Stress Free and Stoic
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Transcript of Stress Free and Stoic
Stress Free And Stoic By Van Bryan
Feeling stressed? Well, take some comfort in knowing that you are
not alone. Last year the American Psychological Association
conducted a survey of levels of self-reported stress amongst adults
in the United States. The results were, unsurprisingly, not so
great.
Seventy eight percent of adults surveyed reported that their levels
of stress have either increased or remained about the same over the
past five years. Sixty one percent of adults say that managing
stress is very important, however only 35 percent say they are
doing a good job of managing stress. The top reasons people feel
stressed were concerns over money, work, and the economy.
If you are looking for advice on the economy, money, bulls, bears,
and the global market, then you came to the wrong place. You really
ought to go talk to our friends over at The Diary of a Rogue
Economist for that sort of thing. Our business is classical
literature and finding ways to live better through an understanding
of ancient wisdom.
Lets move on. Shall we?
Okay, okay, so people are stressed, whats a philosopher to do?
Drink another Red Bull and just power through? Well, you could do
that, but lets find a method that wont cause inevitable heart
failure.
Stoicism! Now thats the ticket.
What is Stoicism? How did it come about? What are the ins and outs
of this complex philosophy? Where did I put my cup of coffee? These
are the types of questions that I often ask myself whenever I sit
down to write on a topic of philosophy.
And while we could spend hours and hours going over the specifics
of Stoicism, I think too much information at once can often lead to
an undue amount of stress. That would, obviously, defeat the
purpose of our whole investigation.
So lets settle for an abridged definition of Stoicism and then we
will go right into a few stoic lessons that you can apply to your
every day life to become just a little less anxious.
What Is Stoicism?
Stoicism is a brand of philosophy that focuses almost exclusively
on the areas of ethics, virtues, and the very difficult task of
living a good life. Stoicism as a way of life would originate in
Greece, as most philosophy does, in the later years of the
Hellenistic age and would gain momentum right up to the height of
the Roman Empire.
The founder was Zeno of Citium, a Greek philosopher who began his
lecturing days not long after the death of Aristotle in 322 BCE.
While Zeno was the founder of the Stoicism, he is often eclipsed by
some of the more prolific stoic authors of the Roman empire. Among
these are Epictetus, Seneca the younger, and the emperor Marcus
Aurelius.
Stoicism taught, above all else, that we ought to live according to
nature. They believed that there was a great design to the universe
and that nature was the highest form of perfection. Nothing
inconsequential happens within the world, everything is, in one way
or another, part of some perfectly constructed plan.
Additionally, living according to nature means that we ought to
live according to our human nature. What is our human nature? Well,
it is our ability to think rationally and our need to pursue wisdom
and understanding. We will be supremely happy when we are living
according to our human nature. All other things we might find,
wealth and money for instance, will never truly make us live a good
life.
Sound good so far? Of course it does. So if you want to live stress
free and stoically, you might want to follow these simple
rules.
Rule #1 Recognize that which you have control over
Do you want to know who is very good at living a stoic life?
Recovering alcoholics have this down pat. If you have ever spent
time around recovering alcoholics or, like me, ever worked in a
facility for addiction treatment, then you have probably heard the
following phrase:
God grand me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the
courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the
difference.
What is interesting about that expression, is that it almost
perfectly summarizes our first rule of living a stress free, stoic
life. The first thing we have to do is recognize what we have
control over and what we do not.
Lets say you are stuck in traffic, the cars are stacked one on top
of the other for miles. Now, you could very easily become
disheartened by such a situation. Perhaps the stress could get to
you and you could start tearing out your hair. But now lets ask
another question.
Do you really have any control over the traffic?
Of course you do not. There is nothing in your power that you can
do. You cannot split the traffic as if you were Moses splitting the
Red Sea. You cannot fly out your window and escape I 95. We must
recognize that the situation is out of our hands, there is nothing
to be done.
We can apply this principle to all sorts of things. Whenever you
are in a stressful situation, we must ask if we have any meaningful
control. The answer, very often, is no.
We, as individuals, can no more meaningfully effect the economy or
world affairs any more than we can effect the rotation of the
earth. Believe me, I have friends who are brokers in New York City.
They tell me the same thing.
The stoic philosopher, Epictetus said as much as this within his
Discourses. The philosopher suggests that much of our anxiety stems
from our desire to have things that are not within our power to
give.
A lute player when he is singing by himself has no anxiety, but
when he enters the theatre, he is anxious even if he has a good
voice and plays well on the lute; for he not only wishes to sing
well, but also to obtain applause: but this is not in his power.
-Epictetus (Discourses)
So we are often wracked by anxiety when encountering situations
whose outcome we cannot control. Will we ever escape the gridlock
heading north out of Miami? Will the lute player receive an
applause after playing the lute?
We dont know. More importantly, we cant know. All we can do is
manage our reactions and maintain our stoic demeanor. Oh, and we
could just try to play the lute as best we can. Whatever is meant
to happen, will happen.
Rule #2 Recognize real problems from imaginary problems.
Taking another tip from Epictetus, we know that
Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined
anxieties about real problems -Epictetus
But what if is a rather popular statement for the more anxious
among us. But what if give us an excuse to worry over problems that
have not arisen yet. It gives us an excuse to stress.
When we consider problems that are very real, that are happening
here and now, what do we really have? Perhaps there are actual
concerns, but more often than not they are simply concerns of what
MIGHT happen rather than what IS happening.
Recovering alcoholics, once again, learn this lesson one way or the
other. What is truly a problem for us right now? We might be
homeless tomorrow, but we arent today. We might not have a penny to
our name next week, but for now we are doing alright. All we really
have is right now, and right now we are doing okay.
A man in recovery once told me
I realized eventually that I was just creating problems to get
drunk off of. I dont know where my children are. That will be a
problem one day, but it isnt right now. Even if I could find my
children, I wouldnt know what to say. I would run.
I dont have any money. But that isnt a problem right now because I
have a roof over my head, a meal on my plate, and I can always get
cigarettes. I might be lost and alone tomorrow, but Im not
today.
So if you want to live stoically, and apparently you do, then you
really ought to consider which of your problems are real and which
are inventions of an overly anxious mind.
Rule #3 Learn what you can live without
What do you really need? Have you ever thought about that? Insofar
as you are a human being, what do you need? Are you more successful
as a rational individual if you have a flat screen television? Are
you more noble or glorious as a person if there is a Mercedes Benz
in your drive way?
In the course of Discourses, Epictetus comments on how he finds it
strange that we continue to attach ourselves to more and more
things, even when these things very often bring us misery.
But now when it is in our power to look after one thing [our minds/
rational soul], and to attach ourselves to it, we prefer to look
after many things, and to be bound to many things, to the body and
to property, and to brother and to friend, and to child and to
slave. Since, then, we are bound to many things, we are depressed
by them and dragged down. -Epictetus
Living stoically is not easy. It asks us to surrender many of our
desires; chief among these are our desires for luxury and wealth.
While we may want these things, our desire for them very often lead
to disappointment and sadness. We continuously look toward what we
want and refuse to recognize that which we already have.
A philosophy professor explained this idea to me in the following
way
If you are the type of person who just wont be happy until you are
a millionaire and spend every night partying at Playboy mansion,
then you are bound to be disappointed. The Stoics would tell you to
wake up! Recognize the good things you already have and set some
reasonable goals for yourself.
Put more succinctly by Marcus Aurelius
When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be
alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ... -Marcus Aurelius
(Meditations)
Rule #4 Cultivate your inner self
Okay, so this has been a rather difficult process for some of us.
All we have done so far is talk about things that we should stop
doing. Stop worrying about things that are beyond our control. Stop
creating problems that may happen in the future. Stop creating
unnecessary desires that you think will make you happy.
So what can we actually do?
Well, the Stoics would tell you that you ought to cultivate the one
thing that you actually do have control over, your inner self. When
it comes right down to it you are not in control over the economy,
the world, or even your body. You are, however, in control of the
state of your mind and your soul.
If we are most human when we are actively pursuing knowledge or
understanding, then we will also be happiest while performing these
tasks. Who you are, the only part of you that is of any real
consequence, is your inner self. It is the part of your that comes
to understand virtue through doing virtuous acts, wisdom through
pursing true understanding.
The Stoics believed that a peasant could be happy so long as he was
a sage, but a king would be miserable unless he was also a sage.
And while the king might have more markers in the game of life,
more cards up his sleeve, what is of real importance is how you
play, not if you win or not.
And I know that some of these rules are rather difficult for us. It
is not an easy thing to let go all of our desires, our woes, our
fears just because some philosophers thousands of years ago said
that the universe had a plan for us.
Believe me, I know.
Still, if you could follow even one of these rules within your
daily life, I think you might find that you become just a little
less anxious. And you might soon be on your way to living a
stress-free, stoic existence.