Post No. 31: Happy Hunting (and New Year)

A Poem to Start This Post:

Each day rises anew

Even this year’s first one

So look forward not back

Cause we’ve already given

The last one a crack

This morning the seabird

Glides over the sea

Hungrily hunting prey

It hunts without care

No matter what day

Yet we cry and moan

Cause our yesterday

Failed our wanting

Perhaps we should just

Focus on hunting

On that which arises

Before us each day

And know that the past

Although in our mind

Is out of our grasp.

This poem illustrates one of the main tenets of Stoicism and Epicureanism (see Post No. 16: Gifts from Greeks):   FOCUS ON WHAT YOU CAN CONTROL   We can’t control the past, so to try by having it absorb your mind is foolish.  Being human we are very unlike the seagull in the accompanying photo.  Seagulls don’t engage in regret after they dive and miss their prey.  It is not because they are better than us, it is because they do not have the capability to think such complex ideas as past, present and future.

Let’s all start the new year with advice from the ancient Greeks:  Focus on managing our next moments rather than past events.  I guarantee you will have some screw-ups this year.  Don’t allow them to interfere wiyh your current focus.

May you live your 2024 moments with wisdom, attention, compassion, and bravely face any shit that happens armed with the first three.