Welcome to Stoic Snippets,
The track that is short in length but not in depth.
All our doors may be bedlam,
Provided that there is no disturbance within.
Now never has this been truer than in a house with a brand new baby.
It has been a trying time to say the least,
But what surprised me was not the need for sleep,
But actually the opposite.
It was the inability to sleep when I really,
Really wanted to.
How I struggled to sleep even when I was dog-tired after a whole shift with my baby boy Jet.
How was this possible?
Well,
It's possible because my mind was racing after looking after Jet,
Especially in the early days.
Even when I let him go into his crib and got back to my bed,
I'd be thinking,
Was he okay?
Is this normal?
Will it always be like this?
Can we afford to have a second child?
Am I doing okay as a father?
Is he about to wake up again,
Or is he just stirring?
The irony is that I'd been waiting all day and night to get into bed and sleep,
And now that I was in bed,
Well,
I wasn't able to.
The house was quiet,
But my mind was not.
Now a major stoic skill is to be able to let things go.
That's not the same as not caring.
It's a skill to decide when to take action and when to rest.
It's a discipline.
When Jet was asleep,
He was okay.
Whether I could afford another child or not,
Well,
That is a question for another time,
Not 3am.
He may well wake up,
But worrying about it was not going to stop him waking up.
And this is something we need to practice over and over again.
Take action when we need to,
And let things go when we can't take any action.
It's not that these aren't valid thoughts or concerns,
And you might have similar things,
But as with comedy,
Timing is everything.
Worry does nothing to steal tomorrow of its problems and everything to steal now of its pleasure.
And I was feeling that in real time as I lay there primed to sleep but unable to,
Because instead of enjoying the moment I had,
I was thinking about the problems that could occur.
As Marcus Aurelius says,
Focus like a Roman on the task at hand.
The task at hand for me was sleep.
For you it may be work,
Quality time with family or friends.
Whatever that thing is you need to do,
Focus on that thing and let everything else go.
Let that opportunity fill your mind and protect it from the outside world that tries to force you in its way to worry about things that you cannot control.
You get to dictate the environment of your mind,
No one else does.
And since your mind is where your entire life happens,
Well,
It's worth tending to with care and love.
Good luck out there.
