+1 #100: Euthymia

First: Welcome to our 100th +1. It’s a special milestone. Kinda excited about it. 😃

Let’s celebrate it with one of my favorite words ever: euthymia.

Seneca talks about the power of euthymia in his classic essays. He tells us that euthymia is all about knowing yourself and having the courage to walk your own authentic path.

The English translation of that beautiful word?

Tranquility.

It’s the feeling we have when we truly TRUST ourselves. When we know we’re headed in the right direction and we’re able to quit comparing ourselves to everyone else and stop second guessing ourselves every 5 seconds.

Which leads us to today’s +1 reflection:

How’s YOUR tranquility?

Here’s one way to energize it.

In Ego Is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday riffs on Seneca’s perspective on euthymia and tells us: “So why do you do what you do? That’s the question you need to answer. Stare at it until you can. Only then will you understand what matters and what doesn’t. Only then can you say no, can you opt out of stupid races that don’t matter, or even exist. Only then is it easy to ignore ‘successful’ people, because most of the time they aren’t—at least relative to you, and often even to themselves. Only then can you develop that quiet confidence Seneca talked about.”

So…

Why do YOU do what you do?

That’s the question. Stare at it. Answer it. Say yes to your path. And say no to all the other silly distractions.

+1 all the way to energized tranquility.