Over the past year so I have found myself to be a part of the growing resurgence of the school of thought known as stoicism. For the unaware, stoicism is an Ancient Greek school of philosophy centered around living virtuously, without complaint despite any hardship. Some names you may know that are commonly associated with stoicism are Epictetus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius (my personal favorite), and of course the founder of stoicism, Zeno of Citium. I am not going to do a deep-dive into explaining the characteristics of stoicism, partly because I wouldn't do them justice, but mainly because there are plenty of other resources to learn about it. For anyone interested in learning, I highly recommend Marcus Aurelius' Meditations as a starting point. Instead, I will be discussing how I use it in my own life, and the ways I find it has positively and negatively impacted my life. For this post I will be discussing how a stoic mindset has improved my life. The following post will be about some drawbacks of the mindset.

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Firstly, I want to clarify that I am by no means a completely dedicated stoic. I actually don't believe that anybody is truly 100 percent a stoic. Maybe Mr. Aurelius, but that's one person in history. I view stoicism as more of an ideal to strive towards rather than an actually achievable, and perhaps desirable, way of life. I thought it would be appropriate to mention this before I begin this entry because I don't want to give off the impression that stoicism completely governs my life. That isn't the case. Rather, it is just something I frequently try to remind myself of as a set of guidelines for how to appropriately respond to adversity. So with that being said, let's discuss what stoicism gets right.

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There is a common misconception that acting as a stoic means a complete and utter indifference to any sort of emotion, and therefore an absence of emotion. This is not the case, at least not in how I employ it. Instead, it should be seen as taking control of your emotions. Most of our responses are instinctual. Certain things anger us. Certain things make us sad. Certain things make us anxious. Trying to completely avoid these feelings is only going to leave you unprepared for when they eventually arise. Instead, you should seke to realize that although your instinct is not under your control, everything that follows is. That means that it does. not matter what your gut reaction is to something. All of your following actions are under your control. What you do can be blamed upon nobody but yourself.

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Most of the trials and tribulations we face in our lives have a heavier weight, not because of something outside of our control, but because of what is within our control. We so often willingly engage in moods and feelings which make us miserable. When something angers us, we give in to the anger and enter a cycle of making ourselves more angry due to the fact that we are angry. It's irrational but sometimes humans are. The way we can deal with this irrationality is through, you guessed it, stoicism.

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Whenever I encounter one of these scenarios where I am anxious, irritated, confused, I immediately remind myself of the stoic teachings I have learned. I take a deep breath and take control of what IS under my control. If something unfortunate happens it is rare that anything other than action will help to solve it. That is what I remind myself. Something has happened that I did not like. What do I want? For the problem to be resolved. Okay well the solution is very simple. Can you do anything to fix it? If the answer is no, then stop worrying. You gain nothing and only cause yourself more misery. If you can do something, then do it. Don't think about it. Don't sit and worry or be angry. Just begin solving the issue. It's really that simple.