[sn41]

I tried Stoicism earnestly for some time, reading Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus. What I found was actually a "nonchalance" enveloping me, where I lost any willpower or determination or urgency to do anything. It sure felt good. But activities and deadlines were slipping. I had to literally talk myself back into caring. I wonder if anyone else had similar experiences. Whenever I raise this point, some one says I did not really get it. Perhaps. But I did try it as per my understanding. It increased equanimity, but decreased my motivation and drive.

(As an aside, "sloth", which is one of the seven deadly sins, was originally "acedia", is a feeling of a lack of concern. [1])

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acedia

[gh-throw]

"You can pass your life in an equable flow of happiness, if you can go by the right way, and think and act in the right way."

The "think in the right way" takes just a little practice. The "act in the right way" is the hard part, and the whole thing falls apart, in exactly the way you've noticed, without both. I've yet to achieve both, personally, though simply having "think the right way", with a little moderating wisdom from age, isn't nothing.

I think a trap in general with systems like Stoicism, or Zen Buddhism, or similar, is believing that thinking or knowing is anything more than one maybe-necessary-but-certainly-not-sufficient step.

(frankly, I'm not even sure what "go by the right way" means, yet, and would have to return to the original Greek to figure out whether it's just a summation of the two following ideas, or something separate—however, as I'm still working on "acting", I'll leave that for another day)

[EDIT] For those reading this without having read Meditations, it's heavy on duty and obligation, which is deep in the "doing" side of the above dichotomy. The "think the right way" is largely about ignoring that which one cannot control, but the trouble is that anything in the immediate past becomes "beyond one's control", which is where the parent's slipped-deadlines and such become easy to brush off without the duty-and-obligation and act-the-right-way habits balancing it out. Can absofuckinglutely confirm that if you get very good at the "think the right way" side, and only that side, it gets dangerously easy to not be bothered by failure or inaction.

[viceroyalbean]

I don't want to respond with "you were doing it wrong" since I don't know enough about what you did/thought to evaluate that, but my view of Stoicism is that the "nonchalance" should be applied to things that are outside of our control, while we should do everything we can to be virtuous with the things that are inside of our control. E.g If it's raining we shouldn't be tearing our hair out in panic and cursing the weather, but rather deal with it in the ways we can by taking an umbrella with us. I do agree that some Stoic practices (such as the 'view from above') could bring about an attitude of "eh, does it even matter?"

I think it's possible to gain a large deal of motivation and drive from the concepts of virtues and doing everything we can to live virtuously and improve the world accordingly.

[nightowl_games]

Maybe you should have quit your job instead of talking yourself into being motivated again.

Meditations helped teach me how to ignore pain and temporary things in pursuit of the immortal virtuous life of purpose. One that creates long lasting works of art, beautiful memories and a solid reliable character that those I care about can count on.

Stoicism is like a filter. You shake out all the bullshit out of your life and theoretically find the thing that you cannot shake out. That is your true drive.

If you shook the bullshit out of your life and found nothing was left, then perhaps you should consider what is out there that you are attracted to.

[zozbot234]

AIUI there's nothing wrong from a Stoic perspective with "talking yourself into caring" about stuff, especially as it seems you were just getting into the ideas. Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus did it a lot, and it seems to have worked well for them.