Best life

by Jon Sullivan - 2022-12-22 - Status

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Talking about "living my best life" sounds like insipid pop culture nonsense. Yet... here I am, living my best life.

I love where my life is right now. All of it. I love my big comfy apartment. I love my incredible new car I spoiled myself with. I love all the adventures Oregon puts in front of me. I love my new social life. I love feeling happy by default, and the sudden surges of joy. I love feeling good about myself, and honestly liking who I am. I love feeling relaxed and free of stress. I love feeling like I'm living in comfort rather than just hiding from discomfort.

"The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow, and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune's control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately." - Seneca

I'm realizing that the comfort I felt in San Diego was just an absence of options. And I was kidding myself about it all being okay. It wasn't bad. It was comfortable. But it wasn't living my best life at all. It was living a small subsection of it. A life without stuff or people or events or adventures. I'm confused by how I wasn't unhappy at all about all the missing stuff. I can't claim I wasn't happy, I was, I just find New Jon is much happier.

"Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it." - Epictetus

I love both the idea and practice of living in harmony. I love making decisions based on Stoic virtues. There is a sense of always being in the right place that I don't think I've ever felt. Thank you to everyone who helped me get here with advice and encouragement and labor and patience.

"Know you not that a good man does nothing for appearance sake, but for the sake of having done right?" - Epictetus

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