Good Fortune: Episode Five
So we wake up and begin the day as Stoics. We prepare ourselves for the inconveniences of life with a Morning Meditation, we strive to pay attention to our thoughts throughout the day and we divide events into those that we do and do not control…eventually, the sun sets, we get ready to sleep until another day begins. How did we do? Did we succeed at the day we just lived? Did we fail? Most likely we did a bit of both. Should we just go to sleep and leave the past in the past, or should we learn lessons from the day, celebrate our successes and admonish ourselves for our faults? How does a Stoic end the day?
Hi. I’m Matt Van Natta and this is Good Fortune. Today’s questions:
- Is there a Stoic way to go to sleep?
- Is it possible to do Stoic exercises incorrectly?
And finally, a bonus means of applying today’s exercise, this one aimed at parents. All right, let’s get started.
Is there a Stoic way to go to sleep?
Of course there is, those ancient Stoics had opinions about pretty much everything. In the case of preparing to sleep, Stoics call on a practice that predates Stoicism itself. This exercise is often called the Evening Meditation, though I prefer the term Retrospective Mediation. Variations of the Evening Meditation are found in Seneca’s works and in Epictetus’s Discourses. In Discourses Book 3, Chapter 10, Line 3, we find Epictetus quoting a Pythagorean practice,
Do not let sleep fall upon your soft eyes
Before you have gone over each act of your day three times:
Where have I failed? At what have I succeeded? What duty have I omitted?
Begin here , and continue the examination. After this
Find fault with what was badly done, and rejoice in what was good.
The Retrospective Meditation is meant to assist us in learning from the life we’re living. No matter how well we prepare for the day, beginning our morning with the View from Above and girding our minds like Aurelius recommends in his Meditations, we will stumble. We may notice that we’ve screwed up, but we might be oblivious to it. Perhaps the reason the meeting didn’t go well is because I was the obstinate jerk, not my co-worker like I had convinced myself at the time. When do we take the time to learn from our mistakes? Because moving on is not the same as learning. If I am put in the same situation, will I fail again, or will I flourish?
We find Seneca’s mention of Retrospective Meditation in his work titled On Anger. I’ll quote from the translation used in Elen Buzare’s excellent book Stoic Spiritual Exercises.
[One’s mind] should be summoned each day to give account of itself. Sextius used to do this. At the day’s end, when he had retired for the night, he would interrogate his mind: ‘What ailment of yours have you cured today? What failing have you resisted? Where can you show improvement?…
Could anything be finer than this habit of sifting through the whole day? Think of the sleep that follows the self-examination! How calm, deep, unimpeded it must be, wh