Stoicism - PART 4 Living in Accordance to Nature

Marcus Aurelius mentions in his texts the concept of "Nature", and writes that we should always strive towards "Living in accordance to nature". But what does this actually mean? Lets establish a clear definition of nature and continue our journey towards understanding and adopting Stoicism. 

Essentially, there are two scopes within this definition that we can look into, starting with the nature of the Universe. The stoic teachings mention that the universal nature is a perfectly arranged system, and is structured in a physically deterministic fashion that is similar, if not identical, to fate. To live in accordance to the nature of the universe, is to accept what is there. We must see our world for what it is and act in alignment with it. Some of us might resent certain aspects of what reality presents to us, but we must learn to accept these events and continue our life by learning from them and never forget to keep moving forward. 

There is a film from my childhood that I recall delivering this message in such a beautiful way, an animated film named "Meet the Robinsons" where the protagonist is able to learn this lesson by sticking to his passion and learning to move on from a dark past. The antagonist, on the other hand, represents a being who is unable to adopt this and clings onto events that have turned him into a negative and bitter person, ultimately depriving his own wellbeing as well as for those around him.

The second scope for "Nature" is Human Nature. As you may be able to deduce, universal nature is defined by circumstances, but human nature is defined mostly by choice. Let's move onto the morality of this concept, what the Stoics define as ethical and our moral obligations as part of a global society. A lot of us may think at some point, that when we willingly negatively affect our health or fail to comply with a responsibility that others may directly or indirectly depend on, we are only hurting ourselves, therefore it is morally acceptable to adopt auto-destructive behaviors or habits. However, we can argue that all actions that may cause any level of self-harm will ultimately negatively affect those around us, as it will in some way shorten or end our ability to fulfill our role as a sibling, a son, a parent, a lover or any productive member of society, our moral obligation is not only to care for others, but to first care for ourselves. This may sound counter-intuitive, but valuing one's health and wellbeing over others will consequently make the lives of those around better as we will be able to use our maximum potential physically and mentally to make our environment the best it can be. 

You may have noticed by now that I am very into referencing media and pop-culture that I have seen throughout my life that I can relate to the teachings of Stoics, and one of the icons that come to mind is one of the world's most known superheroes, Spider-Man. You see, a typical story involving this protagonist will usually include a very popular quote, which you may have heard before "With Great Power, comes great responsibility". 

In a superficial level, this may sound only relatable to those that we consider to have "Power" such as government officials, leaders or any other type of person that we would consider "powerful" or even just influential. What we don't consider is that we all have a level of power in the lives of those around us, we all have the ability to either make the lives of those around us pleasantly easier or painfully difficult. Think about the people that you live with, how many things can you think of that you can do that would make their day easier to go through, or just harder to go through? Think about what the close people in your life can do to make your day or make it a lot harder to deal with, stoicism teaches us to control the emotions coming from the actions that are not under our control, but naturally we are designed to feel and actions will ultimately define our natural emotions throughout our lives. 

What I'm trying to say is that we all have a level of power in our environment, whether we consider it minimal or not we must account for the responsibility that we have to maintain our environment in a positive state, we must fight for what we consider unjust within our circle, and always act according to the wellbeing of the people that are part of our environment. If you've taken the time to read all of this, take a minute to think about the power that you have in your daily life and think about how you can use that power to boost the motivation and overall happiness of those around you, and understand that you have a responsibility as a member of your family, workspace, institution or society in general to make your space a better place.

I know what some of you are thinking, "I'm hardly able to sustain my own emotional wellbeing, now I have to make others feel good too?". On the other hand, some of you may have adopted a personality where you are already doing your best to help others but ultimately feel like it's not actually making you feel happy. Well, I'd like to dedicate my next entry to the method I'm using  in order to find the balance between helping others and helping ourselves in order to find the motivation to fulfill your role as a gear that will make your environment a better place. 

Happy holidays,

-Rob

Stoicism - PART 3 Happiness, Wealth and Success

 My previous entries reflect a very personal version of what I decided to deal with first in order to advance in my journey, thankfully I was able to take a huge leap that would get me going with a lot more confidence towards future challenges. As I sit here writing yet another entry of what have arguably been some of the most life-changing events I've experienced, I can't help but smile and think about everything that had to come together in such a short amount of time for me to radically gain a new perspective of our reality. 

In this entry I'd like to cautiously dive into what post-modern society considers success. Marcus Aurelius wrote: "Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking." And yes, I am going to talk about the relationship that we attribute to "success" and happiness. If you ask an engineering student, a medical student or any individual that is working hard to reach a goal, they will most likely tell you that they are not happy, but they've built the expectation that when they reach their goal they will obtain true happiness, or at least be one step closer to it. Many people think this way, and this thought process can mainly go two ways:

1. The individual reaches that goal, and feels pride and satisfaction, perhaps even a sense of liberty. They soon realize, that reaching that goal will not give them "True happiness" (Assuming that is even possible), this is simply because our minds are built in a way that it always wants to move to the next objective, and once this objective is met, we feel stuck, and unfulfilled, even after obtaining all you ever thought you wanted. 

2. The individual gives up or is placed in a circumstance where they can no longer reach that goal. They will feel regret, desperation, frustration and amotivation. The individual will feel like the universe has conspired against his well-being, he didn't ask for much, and he wasn't even given that. This might take the person years to recover, or even end up being that angry neighbor who just won't let you listen to your favorite song at a totally reasonable volume!

So, how do we prevent this? Well, this ideology is built upon the thought that he who fights and works for what they want, will surely get to where they want to be, and better yet, they will be "Truly happy". As you can deduce, it is based on pure expectations. We work hard, and we expect that work to be rewarded. When this doesn't happen, it feels unfair. Not because universally speaking it is unfair, but because the individual created an expectation that if they tried their best, there was no chance of failure. 

In no way am I trying to discredit important values like ambition and hope, and I don't want to say that hard work never pays off, but I do want to say that if you live your life expecting the world to give you what you think you need because you worked hard for it, you will most likely live a miserable life. Not because life will mostly give you less than what you deserve, but because our brains are also designed to emphasize negative things above positive ones. (Gotta thank evolution for that one) So even if you hypothetically break even with the universe, you will still feel like you had a bad time.

It has become increasingly difficult for younger generations to cope with the feeling of "Underachieving", everywhere in media we are bombarded with stories of success, of "endless opportunities" and motivational "Life coaches" telling us that we are not putting the effort to live a life of "success". Social media plays a big role in the lives of many people now, and our minds are constantly blasted with pictures of 20 year-old millionaires or even acquaintances taking an amazing trip to Europe. For many teenage social media users, living a rich and extravagant lifestyle is the only way they imagine living their adulthood.

Naturally, being exposed so regularly to people that are "living their best life" generates unhealthy expectations. It makes mansions and "Lambo's" seem so common and reachable, and many people know this and have exploited these people's lack of understanding of the real world for personal gain, pyramid schemes are hotter than ever! People can't seem to get enough of those seminars telling them that they guarantee they will be rich, and be rich fast.

The truth is, that wealth is a valuable asset, some of us will have more money than we need, and most of us won't. If you want to increase your chances of being wealthy, there is no doubt that hard work will be required. I see no problem in using most of your energy to accomplish a goal, but know that not everything is under our control, so we must accept that we won't always get what we want just because we think we deserve it. 

Anyways, let's separate happiness from success and wealth. Some of you might roll your eyes after reading the next sentence, but I am a firm believer that "The Real Treasure Was the Friends We Made Along the Way." In other words, we shouldn't be chasing or searching for our happiness as something that we will eventually obtain in our future. If you look around you, you will find many things that make you happy, your pet, your parents, your siblings, your friends, that TV show that you can't wait for the next season to come out, you will find happiness all around you. You don't need to feel miserable just because you're not where you want to be, you can be happy where you stand right now and on the way there. Happiness is not absolute, it is a feeling just like any other, don't hide from feeling happy just because you don't think you deserve it yet. Do not let anybody take away your happiness, because out of all the matter in this seemingly infinite universe, you were given such a tiny yet beautiful consciousness that is completely yours! So do with it what makes you happy, and while you're at it, do your best to make those around you happy as well.

Stoicism - PART 2 Introspective

Part 2: Assessing the situation

It has been a few weeks since I've began to attempt to adopt a stoic way of life, and throughout the following paragraphs I will express with the best of my abilities the events that have challenged me in order to become a better version of myself. This is not in any way a guide on how to be a "Stoic", but rather my experience and inner disputes I've faced in order to develop my current ideology into one that resembles my interpretation of Stoicism.

As the analytical and logic-based individual I consider myself to be, one of the things that I have always struggled with is embracing my emotions and confronting my feelings. A few months ago, I would have not considered one's spiritual self as something that needs to be developed or cared for. (Heck, I might have even said that it's a bunch of nonsense!)

Due to this lack of confrontation, I would usually not raise my hand when I felt something could be managed differently, or when I had a different opinion of a situation than that of my peers. This, naturally, caused both positive and negative energy to be locked in what I will call "The emotions chamber". 

I had no knowledge of the Emotions chamber within me, which kept trapped feelings that I was never able to express, The result: Frustration and an unfulfilling day-to-day life that eventually faded my motivation. 

A couple of months ago, When I began to open myself up to a significant other (In a way that I had never done before with anyone) in one occasion I recall bursting into uncontrollable tears, this was an obvious hint to me that there was something within that needed to be dealt with.

Months prior to that situation I had greatly reduced my tendencies of harmful habits. I knew that this would gradually cause a difficult recovery period and I would need to eventually confront a harsh reality. 

Eventually, during a normal afternoon in my room, I experienced a more intense emotional burst. Memories, frustrations, anger, sadness but also positive feelings that I had failed to embrace went through my head in an intense manner.

It felt like some sort of anxiety or panic attack. Thankfully, I was able to overcome this and I gained a different perspective on the importance of mental health. 

I began to test myself on how I internally respond to comments or situations where me and a loved one are involved, especially when I respond negatively to a situation. I was able to quickly pinpoint the cause of my emotional responses, many of which were a product of a history of physical and psychological abuse. 

Afterwards I quickly realized that whenever I had any minor inconvenience with the people I interact with, I would normally do what I could to prevent any sort of confrontation with the person involved, even if I felt like I needed to express an important disagreement. This behavior was most likely due to the fear of having an exaggerated emotional outburst for a relatively smaller issue, and the fear of hurting those who ultimately meant no harm to begin with.

I will need to practice embracing negative emotional responses, and build confidence that I am mentally strong enough to deal with my feelings in a mature way instead of deciding to bury them within me.

My second task is to speak out on what I think is right, and to understand that it is ok to express discomfort. If necessary, we need to fight for what one considers to be just and rightful and continue to stray away from any form of selfishness.