{"id":869,"date":"2023-10-19T12:19:03","date_gmt":"2023-10-19T19:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/?p=869"},"modified":"2023-10-19T12:19:03","modified_gmt":"2023-10-19T19:19:03","slug":"counteract-bad-habits-with-good-ones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/the-daily-stoic\/10\/19\/counteract-bad-habits-with-good-ones\/","title":{"rendered":"Counteract Bad Habits With Good Ones"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“Since habit is such a powerful influence, and we’re used to pursuing our impulses to gain and avoid outside our own choice, we should set a contrary habit against that, and where appearances are really slippery, use the counterforce of our training.”<\/p>EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES<\/em>, 3.12.6<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Today’s quote from The Daily Stoic is a little obfuscated, and as a result it’s kind of hard to understand. Thankfully author Ryan Holiday breaks it down for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In summary: bad habits are really strong, and as humans we tend to be impulsive and chase after things. We should try to counteract that by using our constant practice<\/a> and “the counterforce of our training” to pull ourselves in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have free will, we have discipline, and we have a discerning and rational mind that cannot be beaten<\/a>. We must employ these tools in the service of stopping bad habits. We must use the powers we have to turn ourselves around in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have the most powerful ability in the world<\/a> \u2014 the ability to determine how we’re going to react<\/em>. Let our reaction be to counteract bad habits with good ones<\/strong>, and correct what needs correcting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bad habits are really strong. That why we have to employ all the skills we’ve learned in our practice, to respond with good habits instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[50,193,212,51,511,283,154,237,387,450,512,145],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":874,"href":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869\/revisions\/874"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meditationsbybilly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}