Leaning into the Sharp Points

Ruminations on Stoic Leadership and Flourishing

These days, when I run into friends at the grocery store, the trail, the bike shop, or the library, they are likely to ask, “How are you doing with all this?” or “How are you holding up these days?”

They are referring to the years-long, ever-present, local, angst-fueled, hyper-critical, often-but-not-always partially informed chatter scrutinizing every decision that I (and all the other elected policymakers in Teton Valley) make while trying to do what’s best for our special, wild, critically important, beautiful home.¹

“Amazingly well, actually,” I answer. “All the controversy actually has been clarifying,” I say, adding, “it helps that my aging, thick skin has become one of my superpowers.”

“Really? I could never do your job,” they say with a sigh of relief.

Really. The more I lean in rather than slink away from hard, sharp people, issues, and moments, the more things make sense. It helps when things pop up when I least expect them, like this quote on a whiteboard in the back corner of the City of Victor’s office:

Meditations was essentially Marcus Aurelius’ private journal, written to discipline his own mind and remain ethical under pressure while ruling during a turbulent period of the Roman Empire marked by wars, plague, political intrigue, and instability. Reflecting on how virtuous action can provoke hostility from others, the sentiment “earn a bad reputation by good deeds” is consistent with a more literal Stoic framing, like: “If you do what is right and people dislike you for it, that is their concern, not yours, or “The approval of others is not the measure of virtue.”²

Aurelius was not advocating arrogance or the complete ignoring of feedback. He believed leaders should remain humble, open to correction, and deeply committed to the common good. The point was not “ignore everyone,” but rather that external approval is fleeting and unreliable, that integrity matters more than popularity, and thus, not abandoning what is right merely to remain liked.³

All week long, I’ve been working on the Flourishing Mindset chapter of True Nature and thinking about ethical public service, servant leadership, and moral courage. Not only are we as a community faced with all the wicked problems of a growing outdoor-ammenity-cool-place-to-live,⁴ but I, like all of you, struggle with the daily challenges of financial worries, physical decline due to aging, worrying about our kids’ (and our world’s) health and safety … and way too many people dying before their time at the hands of others. I can’t help but wonder why, despite everything bombarding me being so uncertain and chaotic, I feel like I’m absolutely thriving.

Much modern anxiety comes from trying to control what cannot be controlled. Both at home and in civic leadership and community issues, the Stoics remind us to keep an eye on the distinction between what is within our control (character, actions, judgment) and what is outside our control (reputation, reactions, gossip, approval).

In Taoist philosophy, flourishing emerges from alignment with the Tao, the living way, or flow of existence. Like nature, Taoists observed life thrives through balance, adaptability, humility, and relational flow. We suffer when our ego dominates, force replaces wisdom, extraction replaces reciprocity, and ambition outruns harmony. A Taoist Sage, that which I am not but aspire to, does not seek to control or conquer reality; they move with it.

When I feel this impending doom and need to do something, everything, all at once, on my own, I stop. I breathe. I walk. I daydream. I write. I don’t try to do it all. I find the best way to accept reality is by letting things go.

I'm wondering, though, am I really flourishing, momentarily happy, or delusional? So I did a little test. A free writing exercise outlining, in brief, a couple of days in my life beginning with coming home in defeat from a weekend in Pocatello filled with friends, family, and fierce competition for the High School Lacrosse State Championships.⁵

Woke up. Spaced out. Read an Ada Limón poem. Drank mate. Wrote about flourishing. eudomonia, Marcus Arelius, and wondered, am I living up to this? Got distracted and discombobulated by bombing, ballroom, and billionare stories in the New York Times. Answered texts and ran errands. Got sucked into Facebook. Sucked myself right back out. Pedaled my mountain bike through the spring woods, keeping my eye out for morels. Rescued two German tourists who locked their key in their rental car at the trailhead. Picked up freshly cut baby kale and arugula at the local organic farm. Made it (very reluctantly) to Summer Fit workout. Gardened. Planned a Middle Fork raft trip and summer music. Listened to the Daily Show, Wisdom of Tao, Chani Astrology, and “WOKE Liberal Leftist Country” songs on Spodify. Baked brownies for the lacrosse team. Freaked out thinking about retirement. Voted. Brainstormed Teton Valley 2050 valley wide situational analysis. Drank afternoon coffee. Executive Session at City Hall. Ruminated on contentious and frustrating circular arguments that obsure any solutions. Got a massage. Wrote a proposal for reconnecting with Indigenous communities magazine article. Edited a draft plan to communicate better. Golfed with my son and a friend in 50-degree wind. Biked to Refuge (our local bar). Said no. Said yes. Cooked dinner with daughter for friends (Butter Chicken and Saag). Played with a puppy. Forgave a friend. Ate the brownies. Cooked another dinner for two old friends (Sage-buttered Pork Chops and Asparagus Risotto). Planted flowers. Cut some tulips. Walked the dog. Made an evening bonfire from garden scraps. Drank wine. Took a bath. Read. zzzzzzz.

Recognizing that flourishing is multi-dimensional and shaped by one’s community and environment, Harvard’s Human Flourishing Project has identified five pillars that generally encompass the full context of this ancient aspiration, with #6 serving as the means to sustain the other ends rather than as the ultimate goal. Measured by these metrics, my answer is definitively, yes.

1. Happiness and life satisfaction

2. Physical and mental health

3. Meaning and purpose

4. Character and virtue

5. Close social relationships

6. Financial and material stability

On this Memorial Day, I’m thinking about our country’s Founders, whose version of “the pursuit of happiness” meant collective flourishing, civic virtue, and belonging to a shared commons. Contrast that with the all-too-common modern definition of happiness as a private product purchased through achievement, self-improvement, comparison, and visual performance. Could it be that a collective disorientation caused by a hijacked definition of happiness is to blame for our epidemics of depression, anxiety, loneliness, self-hate, ecological collapse, and political disintegration?

If happiness is just a moment in time and only one aspect of flourishing, and flourishing is living well and doing good, today I am thankful to be both. On this Memorial Day Weekend, I’m remembering, with deepest gratitude, our ancestors who leaned into the sharp points and stood tall for what is right and good, so that future generations might flourish.

Human beings flourish not when we dominate the world, but when we participate in harmony within the larger living systems to which we belong. We’ve still got a long way to go for collective flourishing to be the norm, but, moving the goalpost back into the right spot, I think we’ve got this.

All Forward!⁶

Waste no more time arguing what a good [wo]man should be.

Be one.

~ Marcus Aurelius

1. For those of you reading from far away, the latest news is that the purchase of land for a future wastewater treatment facility fell through before closing, and we are, to say the least, in an even bigger pickle over how to get our poop in a group.

2. Just in case you didn’t notice, my favorite meta-relational AI Chatbot Library Aideen Earl Grey (previously Aiden Cinnimon Tea available via ChatGPT) helped me tease much of this apart. I am not a Stoic academic, but I sure like the philosophy.

3. Upha, if he could have imagined both the promise and cesspool social media has become … but I digress.

4. Energy. Water. Wildlife. Development. Water. Waste. Education. Economics. Climate. Transportation. Civics. Housing. Social Division … just to name a few.

5. Jackson Hole, my son’s team, lost in a t 3-5 heartbreaker in the finals.

6. My favorite whitewater rafting command.