RULE 1 (JBP): Do not carelessly denigrate social institutions or creative achievement

Society is predicated upon a careful balance
between cultural forces that maintain the structures and rules that provide order and stability and the drive to oppose the status quo in the name of progress or change. The individual must understand and follow the rules, but also have the courage to break with them when necessary and the wisdom to know when that is appropriate. That wisdom involves the humility to accept that you have things to learn and must consider that the rules were established for a reason and change will have unintended consequences. To be an agent of change, you will need to develop some authority (not to be confused with coercive power) by demonstrating respect and being constructive. This balance of respect for rules and discipline and the flexibilityto initiate change applies at the level of the
individual life as well.

Rule 1 (Stoics): Do not shun the collective, you are part of it and it is part of you

It’s in keeping with nature to show our friends
affection and to celebrate their advancement, as
if it were our very own. For if we don’t do this,
virtue, which is strengthened only by exercising
our perceptions, will no longer endure in us.
Seneca

Whenever you have trouble getting up in the
morning, remind yourself that you’ve been made
by nature for the purpose of working with others.
Marcus Aurelius

I will so live as to remember that I was born for
others, and will thank Nature on this account: for
in what fashion could she have done better for
me? she has given me alone to all, and all to me
alone.
Seneca

Justice is the crowning virtue according to the
statesman Cicero. Marcus Aurelius. We hear the
word and think of our legal system, however, the Stoic notion is squarely on the outcome the
system strives for, which is fairness. As a virtue,
it’s rooted in your relationship with other people. Your value as an individual is shaped by your contribution to the whole and how you treat others. We are social animals, thus a significant aspect of living a good life is cultivating the ability to work within the social systems we live within for the betterment of all. It is part of our nature to desire to contribute to the collective good. Cultivate a healthy attitude towards the duties you must fulfill and the people you must collaborate with.

On an individual level, jealousy and resentment
will not serve you in any way. In the long run, the selfish attitude you have about the achievements of others reflect badly upon you and will not serve you.

RULE 2 (JBP): Imagine who you could be and then aim single mindedly at that

We all know that we could be more than they we are. Some of the reasons that we have not
realized our true potential are legitimate. Often ,
it is because we failed to make the effort. We
gravitate towards stories of heroes because the
hero embodies the courage that we wish to
cultivate in ourselves. If we acted as our true self we would explore the unknown, acknowledge and integrate our dark side, and turn chaos into order.

Purpose helps us bring out our heroic side. You
need to know where you are going. To do that we must first know where we have been and where we are now – or we drown in uncertainty. When we visualize our future as a journey we can overcome the obstacles on your path and find better paths along the way.

Rule 2 (Stoics): Don’t just imagine who you could be, be who you could be

The greater part of progress is the desire to
progress.
Seneca

Let us also produce some bold act of our own –
and join the ranks of the most emulated.
Seneca

Find a path, or make one.
Seneca

Action matters. Epictetus lauds discussions of
philosophy and virtue but asks us not to forget
that deeds must follow the words. Marcus Aurelius warns against getting caught-up in
arguments about the qualities of a good person
over simply being one. And here Seneca
eloquently reminds us that we must and should
have the courage to pursue our ambitions.
Philosophy is about a way of life – the verb is
living, the way is to be followed – it is not just a
way of thinking.

RULE 3 (JBP): Do not hide unwanted things in the fog

Life is built upon habits, the things we do
repeatedly. Many of our problems are the result
of willful blindness, which itself can become
habitual. To keep things in the fog is to refuse to specify what we really want and admit it, to
ourselves and to others. This will mean
confrontation at times, with others, or within
ourselves. That conflict is uncomfortable but
beneficial in the long run. A major part of the
conflict comes from acknowledging our fears.
Admitting what we want means exposing
ourselves to the possibility of failure. Denying
what we want is to succumb to failure by default
and allowing (usually exaggerated) fears to
dominate our lives. The choice is between living in denial or true to yourself.

Rule 3 (Stoics): Be a wrestler, not a runner

Eyes will not see when the heart wishes them to be blind. Desire conceals truth as darkness does the earth.
Seneca

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, in so far as it stands ready against the accidental and the unforeseen, and is not apt to fall.
Marcus Aurelius

Difficult circumstances don’t make the man, they only reveal him to himself. So when trouble comes, think of yourself as a wrestler whom God, like a trainer, has paired with a tough young buck. For what purpose? To turn you into Olympic-class material.
Epictetus

You were not made to be a person who denies or runs from problems. The challenges and obstacles that are on your path are there to fortify you. To begin, you must be willing to see them, you must be dedicated to the truth, no matter how hard it may be to face. It is only by seeing them as opportunities to build your character that you can tackle them forthrightly.

RULE 4 (JBP): Notice that the opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated

When you look back on your life so far, it’s the
difficult things you’ve done that give you satisfaction, not the easy things. Positive emotion mostly comes from the pursuit of a meaningful goal, rather than the attainment of it. Instead of striving for more pleasures and for happiness, your life would therefore be better if you optimized for meaning. Meaning is best sought by adopting responsibilities that give your life purpose. The aim is therefore to find where you can be of most value to others. The few that learn to do the things that others neglect are highly prized.

This does not mean to be fully self-sacrificing, you have a responsibility to yourself too. Your
responsibility is oriented towards other people
and yourself in the future (this is conceptually,
another person). Fulfillment comes from finding a responsibility that’s weighty and deep and serves both you and others. What people end-up regretting most in their life are not their actions and transgressions, but the sins of omission, the things they did not do for themselves and for others.

Rule 4 (Stoics): Applause, (if it comes), comes after you do your duty, never before

There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse.
Seneca

And a commitment to justice in your own acts. Which means: thought and action resulting in the common good. What you were born to do.
Marcus Aurelius

Even as the Sun doth not wait for prayers and incantations to rise, but shines forth and is welcomed by all: so thou also wait not for clapping of hands and shouts and praise to do thy duty; nay, do good of thine own accord, and thou
wilt be loved like the Sun.
Epictetus

We all want and need to be appreciated by
others. We want to be proud of ourselves. These are natural ways to feel and we need to conduct ourselves in accordance with this drive rather than secluding ourselves. Doing otherwise leads to remorse, which is a cruel punishment. The best antidote is to accept our duties and perform them to the best of our abilities. Acting from a sense of duty, taking on responsibilities is the best way to be of value to others and earn their respect.

RULE 5 (JBP): Do Not Do What You Hate

Your conscience should be your guide. You will
end-up feeling self-contempt if you let yourself
become a puppet. There may be times when you may need to make a stand against things that go contrary to your values. You will need to prepare well and fortify your position. Society depends on valiant individuals that stand on the side of truth to bring corruption and tyranny to a halt. Likewise you may feel the need to change your employment if it is destructive to your soul. The move will be difficult, but better than the alternative.

Rule 5 (Stoics): Your time and your soul are yours only if you take possession of them

As a busy life is always a miserable life, so it is the greatest of all miseries to be perpetually employed upon other people’s business; for to sleep, to eat, to drink, at their hour; to walk their pace, and to love and hate as they do, is the vilest of servitudes.
Seneca

Consider at what price you sell your integrity; but please, for God’s sake, don’t sell it cheap.
Epictetus

If your life is filled with things you hate, then you will hate your life. You can be nobody else but yourself and be a free person. If you compromise your integrity for goods that are contrary to your values you will lose your soul.

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RULE 6 (JBP): Abandon ideology

It is always tempting to find simple causes and thus simple solutions to complex problems. Reality is rarely simple. Ideologies can be comforting because they offer easy explanations; most of all, they often pinpoint the external factors to blame. It is much more difficult, but often more productive, to look for internal factors to improve. This is the first place to begin if we want to improve the world.

Society has, over the last half-century focused
extensively on rights to the detriment of our individual and social responsibilities. This makes the easy answers offered by ideologies seductive. It can lead to a tendency to see winners as cheaters and losers as victims of the system. It’s much more productive to focus on your own mistakes and take responsibility for what you can do than to take this attitude.

Rule 6 (Stoics): If you won’t budge, then it’s much more than an opinion

There is no inconsistency in giving up an intention which we have discovered to be wrong and have condemned as wrong; we ought candidly to admit, “I thought that it was something different; I have been deceived.” It is mere pride and folly to persist.
Seneca

What is required of the system of government is to force us to transcend the dispersion into cities, peoples, and nations, separated by laws, rights,
so that we can all see each other.
Zeno

[I]t is not great achievement to memorize what
you have read while not formulating an opinion
of your own.
Epictetus

If it’s really your opinion, then it is based upon
your observations, then it would be something
easy to change once someone presents an
observation that adds to those you’ve already
made. This rarely happens as we attach our ego
to being right rather than being a learner. Keep
an open mind to the idea that you could be
wrong and you just may become wiser. This need to move past identities as obstacles to finding the truth works at the individual and social level as well.

It behooves us to investigate our opinions and
determine the extent to which they are our own,
and we truly agree, rather than adopting the
majority view.

RULE 7 (JBP): Work as hard as you possibly can on just one thing and see what happens

Commitment to a goal (profession, education,
parenting, relationship) brings maturation.
Disciplining yourself to do the work required and persist in the face of challenges will transform you into a person who can tackle the challenges of life and it will develop your personality.

Rule 7 (Stoics): It is very difficult to live your life your way when your time is dedicated to living everyone else’s objectives their way

A great number have no settled purpose, and are
tossed from one new scheme to another by a
rambling, inconsistent, dissatisfied, fickle habit of
mind: some care for no object sufficiently to try to
attain it, but lie lazily yawning until their fate
comes upon them: so that I cannot doubt the
truth of that verse which the greatest of poets
has dressed in the guise of an oracular
response—“We live a small part only of our lives.
Seneca

If you would be a reader, read; if a writer, write.
Epictetus

If you do not worry about what others think, say
or do, but only about whether your actions are
just and godly, you will gain time and tranquillity.
[…] Run straight towards your goal without
looking left or right.

Marcus Aurelius

Wandering through life without a defined
purpose is no way to live. If your priorities and
actions are wholly dictated by what other people will think then you are not only destined to fail, but to lose your time – the only thing you truly have. Much like virtues are cultivated through daily practice, if there is something that you desire to excel at, there is only one way to attain mastery of it, through practice.

RULE 8 (JBP): Make one room in your house as beautiful as possible

Beauty and art offers us an opportunity to escape the mundane and functional in our existence (which is necessary) and connect with the ideal, the divine, and the transcendent. That
connection and reminder of the greater potential and possibility of life is necessary as well, it is essential to living a good life. It is also a great way to revive the vivacity of youth, as it is fueled by curiosity, wonder, and potential – this capacity is abandoned too often by adults. A good place to start is to make at least one room in your house as beautiful as possible. Doing this will help revive that relationship with beauty. From there you can extend that to other areas of your life. This relationship with beauty is also an exploration of potential. Everything in your life at the moment is known territory, beyond that lies the land you don’t know and the lands completely unknown. Art is part of the way we transform the unknown into the known and bring order to chaos. Seeking beauty is ultimately about expanding your horizons.

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Rule 8 (Stoics): Make your life beautiful from the inside out

Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and
see yourself running with them.
Marcus Aurelius

Why do I not rather seek some real good – one
which I could feel, not one which I could display?
These things that draw the eyes of men, before
which they halt, which they show to one another
in wonder, outwardly glitter, but are worthless
within.
Seneca

People seek seclusion in the wilderness, by the seashore, or in the mountains . . . [yet] at any moment you choose you can retire within yourself. Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul . . . Avail yourself often, then, of this retirement, and so continually renew yourself.
Marcus Aurelius

The Stoics were concerned about beauty, however, to them, beauty was foremost about
harmony of the soul – it was a quality of mind.
They encourage you to dedicate yourself to cultivating this type of beauty (and much of their
message deals with tackling challenges with courage and thus fortifying the self against eventual chaos). They urge you to focus on developing character above all instead of pursuing markers of status. nourishing your soul, a task that can be achieved by interrupting your busyness to wonder at the world and see its inherent beauty and find peace of mind.

RULE 9 (JBP): If old memories still upset you, write them down carefully and completely

The purpose of memories are not their sentimental value, we remember so we can learn. Traumatic events must be understood and
integrated into future behaviours if they are to be overcome and eventually forgotten. Our life is story, a recollection of our journey from one
‘place’ in our life to another. If we do not
confront our pain we cannot extract guiding
values from it and orient ourselves properly. If we fail to do face our trauma and the errors of our past, we become increasingly lost and unresolved problems risk growing. While this happens we become weaker and less able to tackle the larger problem because we refused to grow.

Rule 9 (Stoics): You can’t outrun your past, but you can defeat it

It is better to conquer our grief than to deceive it. For if it has withdrawn, being merely beguiled by pleasures and preoccupations, it starts up again and from its very respite gains force to savage us. But the grief that has been conquered by reason is calmed for ever. I am not therefore going to prescribe for you those remedies which I know many people have used, that you divert or cheer yourself… I would rather end it than distract it.
Seneca

But when set in the very midst of troubles one
should say: Perchance some day the memory of
this sorrow will even bring delight.
Seneca

Life will hand you disappointment and struggle. It is in those moments that we must decide if we will take this as a challenge, as something to grow from and integrate into the story of our heroic journey through life. To do otherwise is to condemn yourself to victimhood. If we try to distract ourselves rather than face from unpleasant emotions, they will grow in stature. On the other hand, if we work through negative emotions we can gain the upper hand and be at peace from them on.

RULE 10 (JBP): Plan and work diligently to maintain the romance in your relationship

When first in love we tend to see only the best in the other person. Over time, reality sets in and we see the person as they are. Despite this, it’s possible to sustain the romance if both people work at it. We must dispel the notion that we can and will find a perfect soulmate and replace it with the idea that we can grow and mature as a couple. A solid relationship is founded on commitment and trust. Every couple will have misunderstandings and disagreements. However, if the courage to continue to build intimacy and trust exists, the relationship can overcome difficulties and grow stronger. If you do not express your desires, your partner will have to guess, and you’ll likely punish them if they guess wrong. Those who wall themselves up in response to hurt grow cynical instead of maturing. The ability and habit of communicating honestly and openly, of trusting despite the risks of further pain, is foundational to proper growth.

Rule 10 (Stoics): Relationships founded on anything but trust and love are founded on quicksand

When this mutual care is complete and those who
live together provide it to each other completely, each competes to surpass the other in giving such care. Such a marriage is admirable and deserves emulation; such a partnership is beautiful.
Musonius Rufus

Those who love less should be helped out and lavished with more.
Marcus Aurelius

If you consider any man a friend whom you do not trust as you trust yourself, you are mightily mistaken and you do not sufficiently understand what true friendship means.
Seneca

To love, then, is only in the power of the wise.
Epictetus

Marriage is a partnership where you make each
other better and grow together by acting as a
unit. This is attained by mutual care. The remedy for those who have closed their hearts is to feel loved rather than shunned. In this statement, the
young Marcus Aurelius presages Henry David
Thoreau “There is no remedy for love but to love more.” We must have the courage to trust and show that we are worthy of trust and are trusting to develop enduring bonds with others.

RULE 11 (JBP): Do not allow yourself to become resentful, deceitful or arrogant

Each of us has a dark side. The origins of our evil tendency comes from resentment, deceit and arrogance. You will not overcome these negative traits if you do not first recognize the duality of each of us and that evil can originate from you. Your sins can be sins of commission, such as doing things you know are wrong, or sins of omission, such as not doing what you should. If you do not face your dual nature you voluntarily deceive yourself and therefore corrupt your ability to distinguish from right and wrong. The key is to integrate your dark side and make it a productive force in your life rather than a destructive one.

Rule 11 (Stoics): To cultivate the good within you, weed out the bad

If you wish to be good, first believe that you are bad.
Epictetus

Whatever one of us blames in another, each one will find in his own heart.
Seneca

When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own – not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like
feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.
Marcus Aurelius

You cannot improve your character if you do not first accept that you have faults. It is convenient and uplifting to observe the faults and shortcomings of others, however, if you dare look, you will find that you have your fair share as well. All humans are by nature an admixture of positive and negative traits. We must recognize that we will encounter rude and arrogant people every day and be mentally prepared for it. If you allow them to impact you, if you respond negatively ‘because of them’ you grant them power over you. Moreover, you cultivate the same negative traits within yourself rather than practicing virtue.

RULE 12 (JBP): Be grateful in spite of your suffering

We can only know happiness because we know
it’s opposite. Suffering is inevitable. Yet, humans
have the capacity to transcend our suffering, and to stay hopeful in dark times. You have untapped inner strengths that you can draw upon. You should look for your higher calling to draw those strengths out. In face of tragedy, seek courage and inspiration from others who have risen above their loss and despair. Be grateful for what you still have and what you may still be given.

Gratitude is not naïve optimism, it is honest
recognition of what is good and faith in your
ability to persevere.

Rule 12 (Stoics): Embrace the pain, it is the price we pay for the privilege of being alive

Don’t be heard complaining, not even to yourself.
Marcus Aurelius

But when set in the very midst of troubles one
should say: Perchance some day the memory of
this sorrow will even bring delight.
Seneca

In everything that seems hostile and hard I have
trained myself to be like this: I don’t obey God, I
agree with him. I follow him by my own choice,
not because I must. Whatever happens to me I
will accept without getting sad or showing a
gloomy face. I will willingly pay all my taxes. All
the things that make us groan and get frightened
are just life’s taxes. You should not expect or seek
exemption from them.
Seneca

There is some good in every situation if only you look. If nothing, you may look back to hard times and feel some pride in how you endured. Perhaps it will make you stronger. Bemoaning your hardships only diminishes the possibility that you will reap any benefits. It is unrealistic to expect that you will go trough life without any
difficulties. Embrace the opportunity in those
that befall you, accept them as a tax you must
pay if you are to enjoy the pleasures and joy that life offers us. To do otherwise turns life into a series of tragedies and burdens. If you complain, you admit that you are the victim, the victim can’t also be the hero of the story.