Stoicism 4 – Week 1: Rising to do human work

Not yet trial-taught Not yet expert-reviewed

This week: this level 4 course brings Stoic practice into daily life, at home and at work. The first week starts with the morning. Each morning, before you begin, name one piece of "human work" for today: something you will do that is useful to someone else. Each evening, take a break that is fully away from work.

"Work" here is meant broadly: paid work, housework, looking after children or someone who is ill, study, looking for a job. No kind of work counts as lesser.

Measurable goal: each morning name one piece of "human work", and each evening take at least 30 minutes without touching work, on at least 5 of 7 days.

1. Traditional teaching

[Traditional teaching] Stoicism teaches that human beings are social by nature, and that doing our share of work for the common good is living in step with that nature. Marcus Aurelius, a busy emperor, wrote down for himself how he faced mornings when he did not want to get up.

Reading it in context

• The Meditations are Marcus’s private notebook, written to himself, not advice for others. He argues with himself: one voice wants to stay in bed, another reminds him of his work.
• "It is necessary to take rest also" is Marcus’s own line. He does not treat rest as laziness; he only reminds himself not to rest beyond what is needed.
• At the end of section 1, Marcus praises craftsmen who love their art so much that they work without eating or sleeping. [Expert judgement] The course does not follow that: skipping meals or sleep for work is not the aim of the exercise. Enough rest is part of "human work".
• In Stoicism, "the work of a human being" means work that is useful to the community, not work that earns the most money or the most praise. People who are unemployed, retired or ill still have "human work": helping someone at home, keeping a promise, being kind to someone.

2. What science finds

• [Verified] A meta-analysis of 86 publications with 38,124 workers: people who detach from work during time off (not thinking about it, not doing it) report less exhaustion and better sleep. This is a correlation: rest may not be the cause; people who are less exhausted may find it easier to detach. (Wendsche & Lohmann-Haislah 2017)
• [Inference] The morning exercise (naming work that is useful to others) has not been evaluated directly. This week rests on practitioners’ experience, not on scientific evidence.

3. Practice for adults

About 2 minutes in the morning, a 30-minute break in the evening, 2 minutes to note it down.

1. Read (first time, 3 minutes). Read the two passages slowly. Copy the line "I am rising to the work of a human being" onto a slip of paper and keep it by your bed or where you work.
2. Morning (1–2 minutes). Before opening your phone or starting work, ask: who will rely on my work today? Name one concrete task: "cook my child’s lunch", "finish checking the report so my colleague can carry on", "call my mother".
3. During the day. When you do that task, recall the line you copied. You do not need to work faster, only on purpose.
4. Evening (at least 30 minutes). Choose a stretch with no work: no replying to work messages, no email, no extra tasks. Walk, eat with your family, read, play with your children.
5. One line (2 minutes). What was today’s human work? Did I get my 30 minutes off?

4. Kids' corner 6+

Game: "Everyone has a job" (5–10 minutes, with an adult)

1. Go out to the yard, garden or park with your child and find a line of ants, or a bee or bird that is busy. Watch from a distance; don’t touch.
2. Ask: "What are they doing? Who are they doing it for?"
3. At home, the child chooses one small job of their own for the family the next day: lining up shoes, watering a plant, tidying toys.
4. The next evening ask: "Who did your job help today?"

daynentang has a family activity to carry on with: Việc nhà của con (in Vietnamese). Don’t turn chores into a punishment.

5. Stop practising if

• You feel panic, have traumatic flashbacks, a lasting sense that you or the world are "not real", many sleepless nights, or thoughts of harming yourself.
• You are burnt out, have long-running sleep problems because of work, or have not been able to get up in the morning for weeks. That is not a lack of willpower; rest, tell someone close to you, and see a doctor or mental health professional.
• The exercise makes you blame yourself for "not doing anything useful". Then drop the morning step and keep only the evening break.
• In that case stop practising and see Get help now.

6. Foundation skills on daynentang

If a day feels too heavy and you don’t know where to start, daynentang has a lesson: Một việc nhỏ có ý nghĩa mỗi ngày (One small meaningful thing a day; in Vietnamese).

7. Practice for today

Write down one thing you will do today that is useful to someone else, and the time you will stop work tonight.

Science sources

• Wendsche J, Lohmann-Haislah A (2017). A meta-analysis on antecedents and outcomes of detachment from work. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 2072. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.02072