One of the most valuable tenants of the philosophy school of Stoicism is the suggestion to let everything be your teacher, or put another way, to find wisdom in all things.  The practice of which is so powerful because it ties together and manifests in your day several other tenants of Stoicism. If we are to learn from everything, we must connect to and be present with events, emotions, actions, our surroundings and those we come into contact with and interact with. Recognition does not confer learning, so the practice must include reflection on those experiences you were present for. This process of presence, reflection and then application are iterative and through this repetition Stoics seek to find wisdom and virtue through continuous improvement. This lends to the Stoics’ belief that becoming a well-rounded individual is essential to the virtuous life as the multitude of differing teachers life will present to you will provide a multitude of differing teachings to round out your personhood. Life’s teachers avail themselves to everyone, but most will focus on few and learn from fewer. Most of the teachings happen in the background while we continue on with more tangible aspects of life. What makes Stoics, and those pursuing the examined life different is simply the lens which brings to sight these teachers and the effort to seek their value.

We are all human however, and we forget to do all of these things which we know to be valuable sometimes. My favorite line from Seneca says something to the effect of “I am not giving you this advice from some high place, but rather as another patient in the hospital bed next to yours seeking a cure to what ails us.” So, we write to unpackage our own problems and share this writing both to offer and to seek further help on curing what ails us. Know that I am always speaking to myself first and sharing with you second.

Writing about one of these teachers in bits and pieces is essentially why I created this blog. This particular teacher was an extremely challenging one. One I never wanted, one I hadn’t anticipated coming to me so early in life. One I would send back if I could. It is a teacher however, and I’m sorry that this is true, that many of you have already met. If you haven’t I hope you continue to avoid this teacher for as long as possible, but you will indeed meet them. My friend Matt recently reminded me that I had met this teacher but understandably may not have recognized them as one. Noticing that I had been struggling mentally, Matt stopped me leaving the gym one day and told me “there is a certain kind of wisdom that you can only get through experiencing the loss of someone truly close to you.” My Dad passed away last March, alone in a vacation rental in North Carolina. His loss is the teacher and pushing through the pain of it, I’ve took note of his lessons both given during his life and learned about myself from his loss.

I’ve learned about love, regret, laughter, guilt, hopefulness and hopelessness. I’ve learned how to overcome depression and I’ve learned about relapse back into deep depression. Sometime after the anniversary of his passing this past March, I found myself sliding back into a depression I didn’t know would last so long. I’m just now starting to crawl back out of the hole. I think fighting tooth and nail, hopeful of redemption no matter how incessantly your mind tries to tell you otherwise is one big lesson I took from my Dad, so I’ll never stop crawling out, I can’t. I’ve also learned that maybe I’m not as strong as I think I am. That’s a humbling thought. Presented with any problem, whether it’s an 1,000 foot rock climb or a complex business analysis I like to think “Yeah, I’ll figure this out”, and best of all I’m usually right. The biggest lesson a loss like this can teach you is that you can’t always “just figure it out” and you have to accept that. There’s just no choice to the contrary but man, is it painful.

I’ll end this with a happy lesson I take from my Dad’s life, rather than his passing. Don’t take everything seriously, have some fun. You have to. Yesterday I went out climbing. Hiking through nature always brings memories of my Dad, since it was one of his favorite activities. I’ve been taking life a little too seriously lately but I had more fun yesterday than I’ve had in months. I was fully dialed in, connected to my life and enjoying the hell out of being alive and that, that is something I think he would be proud of.