Philosophy is not one of today’s most popular pastimes. Many people would often rather reach for a modern self-help book. But what if it is time to turn to the ancient classics and find out whether they offer something that can truly and deeply change our lives for the better?
Table of contents
What is Stoicism?
Stoicism is an ancient philosophy. Its appeal lies in the fact that it does not focus on how to be positive, as modern self-help advice does. Instead, it is more of a meditative practice that allows us to take the negative feelings we experience and turn them into thoughts that give us calm and perspective on life.
The most important part of Stoic teaching is the right state of mind, because it can help us look at challenges in the best possible way and shows us how to live a good life.
How did Stoicism begin?
Around 304 BC, a merchant named Zeno was shipwrecked on a trading voyage. He lost almost everything. On his way to Athens, he came across this philosophy, introduced to him by the Cynic philosopher Crates and the Megarian philosopher Stilpo, and it changed his life.
🗣️ Zeno later said: I made a prosperous voyage when I suffered shipwreck.
The first phase can also be called Greek Stoicism. It was followed by Roman Stoicism, which produced the three best-known and most studied Stoic philosophers: Seneca (a politician and playwright), Epictetus (a slave) and Marcus Aurelius (a Roman emperor).
Stoicism is still very popular today, mainly because it is a very practical philosophy that can easily be applied to our modern lives. It teaches us how to cope better with life’s inevitable ups and downs so that we can live happier and calmer lives.
Stoicism also contains several valuable lessons we can apply to become better people, better partners and better parents.
Stoicism in practice
Stoicism is a philosophy that has to be lived. Otherwise, it is just a collection of nice ideas. Try some of the following exercises and make them part of your life.
1. Can I influence this?
The most important exercise in Stoic philosophy is distinguishing between what we can change and what we cannot. What we can influence and what we cannot.
- Your flight is delayed because of the weather. No amount of shouting at the airline representative will end the storm.
- No matter how hard you try, you cannot make someone like you.
- You cannot change the family you were born into.
Time spent on these activities or thoughts is also time you are not giving to the things you can change.
Come back to this question every day, in every difficult situation. Keep writing it down and thinking about it. If you can focus on being clear about what you control and what you do not, you will not only be happier, but you will also gain a clear advantage over other people, who do not realise that they are often fighting battles they cannot win.
2. Journal
Epictetus urged his students to treat philosophy as something they should write down day after day. Writing is how they were meant to practise. Seneca liked to write his journal in the evenings, after dark, once his wife had fallen asleep. Then he would go to bed and find that the sleep that followed this self-reflection was especially sweet.
This daily practice is living philosophy.
- Preparing for the day ahead.
- Reflecting on the day that has passed.
- Reminding ourselves of the wisdom we have learnt from our teachers, from reading and from our own experience.
It is not enough to hear these lessons once. Instead, you practise them again and again, turn them over in your mind and, above all, write them down and feel them flowing through your fingers as you do.
Stoicism is a practice and a routine. It is not a philosophy you read once, miraculously understand and are done with. It is a lifelong effort that requires diligence, repetition and focus.
3. Practise misfortune
Seneca, who enjoyed great wealth as Nero’s adviser, suggested setting aside a certain number of days each month to practise poverty. Take little food, wear your worst clothes, leave the comfort of your home and bed. Come face to face with want, he said, and you will ask yourself: “Is this what I was so afraid of?”
Remember that this is an exercise, not a figure of speech. You are not just meant to think about misfortune but to experience it. Comfort is the worst kind of slavery, because you are always afraid that something or someone will take it away from you. But if you can not only anticipate misfortune but also practise it, chance loses its power to disrupt your life.
Emotions such as anxiety and fear are rooted in uncertainty and only rarely in experience. The solution is to do something about this ignorance. Get to know the things, the worst-case scenarios, that you fear. Then you can live a truly Stoic life.
4. Train your perception
The Stoics had an exercise called Turning the Obstacle Upside Down. Its aim was to make it impossible not to practise the art of philosophy. If you can turn a problem upside down in the right way, every “bad” thing becomes a new source of good.
Suppose for a moment that you are trying to help someone and they respond with grumpiness or an unwillingness to cooperate. Rather than making your life harder, they are actually steering you towards new virtues, such as patience or understanding.
🗣️ Marcus Aurelius described it like this: The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.
5. Remember, everything is fleeting
This exercise is simple: remember that everything is fleeting and how small you are in the universe. Do not forget how small most things are, either. Remember that successes, just like failures, are fleeting.
If everything is fleeting, what matters? What matters is what is happening right now. Being a good person and doing the right thing right now is what matters, and that is what was important to the Stoics.
In Stoicism, ataraxia means that the soul is completely at peace and is not shaken by every external circumstance or passion. This exercise brings you a little closer to that state.
6. Look from above
Marcus often practised an exercise known as “the view from above” or “Plato’s view”. It invites us to step back, zoom in and look at life from a higher vantage point than our own. This exercise (imagining all those millions upon millions of people, all those “armies, farms, weddings and divorces, births and deaths”) makes us take a broader perspective and, like the previous exercise, reminds us how small we are.
Seeing how small we are in the grand scheme of things is only one part of this exercise. The second part is experiencing what the Stoics called sympatheia, or interconnectedness with all of humanity. In Stoicism, this exercise allows the microcosm of your experience to expand and take into account all the much wider circumstances.
7. Memento Mori, reflect on your mortality
🗣️ Seneca said: Let us prepare our minds as if we had come to the very end of life. Let us put nothing off. Let us balance life’s books each day. … The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.
Use this reminder and meditate on it daily. Let it be the cornerstone of living your life to the full and not wasting a single second.
In Stoicism, death is the first great theme of this philosophy and of how to live well. When reminded of possible death, people behave differently, hope for and strive towards different things. Their priorities in life change. At the same time, death needs to be seen within the philosophy as a whole, not as an invitation to do nothing or to feel that everything is pointless.
8. Anticipate complications
Anticipating evil is a Stoic exercise in which we imagine the things that could go wrong. It helps us prepare for life’s inevitable setbacks. We do not always get what is rightfully ours, even when we have earned it. Not everything is as clean and straightforward as we think it should be. We need to prepare ourselves mentally for this. It is one of the most powerful exercises in the Stoic toolkit for building resilience and strength.
Through this exercise, Seneca was always prepared for problems and always built such disruptions into his plans. He was ready for both success and defeat, and his approach to anything could be completely Stoic.
9. Amor Fati
🗣️ Epictetus said: Do not seek for things to happen as you wish. Rather, wish that what happens should happen as it does. Then you will be happy.
Treat every moment, no matter how difficult, as something to be embraced, not avoided. Do not just come to terms with it, but be glad of it and become better because of it.
In Stoicism, fate and the love of it are among the most significant themes of this philosophy. Treat as fate all the external things you cannot change, which the world has handed you, and whatever they are, learn to love them.
The best Stoic quotes about fate
- “We are more often frightened than hurt, and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.” Seneca
- “Our life is what our thoughts make it.” Marcus Aurelius
- “Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.” Epictetus
- “You become what you give your attention to… If you yourself don’t choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will.” Epictetus
- “You always have the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you cannot control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them be.” Marcus Aurelius
- “No man has the power to have everything he wants, but it is in his power not to want what he does not have, and to cheerfully make good use of what he does have.” Seneca
- “You have power over your mind, not over outside events. Realise this, and you will find strength.” Marcus Aurelius
- “People are not disturbed by events themselves, but only by their judgements about them.” Epictetus
- “First say to yourself what you would be, and then do what you have to do.” Epictetus
The best books on Stoicism
We can learn more about Stoicism either from modern books, which are often found in the self-help section, or we can go straight to the source and look up the original Stoic books, which, even after two thousand years, are exceptionally accessible and easy to understand.
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Meditations are the private thoughts of the most powerful man in the world, advising himself on how to live up to the responsibilities and duties that came with his position. Almost every night, Marcus paused to practise a series of spiritual exercises meant to make him humble, patient, empathetic, generous and strong in the face of everything he had to deal with.
Letters from a Stoic by Seneca
Seneca was Nero’s tutor, tasked with restraining the terrible impulses of a terrible man. His advice on grief, wealth, power, religion and life is there whenever you need it. Seneca’s letters are the best place to start, but the essays in On the Shortness of Life are also excellent.
Discourses by Epictetus
In the Discourses, Epictetus argues that happiness depends on knowing what is within our power to influence and what is not. Our inner states and our reactions to events are up to us, but the events themselves are assigned to us by chance, and we should treat them (just like our bodies, possessions and families) as things that are indifferent to us, and simply make the best use of them.
