Stoicism

Table of Contents
  1. A philosophy that began in Ancient Greece.
  2. Founded by Zeno of Citium (Athens, 344–262 BC)
  3. It is a way of life that has moral excellence as its ultimate goal.
  4. The stoics of ancient Greece considered themselves to be the heirs of Socratic moral philosophy and the natural philosophy of Heraclitus of Ephesus.
  5. Stoicism can be epitomized by three essential beliefs: (1) that virtue is sufficient for happiness, (2) that other so-called goods should be regarded with indifference, and (3) that the world is providentially ordered by God.
  6. A safety net for emotional free fall.

Why are so many people of action focusing on practicing something that seem so ancient and academic?

Think of Stoicism as an operating system for thriving in high stress environments. For making better decisions.

Think of Stoicism as training yourself to identify the difference between what you can control to what you cannot control. This decreases emotional reactivity and that itself can be a super power.

Reading material

  1. https://dailystoic.com/
  2. https://modernstoicism.com/

You don’t own that

Anything that can be prevented, taken away or coerced is not a person’s own. But those things that can’t be blocked are their own. - Epicus, Discourses

The conservationist Daniel O’Brien has said that he doesn’t own his several thousand acre Buffalo Ranch in South Dakota. He just lives there while the bank lets him make mortgage payments on it. It is a joke about the economic realities of ranching - but it also hints at the idea that land doesn’t belong to one individual; that it will far outlast us and our descendants.

We don’t own anything and that even our lives are held in trust. We may claw and fight and work to own things; but those things can be taken away in a second. The same goes for other things we like to think are ours, but are equally precarious - our status, our physical health or strength, our relationships. How can these really be ours if something other than us - fate, bad luck, death and so on, can dispossess us of them without notice? So what do we own? Just our lives - and not for long. - Marcus Aurelius

The only thing that is certain is, death is coming for us. The only question then is when. So use your time wisely. Tell your loved ones you love them and do good, spread good. Make a difference while you are here.

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