Practical stoicism - 10 steps

The word "stoic" in English language that means 'a person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining'. However, stoicism (from which the word ‘stoic’ has come about), teaches development of self-control and fortitude as a means to overcome destructive emotions. Everyone thinks of happiness in a different way. The Greek work Eudaimonia can be translated to happiness at a broad level. But what it means is Living in accordance with nature, and stoic believe in this happiness rather than the more superficial one. And how do we get there? Stoicism offers a path to that happiness. It is one of the few philosophies that can actually be applied to daily life pretty easily. Here’s are some practical exercises –

1. Physical discomfort – Any of form physical discomfort is good for you. Running, exercising, going for a walk, waking up early, taking the stairs instead of elevator, etc. or any other such discomfort will make your body enjoy the comfort more. You will appreciate it more. You will feel thankful for all the comforting things you have with you.

2. Mental discomfort – Resist things like video games, procrastination, watching porn, etc. on a regular basis. There could be many more such things. It increases your capacity to have control on your own emotions and action and also makes you appreciate them more.

3. Social discomfort – Do something discomforting socially e.g. Go out people you haven’t gone earlier. Meet new people. Go to a new place. Wear a different T shirt instead of normal ones that you wear. Do something out of your comfort zone socially. It may end up in you getting stares and comments from your friends and people around you. But it will increase your confidence tremendously if you can pull it off!

4. Forgiving people – No one makes a bad decision or a mistake on purpose. At some point in their lives or in fact at many points in their lives, everyone makes a mistake. So, we need to learn to forgive people for it. Tell yourself that the other person messed up, so what? You’d too sometime or the other. Forgiving others for their mistakes will make you hurt less when you commit a mistake yourself.

5. Training to stay calm – This works over time. We need to develop this habit. Sometimes people say nasty things or nasty things happen around us, but we cannot control them. What we can control is how we react to them. So, we should learn to react with calmness instead of getting angry or frustrated because none of that will help. They will only put us on a downward spiral. This is applicable even if we mess up ourselves. Learn it. Practice it.

6. Detaching ourselves – We need to learn to detach ourselves from everything that is not real. But at the same time, be grateful for what we have. There are so many regular pleasures that we get used to. We need to detach ourselves from them, so we can concentrate on what is real and natural for us. We can fast once a week or stay away from our favourite food for a month. Stay away from social media regularly. Sleep on ground instead of the bed occasionally. Practicing this helps in increased appreciation of and lower hurt from things around us.

7. Giving in – to pain and sickness. Pain and sickness is natural. Embrace it as a teacher. Learn from it. Accept that is happens to everyone. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to cure a disease or remove the cause of pain. What it means is, accepting it for what it is – a natural phenomenon.

8. Accept life – as it is. Focus on reality. We can’t change everything. We can’t control everything around us. It could be weather or a job situation or anything for that matter. Don’t resist reality. Check if something is in your control or not. If it’s not, then don’t be thinking about it. Just accept and move to things you can change and control. That way, we spend more energy and time on things where you can make a difference.

9. Use role models – Ask yourself, what your role model would do, your father or any other person you consider your role model, in a situation. Not everyone can do everything perfectly. But looking at or imagining what a role model would do, helps us in taking the right steps and act in the right way.

9. Reflect – on your day and check what out of the 9 things you did today. This will help in keeping up the motivation to do it. Keep a journal and write it down every day. It’s ok if you mess up sometime but be honest about it. When you write down the journal, you will focus on the important activities and important feelings of the day. That helps not only in developing a habit but also in learning about our own selves.

Stoicism - Why should it matter to me?

Stoicism, is not a very well-known branch of philosophy for most people - unless you're a student of philosophy of have at least a moderately strong interest in it. However, most people would know the word "stoic" in English language that means 'a person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining'. This meaning of the word 'stoic' comes from the stoicism philosophy and not the other way around.

Stoicism's 'founder' was a man names Zeno (hence it was also called Zenoism initially). He was a very rich merchant who ship sank at sea. He survived and reached Athens. He saw a bookshop where he read a lot about Socrates and was fascinated. So, he asked the bookseller if he can meet any such philosophers in Athens. Just at that time, Crates (who was Cynic philosopher) was passing by and the bookseller pointed to him. Zeno became his disciple but, even though he liked many things about it, Cynicism wasn't something that he was fully comfortable with. Eventually he started his own teachings in philosophy. Since he didn't have much money, he and his disciples used to meet at local stoa poikile (painted porch) in the market. That's where the name Stoicism came from.

At a broad level, Socrates' philosophy forms the basis of many schools of philosophy. Very broadly, three main schools of thought started - Cynicism, Epicureanism and Stoicism. This, of course, is debatable. After Zeno started it, many big thinkers took it forward and improved on the philosophy - most important among them were Seneca and Epictetus. Later, a very powerful Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius, was a big proponent of this. He used to keep a journal "Meditations" that was supposed to be burnt after his death but was saved and it provides a great insight into practical implementation of stoicism.

Stoicism teaches development of self-control and fortitude as a means to overcome destructive emotions. Everyone thinks of happiness in a different way. The Greek work Eudaimonia can be translated to happiness at a broad level. But what it means is Living in accordance with nature, and stoic believe in this happiness rather than the more superficial one. And how do we get there? Stoicism offers a path.

1. Alter your judgement - Events aren't inherently good or bad it's our perception that makes them so. This is because most of the things are not in our control and very few are. People may say nasty things to you, but what matters is how you react to them. If you think or perceive or judge them as nasty, you will feel hurt and sad. However, if you decide that it is something is not to be bothered with, those things will not impact you at all. This is what is called living in conformity to nature. Living in conformity with nature is called equanimity. The nature our inborn nature and the natural world around us. We have only few things in our control - one of them is our reaction or judgement of events. So, we need to only be concerned about creating positivity or at least non-negativity in our judgement because that's all that we can control. This is also related to Dichotomy of control - There are things that are in our control (ourselves and our judgements) and things that are not in our control (everything else, everyone else). If we can control it, then we should do it well and virtuously. If we can't control it, what's the point in bothering about it?

2. Live virtuously - Vices go against nature and virtues go in accordance with nature. Stoicism subdivides virtues into - wisdom, justices, courage and moderation; Vices are subdivided into foolishness, injustice, cowardice and intemperance. Stoicism says that virtues always lead to happiness and vices always lead to misery. But between them is a large grey area of indifference like Life, death, reputation, ugliness, beauty, wealth. They are considered lower in terms of priority compared to virtues and vices. To live a happy life, stoics suggest that you live virtuously and avoid all vices while being indifferent to everything else.

3. Lower your expectations - The problem with expectations is that we set expectations of desirous outcome about things that are not in our control, thus leading to disappointment that is not of our doing. e.g. we expect people to behave in a certain way, but they don't necessarily act that way and it hurts us. But is it the other person who is hurting us? or is it our reaction to his actions? Epictetus says - 'The condition and characteristic of a philosopher is that he expects all hurt and benefit from himself. The marks of a proficient is that he censures no one, praises no one, blames no one. accuses no one.' You are not entitled to the things that you wish for but only the things that are given to you. Expecting more than the nature offers you results in suffering and this suffering comes from the position you take - i.e. your wish for things to happen differently and not from the events themselves. 

Epictetus' way of dealing with this was negative visualization. Every morning, before starting the day, he would say to himself - "Today I shall meet ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men. All of the ignorance of real good and ill... I can neither be harmed by any of them, for no man will involve me in wrong, nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him; for we have come into the world to work together....". 

Stoicism is one of the few philosophies that can be applied to daily life very easily and helps us in managing disappointment and hurt. There could also be a counter argument that when we are indifferent to a lot of things, won't that mean that we are also being indifferent to things that bring us happiness? The answer to that is that Stoicism’s definition of happiness is at a much deeper level and more long-lasting whereas the ‘happiness’ in the previous sentence is temporary and superfluous. Having said that, no single philosophy can be – rather should be – taken as sacrosanct. No single philosophy can be fully right for you. We need to live our lives with a specific mix of different philosophies that suits us the best, while always concentrating on the deeper and more spiritual happiness and contentment.

Do we have a choice?

Unedited...

Age old question – well, one of them – has been whether our life is pre-ordained, or we can control it. Corollary to that is, whether we really have a choice or is our fate already “Written”.

Religion has its basis in God or one powerful force that “manages” the entire universe and is watching our actions and helps us when we need the most. However, there are differences in the way choices are considered in different religions. Some believe that the story of our lives is already written, and we cannot change it. Some believe that we can shape our own lives by making wise choices. Some believe that even though we do make choices, in the grander scheme of things those choices are inconsequential.

Animals and humans, both make choices throughout their lives. Whatever philosophy about choice we believe, it applies to both. The major difference between animals and humans then becomes only the existence of the idea of “I”. Humans have self-awareness. Animals don’t. Animals’ choices are to survive. Human choices (often) are to fulfill and enhance this “I” (after the basic needs are fulfilled of course – Maslow’s theory). And this is where comes the idea of Free will. Humans, want to believe that they have free will; that the choices they are making are on their own and those choices are shaping their lives and future and that their future is not already written down. Those who believe that their fate is already fixed, also believe that they can change it by making better choices and Almighty will reward them for it. Even then the choices are supposed to have been made from free will. Very few will also make a choice of giving in completely to the idea of fate and let things comes to them rather making choices to move towards an idea of better “I”. For them “I” is what is already fixed, and no amount of choices will ever change it. There is also a school of thought that suggests that even the act of making those choices is something that is controlled by a higher force and hence the choice, though seemingly done of free will, are being made for you.

Now, leaving aside religion and thinking rationally about choices and free will, what do we get? Our choices should be able to decide what happens in our lives and since we make those choices ourselves, we are effectively shaping our lives out of our free will. It’s like a computer program (which is always rational, even though sometimes we feel it is behaving irrationally), where at many points there are choices of the future path are to be made. Depending on the choice, the path moves ahead and reaches another decision point and again and again as we move towards the end of the path. Some of these choices could lead to a common decision point, some might lead to different ones. Some might lead us back to an earlier decision point and some will end the flow immediately. It all depends on the decision taken. Those who have seen the Black mirror movie called “Bandersnatch” on Netflix, can relate to this – you have to make choices on the screen about what a character should do. Based on your choice, the story moves ahead in a different direction and in some cases the story moves back to an earlier stage. There are different endings to the movie based on your choices, while some set of choices lead to a common ending.

In the case of this movie or for that matter a computer program, are we making choices out of free will? Yes, cos we’re choosing 1 out of the few options available or entering or selecting a value based on which the program decides future course of action. So, free will, yes. However, in both these cases the choices are limited. We cannot choose something that is not available for choosing. In that sense, our free will is limited by the options available to us. What about life?

Our life is at a much grander scale in terms of the sheer number of decision points that we go through. Every small thing is a decision point. Like, whether to wake up when the alarm sounds or snooze it. What clothes to wear. Whether to take an umbrella with us while going out. Etc. so Bandersnatch or a computer program pales in comparison to life in terms of the amount of decision points encountered. What about the options available to us? Just like the number of decision points, the options available to us are also huge in number. But does that mean that the options available are infinite? It can’t be. It will be or rather is a very very very large number. Probably we will never be able to count or identify all the options available – in that sense it is probably uncountable. But it can’t be infinite because of the basic fact that the universe itself is finite. Everything within the universe is finite even if huge in number. Even if we go with the multiverse theory, we will always be part of only one universe at any given point of time – our “self” might be different in different universes, but it is still bounded by that specific universe and hence will always have a finite number of options.

So, if we have a huge finite number of decision points and huge finite number of options, what influences our choices or decisions? There could be multiple factors in this. Our birth is the first factor. Where, when, to which parents, in which society, which part of the world, etc. etc. is purely accidental as far as our “I” is considered. We cannot choose any of this because we don’t exist until we are born. Whether we come into this world or rather whether this “I” is brought into existence is itself a result of certain decisions by others. So, our journey technically starts only when we start existing (i.e. born). The moment, we start existing, our choices get limited by the environmental factors like society, country, etc. Some of the choices may seem fat fetched but could still be available. However, there will always be a large of options that are (though technically possible) are practically too complicated to follow through. Hence the limitation of options is a limitation of practicality rather than possibility. As a very crude example, a child born of extremely poor family and of average intelligence wants to study in Harvard. Is that choice available? Technically yes, he/she can decide to apply there. But practically (due to intelligence level and due to financial condition – both) that option is not probable. Having said that, the child might be exceptional in some sport and some other benefactor decides to support this child financially and he/she may get selected into Harvard due to this. However, such choices by others and environment around him/her coming together at the right time is improbable though not impossible. Hence, even though the options available at the decision point are still almost infinite, some are more probable than others – some are more in our control than others. In that sense they are limited. And as we go along taking decisions, we keep reducing the options available to use for future decisions (again, more based on practicality). Thus, our decisions are controlling our future options and path we can or will take in future, or how our life unfolds. We do control it but within a limitation of probable choices. Then, are we really controlling it? Or are we living in a Bandersnatch-isque world? And if yes, how do we deal with it?

Humans want to control. There’s a constant need to be in control of everything around us – our lives, other lives, environment, other animals, everything. This need to control is quite basic in humans. And from this need, comes a basic psychological trait of anxiety. Anxiety is useful in certain situations – however when the anxiety is due to the need to control and when it overcomes our other traits, it is a big problem. In some cases it can become a debilitating psychological issue that nowadays many people are facing across the world. We need to learn to let go of some of that control or need to control. Having said that, we can’t completely let go of control of our own lives and not take decisions, because that will be like surrendering ourselves to the impact of other factors on our path. In Stoicism, they talk about “Amor Fati” which is a Latin phrase meaning “Love your fate”. In literal sense, it means love whatever fate has in store for you (Stoicism doesn’t take it so literally). We need a middle ground to deal with things in life and be sane enough to enjoy it.

The first thing we need to do is “Momentum Amet” – Love the moment. No matter what is happening in our lives or around us, we need to be in that moment and love that moment. We might be in a very difficult and painful situation but we need to be aware that one way or the other, we have reached that stage or state at least partially because of the choices that we have made in the past. So we should love the output of those choices even if it is a painful one – because it is OURs, not anyone else’s. So this decision point that we have reached now is also only OURs and no one else’s. and that’s why, love the decision point and the decision – “Amor consilium”. Being in the moment and taking that decision at that specific time is the only thing we can do. We can not change our decisions in the past and we don’t know what the future holds for us. All we can do is think of a possible goal that we want to reach, and based on that make a best guess of which options or choices will take us towards the goal, and then take that decision. Our choice will take us forward towards another set of decisions and then another and another. We need to keep making choices in the future too. But that future and the set of choices we will face is not something we can predict. There’s no point in feeling anxious about it because we don’t know it. So, we need to concentrate only on current decision and love that decision once we have made it because it is OUR decision. No one else’s.

Once a decision is made, we cannot control the output of that decision. We have to then give up control. We have to let go of the need to control the output and accept and love the output or the next decision point that it leads to. This is how we should be interpreting “Amor Fati”. Loving your fate doesn’t mean giving up complete control of our life to fate. It is the acceptance of the outcome, once we have done our part.

Whether we reach our goal or where our lives lead to, is something that we cannot control. However, taking informed decisions at every decision point and then surrendering to the output that it brings. This will reduce the anxiety and stress and make our lives more fulfilling.

Momentum Amet – Love the moment

Amor Consilium – Love the decision/options

Amor Fati – Love the fate/output