Stoicism is a Humanism, too.

While reading Ray Dalio's principles, among his insightful meditations on life and work, one quote left me stunned. He said, “All That we call human nature are only the animal nature of us. Our human nature is our rational being.” As obvious as it seems, I think it is one of the most ingenious words I have ever heard (read). Stoicism is one of the most ingenious philosophies which deals with our rationality. So, I decided to write about the goodness of it. This is not meant to be an extensive resource on Stoicism, rather I am just trying to write a summary of the basic disciplines of it which I think if practiced would have a profound effect on our lives.

First of all, why on earth am I writing on stoicism? you might think that it is boring talking about philosophy, or that there is no need to refer to Greek philosophy while we have, and follow, religions. Truth is, I agree with you on both points. Philosophy is usually a boring subject, which intellectuals waste their time arguing about. However, stoicism is a pragmatic philosophy which started mainly to help people face life’s greatest challenges with boldness. Also, most of the quotes I would be referencing throughout this article from Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius could be found paraphrased in the teaching of The prophet Mohamed (Peace be upon him), Jesus, and Budda. I and not arguing about the history of religion, and if this means anything, it would probably be that morals are cross-cultural — but this too, maybe, is for another discussion.

Back to the quote starting this article, Stoics believed that we should not accept our human nature, by which I mean our desires, cravings, and negative feelings. I know, maybe you are one of those who believes that we should not label our feelings as positive and negative. Just bear with me for minutes, and you would read the sound, at least for me and thousands of intellectuals, arguments of them about labeling our emotions. Stoics focused on three parts of their existence: Perception, Action, and Will. They believed that if one mastered those three parts of one’s existence, one would be able to lead a tranquil life. Again, the basic premise of stoicism is helping people to have a stress-free, tranquil life. This does not mean that, as many philosophies do, they would advise you to lower your standards or to devalue the materialistic world — although those are really helpful tools for some people. Rather, they guided us to achieve this life through the discipline of perception, action, and will.

1- Perception: Stoics have a very straightforward way to help us discipline our perception. They, basically, advise us to do three things — not exactly three but those are what I believe is relevant to the shortness of this essay. First, they wrote a lot on the shortness of life, and about how limited are our choices in life. So, they instructed us to ask ourselves on the daily basis if what we are doing, or about to do, is of real value. The equation of life is really hard. Everything affects everything else. And the Origin of the word Decide means to cut; which means that you are cutting other options. So, this is really a question that worth contemplating, however, as they also advised, we should not waste our lives thinking and over-analyzing. All we need to do is looking into the future and reflecting on whether we would regret this choice or not. If the answer was an unapologetic Yes, embark from your pursuit and choose another one that you won’t regret.

ACTION: “Does what am I in pursuit of right now really matter?”

Second, they overemphasized on the importance of focusing only on the things that we have control over while accepting what we don’t have control over. In admiration of this concept, Nietzsche coined the term “Amor Fati,” which means loving one’s fate. We don’t have control over the weather, the traffic, other, nor over our health, sometimes! So, in order to live a tranquil life, our only option is to accept those outside circumstances gracefully. As Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) have this prayer “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

ACTION: “Do I have control over this?”

Third, they advised us to practice what they called Negative Visualization which is, basically, about predicting the worst things that may happen and planning to reverse it, if possible, while accepting it if we cannot prevent it from happening. for further information on it, read my last post.

ACTION: “What is the worst thing that might happen?”

2- Action: as I have aforementioned, we cannot, or shouldn’t, spend our lives only thinking, planning, and contemplating. Acting is an essential part of our human existence. As Seneca said, “Show me that the good life doesn’t consist in its length, but in its use, and that it is possible — no, entirely too common — for a person who has had a long life to have lived too little.” So, the simple metrics that Stoics used, Marcus Aurelius in particular, was asking yourself whether what you are about to do is Good or Evil. If it is good, do it boldly. On the other hand, if it is Evil, don’t do it. This is a very simple-to-follow advice. However, many people love mimicking words. We all know a great deal of what is good and what is evil. So, follow this internal metric that you was born with, and if confused there are so many great teachers who won’t hesitate to help.

3-Will (desire): Stoics believed that we should discipline our desires. And this all ties down to the concept of knowing what matters and what we have control over. So, stoics advised us to not seek others admiration, or fame, because we don’t have control over other thoughts, and this deprives us form our freedom to be who we really are. Of course, further could be written on the subject of will, but I would leave it to a follow-up post.

Congrats! you reached the end of this long post. I know, probably, you think that it is a common sense advice from a reckless teen. In my opinion, If you know those nuggets of wisdom by heart and practice them on your daily basis, you are really exceptional. However, I found that most people don’t know about them, and if they know about them, they don’t live by them. I am making this assumption because if people have only done the focusing-on-what-you-have-control-over part, we won’t have this alarming levels of worrying and anxiety in our societies. Trust me on this, someone might need this today to alleviate his worrying, or to navigate through his life. Your share would make a difference.