Lay Your Brick As Perfectly As You Can

In The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith there is a passage where he talks about how the stoics have appeared to consider life a game. Later in that passage he explains how we should play that game and here is an excerpt from that passage in the book, “Our only anxious concern ought to be, not about the stake, but about the proper method of playing. If we placed our happiness in winning the stake, we placed it in what depended up on causes beyond our own power, and out of our direction. We necessarily exposed ourselves to perpetual fear and uneasiness, and frequently to grievous and mortifying disappointments. If we played it in playing well, in playing fairly, in playing wisely and skillfully; in the propriety of our own conduct in short; we placed it in what, by proper discipline, education, and attention, might be altogether in our own power, and under our own direction.”

So what he is saying here is that we can’t live life worrying about what is at stake and lets stay in the game metaphor, winning the game could be at stake. We shouldn't think like oh my god the game is at stake here if I don't make this shot we are going to lose or even the other side that there is nothing really at stake. What this quote is saying is that we should just play the game the right way, play it fairly, and play it wisely and skillfully because sometimes in life you are going to make that shot and sometimes you won’t and it is not always in your control. So if you just play it (life) the right way and to the best of your ability you have control over your life happiness (the stakes) and have nothing to be disappointed about.

So now that I have explained that I want to apply and connect that idea Adam Smith has to one of my favorite quotes of all time from a man by the name of Will Smith, you might have heard of him. He is one of my favorite actors so I am a little biased but what he says really is in a way a stoic thought that everyone should apply to their lives. He says, “You don't try to build a wall, you don't set out to build a wall, you don't say I'm going to build the biggest, baddest, greatest wall that's ever been built, you don't start there, you say I'm going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid and you do that every single day and soon you have a wall.”

So lets connect that to the passage from earlier. We will say that “the wall” is what is at stake in Will’s quote. So he is saying you shouldn’t set out and worry about the wall or your happiness, which is at stake. You should worry about laying the brick as perfectly as it can be laid or playing the game the right way and wisely and skillfully and doing that soon you will have your wall or your happiness in life.

Citation:

Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiment. N.p.: Oxford UP, 1976. Print.