Obvious

Today’s world is all about innovation. Everyone is trying to find (and/or create) things which we haven’t had in the past. It is almost simulating an over populated diamond mine, with everyone digging to find the next Kohinoor-esque diamond.

However, in the midst of this search, some things are getting left behind because it appears they have lost their value. Today we will evaluate whether these things losing value is in the favour of us as growth oriented humans.

Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.

– George Orwell

The world of personal development has grown many folds in the recent past. There has been an immense surge in the available frameworks and mechanisms that lead us to growth. Everyday, there is a new, unexplored path that supposedly leads to being a better person.

There is such a variety of options available today that it could become an overwhelming affair to pick the right path for you. Some define micro-learning as the next best thing in the space, while others think having a growth mindset is the end all be all to be better.

I, however, am a big proponent of old school thinking, not just in the personal development realm, but life in general. Consequently, I believe in doing the tried, tested (sometimes considered boring) activities. Principles that have worked for the past 100 years have no reason to cease to work today.

Consequently, ancient philosophies have always had my intrigue. I am a big fan of the stoic philosophies. For anyone who doesn’t know what Stoicism is, it is not necessarily considered a religion, but stoicism also prescribes the right way of living by practicing principles like wisdom, courage, justice and temperance.

People who practice these philosophies are known as stoics, and just like any other field of study, this philosophy has survived the test of time due to constant contributions by a number of these stoics. Interestingly, all Stoics have had their own takes on living the good life.

Be it Zeno, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca or Epictetus, all of them have had their own, “unique” commentary on Stoicism.

(There is a reason that I have put the word obvious in quotes, and we will talk about that shortly, although it might not appear obvious 😉 )

Being a modern man, I follow modern age philosophers as well, like Mr. Ryan Holiday.

Ryan is an accomplished writer, marketer and student of stoic philosophies. He stands on the shoulders of the giants I named earlier, but uses his advantage of being a part of a later generation and his extreme intricate study of the subject to find trends and insights on how the stoics lived.

In one of his recent videos on YouTube, he was talking about the famous journal of Marcus Aurelius, which has since become a book named Meditations. He mentioned an interesting trend from his study. He mentions that a lot of readers find things in his book as obvious facts.

Another trend he surfaced was that after a point in time, there is a restatement of one of their previous teachings. When we read any book, our expectation is to learn something new out of every page we read. But here, one of the best known books on stoic philosophy ever written has repetitions in it? How could this be?

Moreover, a Roman emperor and one of the greatest philosophers in the world at the time (and arguably ever), had to repeat his own obvious thoughts multiple times to fill 304 pages? Was he lazy, or did he just run out of ideas and had to resort to repeating evident facts to make money off his book?

That is the catch though, Meditations was never meant to be published as a book. Meditations was meant to be a set of reminders for Marcus Aurelius to himself on how he could lead a more virtuous life. Despite being one of the busiest men in the world, he constantly reminded himself of blatant truths to be better.

I’m sure people who don’t follow personal development would resonate with this. They would have found some conspicuous and repetitive principles in their readings of personal development content as well. Maybe this is what deters people from being more avid consumers of such content.

However, this is where the beauty lies.

The perception of obviousness can blind us to true value.

We lose patience in places where the obvious thing is to maintain calm. We get angry when the obvious thing is to ignore the subject. We spend money when the obvious thing is to be judicious with it. These principles are obvious, but they become obscure when we actually need to remember them.

So, the next time you dismiss something as obvious, I would remind everyone to take a second and repeat the obvious. 🙂

If you stuck around this far, thank you for your time. If you enjoyed this, share this with one friend of yours whom you think will benefit from reading this. Thanks for reading, and I will see you in the next one. 🙂