Stoicism: How to Manage the Difficulties of Life

A complete overview of a philosophy that teaches us how to live

Before I discovered Stoicism, I was emotional — and not in a controlled, comfortable way. Any positive event sent me to cloud nine, and any negative event took me down into the abyss.

It’s been years since I first came across Stoicism. Still, I find myself continually going back for guidance, especially when self-improvement, personal development, practical psychology, and other Cute Life Hacks can’t save me. Stoicism provides direction for dealing with the difficulties of life: losing a loved one, breaking up with a partner, or the smaller adversities like receiving bad news after a job interview.

Even though Stoicism is labeled as a philosophy, we can think of it as a tool: a tool for handling pain. Life is full of suffering, and this “philosophy” helps with coping.

🙋 What is Stoicism?

Stoicism is ill-defined because of its complexity. No one-liner can capture its entire essence, but I’ll try anyway:

Stoicism is a philosophy of personal ethics whose goal is to deal with the misfortunes of life.

How Stoicism became popular

Stoicism is old. Zeno founded the philosophy in the early 3rd century BC. People didn’t experience the same difficulties with adjusting to the exciting digital world we do today, but they did have their own sets of problems. And life concerned them enough that they sought help from philosophy.

But many philosophies are fickle, intangible, and difficult to apply. Stoicism brought a new perspective to philosophy: one that exists to solve real solutions with real problems. Stoicism was concerned with what was real. It didn’t tell you to accept that everything is okay, or that things will get better, or that you’re going to heaven. It said that things could get worse: no lies and no false hope.

With immense practicality, Stoicism spread from the emperor to peasants. The philosophy didn’t bully you for experiencing difficulties. Instead, practitioners were encouraged to accept reality, do everything they can to change it, and give up control for the parts they can’t change.

Who is a stoic?

My favourite definition of a Stoic comes from urban dictionary: a contemporary, comedic, and satirical perspective on a serious philosophy.

Stoic

Someone who does not give a shit about the stupid things in this world that most people care so much about. Stoics do have emotions, but only for the things in this world that really matter. They are the most real people alive.

Group of kids are sitting on a porch. Stoic walks by.

Kid — “Hey man, yur a fuckin faggot an you suck cock!”

Stoic — “Good for you.”

Keeps going.

🎅 Who are our Stoic fathers?

Although Zeno was the official founder of Stoicism, later Stoics didn’t consider him wise enough to regard him as a Stoic. These following figures are men who I and many others believe had the most significant impact on the philosophy. They come from remarkably different backgrounds and have shaped Stoicism in their image.

Marcus Aurelius

Known as the kind, generous, and forgiving emperor, Marcus Aurelius ruled the Roman Empire from 161–180 AD. He spent most of his reign on the edges of his empire. Plagued by war and the loss of his men, he sought Stoicism to maintain his sanity.

Every day, he wrote to himself about empathy, discipline, and humility. Unbeknownst to him, these lessons would become one of the defining structures of Stoicism.

His journal, Meditations, is now one of the staples in the self-improvement community.

Seneca

Seneca, the tutor and advisor to Nero (who, sadly, later executed him), was a celebrated rhetorician, satirist, author, and playwright. Some call him the ancient entrepreneur: a self-made wealthy man of his time.

In Letters from a Stoic, Seneca delivers Stoic lessons to help his friend manage his life. The book is a goldmine of life lessons and displays his mastery over human emotions.

Seneca has many other books, but if you’re only going to read one, I recommend these letters.

Epictetus

Unlike our other fathers, Epictetus wasn’t born into power, as he was born a slave. He grew to endure torture and created a framework to combat it, and thus became one of the most famous Stoics, tutoring our great emperor Marcus Aurelius himself.

Epictetus’s student Arrian published his teachings as Discourses and Enchiridion.

Mentors are important

I introduced the Stoic fathers before I presented the philosophy. That’s because when I think about Stoicism, the first thing that comes to my head aren’t the ideas, they’re the people.

In times when I need to get my ego in check, I’ll often ask:

What would Marcus Aurelius do?

🙏 The Stoic beliefs

Life is not a blessing and positivity is not the key to a good life. Don’t ‘cheer up’ or ‘be happy’. Life is suffering, and you need to accept that. The Stoics taught these radical ideas, capturing the essence of human suffering and displaying them by voicing their beliefs:

Hope is dangerous

Eradicate hope. Yes, things can get better, but they can also get worse. Hope creates expectations of improvement: expectations that will knock you down when you don’t meet them. Instead of telling people their lives could get better, Stoics told people their life could get worse.

Modern Stoics would say that you could get divorced, your children could die, and you might go to prison. You have to accept the possibility of these misfortunes. If they happen, you’ll get through it.

Be grounded in reality

Negative emotions are the byproduct of mistaken judgments: an incorrect mental model of reality. To reduce these emotions, live in accordance with reality and accept everything that happens. Rationality and morality determine a good mental state.

People commonly mistake Stoicism to advise the removal of emotions. This is false, as the philosophy actually means to: take emotions out of the driver’s seat and place them in the passenger seat.

Live in accordance with nature

Our hedonistic modern lives can’t handle this one. Food is strictly for survival. Sex is only for reproduction. These are lessons that appear insane to apply. These days, we eat food and have sex mostly for fun: something Stoics advised against.

The Stoics believed material goods end up possessing you because you worry about maintaining them.

“Almost nothing material is needed for a happy life, for he who has understood existence.”

— Marcus Aurelius

We might not be able to apply this belief to sex and fun, but we can try with our possessions. Material goods are unnatural, so we should be careful with them, as they can end up owning us. So, understand that you can lose your material goods any time, and break free from their ownership of you.

Suicide is okay

“Can you no longer see a road to freedom? It’s right in front of you. You need only turn over your wrists.”

— Seneca

Even more radical is the Stoic belief that suicidal is okay: if you don’t want to live, you don’t have to. After all, life is difficult.

When Nero asked Seneca to commit suicide, he didn’t hesitate. On his deathbed, all he could think about was how to calm his wife and children from crying. He said:

“What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.”

I’m not telling you to commit suicide, or that the Stoic beliefs are the only rules for life. I’m simply explaining that these were their beliefs.

⚰️ Accept your mortality

“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”

— Marcus Aurelius

There have been a few times in my life where I thought I was going to die. As I accepted my false death, all I could think about were the things I could’ve done differently.

Memento mori: remember you must die. Stoics use this reminder not to promote a fear of death, but to accept it. Remember that one day your life will end, so appreciate what you have now. If you live as if you have infinite time, you can always wait for things to get better. Knowing you will die forces you to take action now.

Keep reminders of your mortality close

I have a skull tattoo on my chest; others have “memento mori” tattoos. These are permanent options for people who have been deeply touched by Stoicism. Less permanent options include memento mori coins and gratitude journals to write about death with an appreciation of what you have now.

Ask yourself questions

Tell yourself that you could get hit by a bus tomorrow. Then, ask yourself what you would do differently. Understanding your life could end soon will change how you think about the world.

Stoics aren’t the only practitioners of this technique. We also have the lovely Steve Jobs, who, in his famous Stanford graduation speech, said:

“If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I’m about to do today?”

— Steve Jobs

👁️ Practice negative visualization

“Misfortune weighs most heavily on those who expect nothing but good fortune.”

— Seneca

Negative visualization is the act of imagining the loss of something important. The technique reduces the emotional impact of loss when it happens: you’ll have already emotionally dealt with the loss. The thought experiment is effective because, despite serious efforts to prevent losses, it still happens.

Hedonic adaption

Most of us live in hedonic adaption: we chase our desires only to adapt to a new state of living where we have more desires. There’s no time to appreciate what we have now.

Negative visualization achieves the opposite of desire: the anti-desire. It reverses the hedonic adaption process. Instead of desiring things we don’t have, we desire what we already have, and we also accept that we can lose them.

Seneca on negative visualization

In one of Seneca’s letters to his friend Lucilius:

“Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: “Is this the condition that I feared?” It is precisely in times of immunity from care that the soul should toughen itself beforehand for occasions of greater stress, and it is while Fortune is kind that it should fortify itself against her violence. In days of peace the soldier performs maneuvers, throws up earthworks with no enemy in sight, and wearies himself by gratuitous toil, in order that he may be equal to unavoidable toil. If you would not have a man flinch when the crisis comes, train him before it comes.

…

Let the pallet be a real one, and the coarse cloak; let the bread be hard and grimy. Endure all this for three or four days at a time, sometimes for more, so that it may be a test of yourself instead of a mere hobby. Then, I assure you, my dear Lucilius, you will leap for joy when filled with a pennyworth of food, and you will understand that a man’s peace of mind does not depend upon Fortune; for, even when angry she grants enough for our needs.”

— Seneca

It appears extreme that he recommends to dress poorly and eat stale food. But it’s nothing so terrible. Seneca doesn’t ask us to put ourselves in physical danger.

Epictetus was even more unorthodox. He suggested that whenever you kiss a child, remember that she has been given to us “for the present, not inseparably nor for ever”. Then, we should reflect on the possibility that the child will die. It’s a morbid practice of negative visualization, but it works. Accepting the mortality of children creates a furthered appreciation for them.

Visualize loss

Visualize your wife has left you. Visualize your car has crashed into a pole. Visualize living on the streets. Visualize losing what you’re afraid to lose.

After visualizing, Seneca says to ask yourself: “Is this the condition that I feared?”.

Live as if you’ve lost it

If visualizing isn’t enough to conquer the fear, live as if the thing of importance is already lost.

One of my Stoic friends, in an example to teach Stoicism, slept in a garden instead of a bed on a road trip. Nothing bad happened. He learned how to appreciate his bed more.

Examples of what to practice this on:

• Bed
• Food
• Clothes

🎮 Worry only of what you can control

“External things are not the problem. It’s your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Epictetus’s Dichotomy of Control states that some things are within our control; others aren’t. The internal is within our control; the external isn’t.

Our most important choice in life is to decide whether to concern ourselves with the internal or external. Perhaps you don’t agree with Epictetus, and this isn’t the Most Important Choice, but hopefully, you still believe it’s damn important.

Most choose the external and believe their environment possesses what’s good or bad. The Stoics challenged this. They believed all benefits and harm come from one’s thoughts and emotions. We have to give up certain things from our environment to gain calm, freedom, and tranquillity.

Desire is unhappiness

Desiring is wanting something we don’t have, which means we’ll be unhappy. To manage this, change your desires (internal), and not the world around you (external). Create a primary desire: to prevent frustration from having desires you can’t fulfil.

It’s easy for us to get caught up in the admiration of others on social media. The Stoics would advise us to not only understand that such lavish lifestyles are unrealistic, but that we should focus on managing our internal world instead.

Practice killing your desire

We’re faced with people who have more than us every day. One example is at work: there are people with higher-paying positions, higher-impact positons, and even higher-relaxation positions.

It’s difficult to not feel some level of envy. Remind yourself that you can kill your desire. Ask yourself:

Would I still desire anything when I get what I want right now?

The answer is always yes. Desires never end.

Focus on things within your control

Ask yourself:

• Is it within my control?
• Can I do something about it?
• Am I able to change anything?

If the answer is yes, then ask: “Do I want to do anything about it?”

If something isn’t within your control, or you don’t want to change anything, accept reality and move on.

“Some things are within our power, while others are not. Within our power are opinion, motivation, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is of our own doing; not within our power are our body, our property, reputation, office, and, in a word, whatever is not of our own doing.”

— Epictetus

📔 Reflect on your experiences

“What ailment of yours have you cured today? What failing have you resisted? Where can you show improvement?”

— Seneca

The Stoic fathers all had a journaling a habit. For them, the journal wasn’t just a place to recount what happened, but also a place to understand themselves. The journal was a place to reflect on experiences to improve: a place where they can be true to themselves with no criticism from the world outside. In a place of pure honesty, they could practice philosophy with earnest intentions.

Epictetus taught his students that journaling about philosophy was a way to exercise the mind. Marcus Aurelius’s journal was published as Meditations. Seneca reflected on daily events in his journal every evening after his wife went to sleep.

Interrogate your mind

Seneca’s teacher Sexitus taught him to interrogate his mind with:

“What ailment of yours have you cured today? What failing have you resisted? Where can you show improvement?”

Transforming these into contemporary language:

• What toxic habits have I cured today?
• How have I exercised self-control today?
• How could I have improved?

When Seneca was too aggressive in reprimanding a peer, he didn’t declare them as weak-willed. Instead, he advised himself that if he were to give constructive criticism, not only should he consider whether the criticism is valid, but also whether the person can handle it.

My minimalistic journaling questions

In my own reflections, the two questions I ask myself are:

• What am I grateful for today?
• How could I have improved today?

These two questions help me practice gratitude and self-improvement. Copy mine, add your own questions, do whatever you want.

The Five Minute Journal

Tim Ferriss, a modern practitioner of Stoic philosophy, created his own product called The Five Minute Journal (non-affiliate link). If you don’t care about autonomy over your pages, start here.

I prefer a blank page so I can create my own structure, but you may prefer a pre-defined structure. Ferriss’s template is filled in with:

Morning:

• I am grateful for…
• What would make today great?
• Daily affirmations. I am…

Night:

• 3 Amazing things that happened today…
• How could I have made today even better?

🌲 Offer yourself to fate

“It is a great consolation that it is together with the universe we are swept along.”

— Seneca

Take a step back from your life and observe the universe as a whole. We’re a coincidental production of stardust: there is something out there but bigger than us.

The Stoics advised that we take a step back from our lives and look at the universe as a whole. They wanted us to imagine that we’re a lucky figment of something bigger than us and that everything that happens to us is bound to happen.

We don’t understand why what happens to us happens. So, accept that everything that happens to us is our fate. It’s somewhat deterministic, but there’s a practical mindset to follow. When life doesn’t meet our expectations, we get the feeling that the world is against us. The Stoics say: accept fate as you go through life.

Imagine you’re an actor

Imagine we’re actors in a play. The playwright determines our fate, and our destinies are already written in the script.

We can’t choose our roles, actions, or the environment. We don’t know what’s going to happen next. We don’t know whether things will get better. We don’t know if the next is going to be the universe taking knocking us down again.

Always accept reality

Accept, accept, accept. In times of misfortune, accept reality. Instead of desire, accept reality. For everything in life, accept reality.

Marcus Aurelius says that rejecting reality is rebelling against nature. We should love the fates bestowed upon us and take responsibility for our actions after things happen.

🧭 Be a virtuous man

“Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Insights don’t matter without action. Start living your philosophy. The Stoics created virtues to guide them. When decision-making, they looked at their virtues and questioned whether they followed their principles.

The four Stoic virtues:

• Wisdom
• Courage
• Temperance
• Justice

Wisdom

Wisdom is knowing what to choose: the power to differentiate between good and evil. It’s understanding when to display care and when to be indifferent.

Ultimate wisdom (the knowledge of all things) is impossible, but self-improvement is always possible, and you can always be wiser.

To practice wisdom is to be on a journey of continual growth: keep learning so you can learn how to make better decisions.

Courage

The courageous man makes the decision he believes is right. He chooses to exercise his will rather than succumb to fear. He still experiences fear, but he chooses to overcome it.

Stoic courage is the will to stare at fear and make the right decisions. It’s the heart to take risks to act morally. It’s the decision to insist on the truth when everyone else accepts the default.

To practice courage, ask yourself the following when making a decision:

Is this a courageous decision?

Temperance

Have the willpower to say no. Understand when to restrain yourself, and when enough is enough. A modern cliché is: everything in moderation. The road to excess provides immediate satisfaction followed by long-term discontent.

Exercise self-control every day. Have the discipline to moderate yourself, so you can be happy.

To practice temperance, ask yourself:

• What do I have too much of?
• What do I struggle to control myself with?
• What do I have that is causing me pain?

Justice

Justice is the quality of moral rightness. It glues together society, as, without morals, we would live like savages. We would attack each other without care. We don’t live in a perfectly just state, but we’ve made a few steps from our other animal companions.

To live with justice, you must not hurt your fellow man. We are born to live for ourselves, but also for our companions.

To practice justice, interrogate your life and ask yourself how you contribute to the common good. How do you make the lives of others better? If there are too few answers, find some.

We have a lot to learn from the Stoics. You can apply many of their techniques to live a healthy emotional life. Their practicality and well-grounded attitude have served me well.

But, take all philosophies with a grain of salt. To live in total Stoicism is insane. There’s no way you could follow every single one of their recommendations. So, take philosophy as a guiding principle for your life.

Take what you want from Stoicism, and leave the rest behind.