Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy that flourished in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. The father of Stoicism is Zeno of Citium, Cyprus. Stoic principles can be applied on day to day life, and for some it is a lifestyle. The Stoics identified the path to achieving it with a life spent practicing four certain virtues in everyday life such as wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice.
Zeno was a wealthy merchant who immediately became poor by losing his ship in a storm caught in sea during a trade. While most of us would have caught into the full flight of grievance. Zeno mastered the art of Emotional Resilience, Self-Control and became the founding father of Stoicism Philosophy. Here are some steps in stoicism:
Your reactions to events decide your state of Mind
You have no control over bad things happen to you. But you have control over how you react to those events. Ultimately your reactions to those events dictates your State of Mind. It can either stress you out or it will help you grow emotional resilience. That’s the one of the basic teaching of stoicism. Even though Zeno lost his ship, lost all his wealth and instantly turned from wealthy to poor. But instead of dwelling on the sorrow of his loss. It taught him mental resilience and later helped him grow the idea of Mental Resilience through the practice of Stoicism. Since then the idea Is helping countless lives.
Happiness comes from Intrinsic Values
Despite most people try to associate pleasure from External Materialistic objects such as fame, wealth, success and status. According to Stoic belief, True happiness comes from Basic Intrinsic value such as feelings of gratitude, Wisdom, Emotional Resilience, Courage and Justice, and living a mindful life. According to Stoic Traditions, these basic beliefs can help you nurture feelings of happiness inside you. Extrinsic things such as wealth and fame can give you momentary pleasure. But the true happiness and inner peace reside inside your mind, beliefs and values.
Mindful Living
Most of us live in a chaotic mind. Our mind is filled with stresses about job, career, climate change, political situations, news and adversary. Although much of those we have no control over. Even the thing we have control over, we overemphasize on those things. Specially In modern world, we are so consumed by technology and competitive lifestyle, that we forgot one of the basic essences of a happy and satisfied life is Mindful living and living in the moment. Living in the moment help you clarify your mind and understand more about life. It helps you rectify your feelings, enjoy moments, clarify mind from doubt. Mindfulness meditation is a great place to start the journey of a mindful living. Also living in the present moments, while not caring about past or future is a great way to nourish the mindfulness status. Mindfulness living brings bliss and happiness in our lives. Because we are not caged by our overthinking mind.
Preparation for adversity
We fear adversary. We fear so much so that sometimes most of us dwell in comfort zone and making no improvement instead of facing our fears and improving our life. Because we fear failure, risk, loss etc. These escapes don’t help us escape adversity, instead we fall behind in life making us unable to face the adversity. Instead preparing for adversity in life with making the right mindset, building emotional resilience, learning proper skills and methods will help us survive in adversity comes. It will also help us prevent or defeat adversity. Preparations of adversity builds character, personality and mindset.
