Stoicism for Happiness
The art of not worrying about anything.
Imagine losing everything. Absolutely everything.
You don’t have a single dollar left.
What would you do?
Now imagine you had amassed a fortune, and you have to start from scratch.
Well, that’s what happened to Zeno of Citium.
Zeno of Citium was born in Citium, Cyprus, in 333 BC.
Son of Mnaseas of Patara, a Greek merchant. Zeno had followed in the footsteps of his father. But one fine day, a ship with all his belongings and fortune sank in front of his eyes.
And do you know what he did?
It is said that he said,
“Fortune wants me to have more freedom to philosophize.”
He then went to Athens. And after training as a philosopher, he founded his own philosophical school.
He teaches philosophy under a portico decorated with paintings.
He founded the school around 300 B.C., and that painted portico (in Latin Stoa Poikile) where Zenon taught his disciples gave its name to his philosophical current: Stoicism.
There he would teach his principles.
- Moral duty
- Self-control
- Life in harmony with nature
His upright way of life earned the respect of the society of his time. And thanks to this, his teachings have survived to this day.
Stoicism is a way of life that can make you much happier than you imagine. That is why in today’s article, we will talk about stoicism. And how by cultivating a stoic attitude, we can improve the quality of our lives.
Let’s begin.
I. The road to success and personal fulfillment
“Just keep in mind: the more we value things out of our control, the less control we have.”
— Epictetus.
Zenon of Citium, Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius discovered that one could achieve success and live a dignified life by practicing selective detachment from worldly things.
We cannot control what happens to us in life, but we can control our reactions to what happens to us.
We can choose to perceive tragedies constructively or destructively.
Imagine being unjustly imprisoned for decades in subhuman conditions.
How do you overcome that?
Nelson Mandela and José Mujica went through it. Mandela was locked up for 27 years. And José Mujica did not stop dreaming for a single day of the 14 years he was in prison.
They both had the stoic mindset.
Both chose not to give in to their circumstances and took a positive approach to their situation.
The moral of the story is that we can all choose not to give a sh*t about anything that is irrelevant or that makes us bitter.
If you can apply it to situations as complex as being in prison. You can use it with the little things of everyday life.
Things like this,
- Being late for an appointment
- Having to wait at the bank
- Your phone running out of battery
- Your internet connection fails
- spilling coffee on your shirt
- Getting rejected by the girl or guy you like
- That your plans go awry.
- That someone speaks ill of you.
- That someone says they don’t like your articles.
- That the neighbor plays loud music.
- That your food gets burned.
- That they leave your Whatsapp messages on hold.
- [Insert here what irritates you the most.]
If you think about it, all of the above is irrelevant, and yet it affects us in such a way that it can sour our day.
Yesterday I woke up. I looked at my bank account to check if I had received payment for a couple of writing assignments. And discovered that a family member had used my credit card without my permission.
I was irritated, but instead of spending the day being bitter. I decided to put my energy into solving the problem. I called the company that made the charge to get my money back. I canceled the credit card. Then, I ordered a new one so that the person could not use my information again. And I went on with my life.
If I had been angry, I would have lost the day’s work, and I wouldn’t have been able to write.
When something upsets, you ask yourself the magic question,
Will this matter to me in 5 years?
And if the answer is no. Try to resolve the issue without getting too angry. It’s not worth it.
Think about how much energy you waste on arguing over tiny day-to-day frustrations.
What would you be able to achieve if you spent that energy on important things instead of arguing and getting angry?
This sounds very New Agey, but it is powerful.
II. How to apply it
“Learn to be indifferent to what doesn’t matter.”
— Marcus Aurelius.
Imagine how you would feel if you started to become less sentimentally involved in the bad things that happen to you.
- You would feel more comfortable.
- You wouldn’t be afraid of failure.
- You would not be afraid of rejection.
- You would not feel ashamed.
- Problems would have less power over you.
- You would be less conditioned by the opinions of others.
- Your life would be easier.
Try it for 24 hours. You have nothing to lose and much to gain.
I propose a game:
- Get up tomorrow morning, and if someone criticizes or annoys you in any way, don’t argue with them.
- If you can’t find anything good to watch on Netflix, don’t get mad. Read a book.
- If life changes your plans, adapt.
- If someone stands you up, go out on your own for a walk.
- If you run out of hot water, take a cold shower.
- If you see your ex with someone else on social media, move on.
Get it?
When 24 hours have passed,
- Reflect on all those things you have experienced differently. Those situations that in another day would have upset you and have not.
To conclude,
- Was your day better than if you had gotten upset over trifles?
III. What matters
“It does not matter how much time we are given if there is nowhere for it to settle; it escapes through the cracks and holes of the mind.”
— Seneca.
Does stoicism mean that nothing matters to me?
No. That would be more like an extreme type of nihilism.
The term nihilism came from the Latin word nihil, and means “nothing.”
A clear example of a nihilist would be the character of The Joker, played by Joaquin Phoenix.
Stoics do care about things.
What matters nothing to them is what is irrelevant. And they accept everything they cannot control. However tragic it may be.
But they don’t do it because they don’t give a sh*t.
They do it because the best way to act in the face of a problem is to stay calm.
When you stop spending your time, resources, and energy on superficial stuff, you have more time, resources, and energy for what matters to you.
I have a mantra that I mentally repeat to myself every time something irrelevant gets on my nerves. I repeat to myself mentally,
I don’t give a sh*t about this!
And so should you.
Do you know why?
Because the purpose of life is to grow, and there is only one way to grow: by maturing.
You are no longer a child, and no adult will come to save you because you have a tantrum and start whining. It’s something you’re going to have to do. Realizing this, that’s maturing.
I.V The importance of growing up
“One must take all one’s life to learn how to leave, and what will perhaps make you wonder more, one must take all one’s life to learn how to die.”
— Seneca.
Growing up makes you happy. Makes your life easier.
Why?
Because they had matured. And maturing is accepting what you cannot change and learning to live with it.
- Accept that life is the way it is.
- Accept your body.
- Accept your wrinkles and expression marks.
- Accept that the world is unfair.
- Accept that good thing will not always happen to you.
- Accept that you will not achieve all your goals.
- Accept that nothing is eternal.
- Accept that everything changes.
This seems like a loser’s attitude, but it is the other way around.
Accepting things and moving on makes you a winner.
- You gain self-esteem.
- You gain self-knowledge.
- You gain wisdom.
- You gain quality of life.
- You gain joy.
And you save time. The time that you used to spend worrying about silly things.
And you can invest it in what is really important: your family, friends, etc.
In the end, stoic thinking makes it easier to achieve what you set out to do.
Because when you want to accomplish a goal, you don’t mind facing adversity. Therefore,
“Arrivederci” fear of failure. “Chao” fear of rejection. “Bye, Bye” shame.
And that raises your expectations of success.
What matters is to achieve your goal. So you don’t mind tearing down the impediments that separate you from it.
Do you realize how powerful this is?
Think about what you would do if you weren’t afraid.
V. How to know what matters
“The reason why we have two ears and only one mouth is that we may listen the more and talk the less.”
— Zeno of Citium.
It’s simpler than you think. You just have to establish two categories of emotions. Disruptive and constructive.
Disruptive
- Envy.
- Shame.
- Hate.
- Anguish.
- [ Insert a self-defeating emotion. ]
Constructive
- Love.
- Friendship.
- Well-being.
- Harmony.
- Peace.
- [Insert a positive emotion.]
Do you understand?
Dedicate yourself to avoid activities that provoke disruptive emotions and invest your time doing things that generate constructive emotions.
Fill your life with things that really matter to you, and you will stop wasting your time getting indignant on Twitter or worrying about silly things.
If you do, it will change your life for the better.
If you have read to the end of the article, I want to thank you for your support. I hope this article has helped you. If so, let me know in the comments. I really appreciate it.
Thanks for reading. Alberto García (Malafama1981).
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