Venturing into the trenches of thought

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To refer to philosophical works as a means to design one's life is similar to following religious doctrine. There are philosophical theologians who have endeavored to reconcile philosophy and the divine.  I had been gravitating towards the practicality of stoicism, primarily because most of my ideas and perceptions about life and existence conform to stoic ideas. Also, I have been reading Meditations by the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius and about the stoic school of thought until I had to draw in the reins after listening to a BBC Radio 4 episode on Stoicism.  Mainly due to the fact that I am not trying to justify a pagan, self-sufficient life.  I must agree with the stoic conviction of pursuing a virtuous life by investing in the present, since (as classical Greek stoicism exhorts) nature has already designed our destiny.  However, I believe that it is not enough to think that just because the future is uncertain, we have incomplete control over what is to come. We still need to live a virtuous present with the future in mind; that our present actions ultimately affect the future. And that the uncertainty levels of the future can be dampened based on the conscious efforts we exert in the present.

As Josemaria Escriva once wrote on his chapter on supernatural life: If you lose the supernatural meaning of life, your charity will be philanthropy; your purity, decency; your mortification, stupidity; your discipline, a lash; and all your works, fruitless. (The Way, 280)