Inner scorecard: seeking approval only from yourself

Executive overview

Looking for outside approval compromises your integrity — Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius both concluded that public praise and criticism are equally meaningless. The only standard that matters is your own.

Hold yourself to an inner scorecard and ignore everything else.

Tradition vs. convention: when to change

• Don't fix what isn't broken means avoiding change for its own sake — not clinging to convention out of habit
• Churchill's genius: he venerated tradition but despised convention
• Tradition = bedrock values; convention = "that's how we've always done it"
• Cato's inflexibility illustrates the danger: his refusal to adapt helped Julius Caesar rise to power
• Balance means protecting what's truly important while adjusting to modern problems

Stoicism applied to everyday life

• Stoic principles apply to small obstacles — parenting, procrastination, self-doubt — as much as historic ones
• Marcus Aurelius in Meditations Book V: the mundane struggle to get out of bed is treated with the same philosophical seriousness as running an empire
• Framing daily obligations as "what I was born for" converts resistance into action
• The best examples in Stoic writing are dramatic, but the philosophy was forged on ordinary difficulties

Doing good without recognition

• Meditations was a private journal — Marcus never intended it to be read; it survived by accident
• The right process matters more than whether the outcome is appreciated
• Marcus on "not asking for the third thing": do a good deed, let someone benefit — don't then expect thanks or reciprocity
• Military and civil service history is full of people who did the right thing and were punished for it
• If recognition is your motivation, you've chosen the wrong work; the Stoics say the work itself must be sufficient

Rest vs. grind

• The Latin festina lente (make haste slowly) was Augustus's favourite expression, drawn from his Stoic teacher
• Grinding without recovery leads to injury and longer setbacks than a planned rest would have caused
• Sustainability matters: whatever you're trying to do for the long term requires taking care of yourself

Ego vs. ambition

• Distinguish being ambitious as a writer (craft, improvement, challenge) from being ambitious as an author (sales, fame, status)
• Focus on what you control: effort, quality, preparation — not how work is received
• Competitive impulses are natural; what matters is that they don't become your primary measurement
• Process-focus and ego-reduction aren't opposed to ambition — they redirect it toward what's actually in your hands