In college, studying philosophy was an excruciating exercise in memorization and focus on minutia between different schools of philosophy. It seemed very dry and very dead. The idea that all of these different schools were trying to get at the same thing; how to live life well and what that means was totally lost on me. That is often a failing of the industrial-academic approach to teaching something. I have found it easier to learn something when I have a practical problem in search of a solution. So it has been lately for me with philosophy and I am glad for that perspective. Here are a few practical real life problems for which I have found solutions in no small part from philosophy and especially Stoic philosophy:
- How to be in a crowd and in the spotlight as a natural introvert. (post coming soon)
- How to beat the flinch.
- How to have an argument with someone you love.
- How to accept reality and live in the present.
