The two-fold goal of life is to merge our Will with that of our fellow human beings and Nature to achieve happiness. We use the three disciplines of directing our desires and aversions, actions, and assents. Your desires and aversions must be in line with your values. Our actions must follow the dichotomy of control. Assents are judgments about the truth of our experience, and we must use wisdom to assure our assents are correct. The main tool for Neurostoical self-correction is monitoring our actions through keeping a journal. You must record your progress in goals, emotional control and perfection of reason through the virtues. Part of this practice is mindfulness and meditation. We must reflect on what is beautiful: beneficial, helpful, desirable, and how to embody our values. In our actions we must maintain a reserve clause because we do not control everything. All of our actions must come from a love of humankind and be congruent with the virtues. A useful model in this practice is to role play your most admired sage. Either imagine yourself as that person or ask yourself how that individual would respond to a given situation. See that sage as observing your actions. We must develop our coping skills of premeditating adversity and foresight. If you mentally prepare yourself for every eventuality, you increase your ability to handle anything. If you think to work out the best course of action for the long-term and short-term, you enhance the quality of life through your actions. A useful tool is to objectively represent all challenges you are dealing with. If you physical describe your problems you're able to extract any negative emotions that may be associated with them. You are also able to more sharply focus on challenges and possible solutions. Cognitive distancing is another tool to gain control of issues. Ultimately, we should cultivate a greatness of soul that may sustain us through whatever may happen. A great example of this is Ghandi. Through his practice of nonviolent protest, he was the single most powerful force for Indian independence. We must focus on the positive. We must view every experience as a gift or opportunity to learn. We must orient our minds toward joy. The Stoics believed that to have a free-flowing life leads to happiness. That should be our goal.
