As a counterpart to my morning practice of daily forethought, I've also been engaging in daily reflection every evening. This habit was made famous by the ancient Stoic Seneca in Book III of his dialogue On Anger, where he mentions that his teacher Sextius asked himself these three probing questions before going to sleep: "What bad habit of yours have you cured today? What vice have you checked? In what respect are you better?" Some of my questions are more positive, but still geared toward living a more examined life:
The key themes I try to bring out are awareness of how I'm conducting myself and interacting with other people, objectivity about my strengths and weaknesses, honest understanding and analysis of my behavior, reinforcement of what I'm doing right, correction of what I'm doing wrong, and commitment to my chosen principles and policies in life.
And as I begin the day with a kind of benediction, so I've been experimenting with something similar at the end of the day: "Thankful am I for having enjoyed another day on this beautiful earth. May it be said that I made the most of it. I have lived, and lived well."
This last sentence is a paraphrase of a suggestion that Seneca makes in his twelfth letter to Lucilius: "Let us go to our sleep with joy and gladness; let us say: I have lived." Yet I affix an Aristotelian coda, which is that more important than living is living well.
(Cross-posted at philosopher.coach.)
FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION