felt loss, knowing they would someday die. Now that they’re dead, I feel that I still have them with me. Stoicism, bitch.

So stop bitching that life isn’t fair. Yeah, fortune took away your friend. But fortune also gave you that motherfucking friend in the first place. So let’s get out there and enjoy the friends we still have, because who knows how much longer we’ll have them with us? How many times have you gone on a trip you could’ve invited a friend on, or gone to a friend’s town but didn’t go see them? Get on it, douchebag.

Can you even fucking stand people who treat their friends like shit, but then when their friend dies, they put on the biggest fucking show of mourning? Like they don’t even care about anyone unless they’re dead. Don’t do that shit.

Yeah, fortune took your friend from you, but you have other friends to help you through this, right? So your life isn’t so fucking bad after all. If you don’t have any other friends to help you through this, don’t blame fortune. Fortune took Flaccus, but you’re the one who took from yourself every other fucking friend you could have made but didn’t. Imagine a dude with only one shirt, and someone steals it. Bummer, right? But you kind of expect that, instead of crying about his shirt, he should go look for a new shirt ASAP. Go get a new friend! Flaccus would have wanted you to make friends.

Alright, and maybe this part is a little cliche, but all grief fades in time. You don’t want to still be publicly mourning when you don’t even feel it anymore. It’s kind of gross to stop grieving because you just got tired of it, so instead just cut it the fuck out right now. On purpose.

Keep in mind that when my best friend Annaeus Serenus died, I wept like a fucking baby. But still, I condemn my past behavior. I was fucking kicked in the nuts by Annaeus Serenus’ death because the dude was younger than me – a lot younger than me – so I didn’t think he would die before me. But hey, it’s not like fate gives a shit about that. Anyone can die at any time. That’s just fucking reality. I should’ve been prepared. The stoic thing to do would be to say, “Sure, my friend is all young and healthy and shit, but enjoy your time together while realizing you could lose this at any time.” Then I wouldn’t have been so fucked up by Annaeus Serenus’ death. RIP, man. RIP.

Now, I always take into consideration that everything dies, and there are no rules for that shit. If you can die in forty years, you can die today. Maybe we’ll die soon ourselves. Maybe there’s an afterlife where Flaccus and Annaeus Serenus are chilling, waiting around for us. Maybe not.

Peace out, stay stoic.

•••

Update: Hear a dramatic reading of the post!

•••

Hey bitches, that was some fucking Seneca, more or less, on grief vs mourning. Want more stoicism? Here’s the goddamn book. Peace comes from within, y’all. And make sure you read the other installments in Letters from a Motherfucking Stoic.

New to Bullish? We write about careers and business from a feminist perspective, and also about making the workplace and the world better. Founder Jen Dziura was once a philosophy major, if you’re wondering about the weirdness you just read. Sign up below for more! And check out our online store.

The post Letters from a Motherfucking Stoic: How to be Motherfucking Stoic When Everybody Fucking Dies first appeared on GetBullish Shop | Blog | Community.

Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic is a collection of letters about morality from Roman philosopher and senator Seneca (c. 4 BC – AD65) to his friend Lucilius. Stoic philosophy holds that our inner life matters more than outward circumstances, and that we ought to seek wisdom, justice, and virtue while practicing moderation, discipline, and self-control – and that to do so would make one “self-sufficient, immune to suffering, superior to the wounds and upsets of life.” Which, for a school of Hellenistic philosophy, sounds really fucking useful right now, right?

If you’ve ever been interested in reading books about stoicism, developing a more stoic personality, or just learning how to practice stoicism in general – or just found yourself taken in by occasional stoic philosophy quotes and wondered, “Just WTF, ancient Rome?” – consider this a goddamn motherfucking introduction.

We’ve adapted several of Seneca’s letters into modern vernacular, R-rated English. Did we translate this from the original Latin? Fucking no. Why did we do this? Why the fuck not, motherfucker, we want you to read this shit.

by Jennifer Dziura

Yeah, It’s Noisy, Get Over Your Shit

Look, peace and quiet are not that fucking important, even if you’re trying to study or some shit.

Imagine me living above a public bath-house. Fun picture, right? Some stupid sweaty weight lifters are slamming their weights and grunting away, and a guy is getting a cheap massage so all I can hear is gross slapping and cupping noises on his oily fucking back. And then someone starts a ball game, somebody else starts a fight, somebody starts stealing shit, somebody else is talking too loud, somebody else is doing cannonballs in the pool, people are selling sausages and pastries, and then finally, some motherfucking hair remover dude starts shouting “Hair removal! Get your hair removal right here!” and then that goes on until he actually gets a customer, and then I have to listen to some dude screaming while he gets his armpit hair ripped out. Lovely. Fucking lovely. But I’m cool. I’m chill. Fucking real chill.

Maybe you think I’m made of fucking iron because this doesn’t bother me. There’s this other stoic, Chryssipus, who lost his shit because people kept saying “Good morning” to him. Don’t be like that dude. There’s a story about a culture who lived on the Nile and up and moved their fucking capital because the sound of a goddamn waterfall drove them batshit fucking nuts.

But me? I live near a carpenter, and another guy who saws all day, and a dude who tunes horns and flutes down by the fountain. Sounds like shit. But I force my mind to stay inside itself and not to be distracted by the outside world. It can be fucking chaos outside as long as it’s calm inside of you. That, my friend, is motherfucking stoicism.

People sometimes write poems about how fucking still and peaceful it is at night. That is fucking false. The only time you’ll get any peace is if there’s peace in your mind. If you’re all fucked up, night doesn’t make that shit go away – it brings it up all over again. It doesn’t even go away when you sleep. Your dreams are all fucked up.

There are some people who demand total quiet at night, making everyone else in their house whisper and tip-toe around. But people like that still toss and turn and wake up all night, and even imagine they heard sounds when they didn’t, because they haven’t worked out their own shit.

It’s the same shit with people who retire, saying they’re done with politics and they want to live a simple life. Sure, buddy. It’s the same as trying to go to sleep by shutting out outside noise, when your inner shit is all fucked up. Some people were only holding their shit together because they had to be around other people. So when they retire, there’s nobody to keep them from fucking drinking all damn day. The turmoil is inside. Their shit’s fucked up.

Virgil wrote what Aeneas was thinking as he rushed his family out of Troy while the city was being sacked. He’s like, “When I was a warrior, I didn’t even flinch at facing a Greek army. Now, while leading my son and carrying my dad, I’m scared at every breeze.”

When you have a lot to lose, you get scared. Look at the most “successful” people, and they’re some of the most cowardly.

The only time you’ll ever feel really chill is when voices can’t get to you, whether those voices want to tempt you or fuck you up.

“That’s nice,” you might say, “but isn’t it easier to just go someplace else?”

Yes. Yes, indeed. Which is why I’m moving someplace quieter, real damn soon. But hey, I wanted to test myself. I’m a motherfucking stoic.

•••

Update: Hear a dramatic reading of the post!

•••

Hey fuckers, that was some fucking Seneca, more or less. Peace is nice, but your peace of mind comes from within. You have to find meaning and inner peace in your own fucking self or it’s just fuckers getting their armpit hair ripped out 24/7. Want more stoicism? Here’s the goddamn book. Peaceful words abound. And make sure you read the other installments in Letters from a Motherfucking Stoic.

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The post Letters from a Motherfucking Stoic: Yeah, It’s Noisy, Get Over Your Shit first appeared on GetBullish Shop | Blog | Community.