Applying Stoicism into your life

Alright you guys, so today, we are going to talk about Stoicism! Hold up, Stoicism, like the very boring philosophy thing? Well, apparently it is, and by now, probably you are getting bored by this already, right? I do understand you - initially, when looking for this term, I had thought that this was going to be some very boring stuff of some people thousands of years ago. But after doing some further research regarding this, I have come to the realization that it is not only NOT boring, but very realistic in our life also! So just for some information, I did a project about Stoicism when I was in 10th grade, and through the researching process, I have realized a lot of things that can be implemented into our lives, and personally, I have seen a lot of benefits by doing so! That’s why in this post today (lol I’ve waited so long for this post to be typed out and shared with you) I am going to share with you guys one very crucial thing that I have learned when researching about Stoicism (oh, and for your information, I am not a Stoic).

So of course, just like any other philosophy, Stoicism can not be explained by just a single term or sentence, right? What I am going to talk about here is of course not going to be inclusive of every single thing that can be discovered when talking about Stoicism, but it is certainly going to be something that you can learn a lot from! And that is about the idea of how to be happy: you can’t control what’s coming to you, so it’s best to accept it in a welcoming way instead of being too worried and apprehensive about it. Let me explain and expand more on this idea.

Alright, so in life, every activity and every action can be separated into 3 types: things you can’t control, things you can control, and things you can control partially. According to Stoicism, with each of these two types of actions, you should deal with them in three different ways. For things that you can’t control, particularly things that other people do towards you, let it be so. Don’t be worried about it, because if you are worried and apprehensive about bad things that can come, then still, you won’t be able to change it, right? On the other hand, thinking too much about things you can’t control will only make you even more stressed out, so if you want to be happy, you should start by not thinking too much about things you can’t control. The next category is things that you can control, specifically things that you do. According to Stoicism, instead of putting your mind towards things you can’t control, direct your attention towards this instead - do the best of your ability towards things that you can manage, because it is exactly you and only you who can influence the results of these kinds of things! And for the last type of activities, we have things that we can control partially - for example, if you are having a group project that needs to be done. With this kind of thing, you need to make plans in advance, because although the result of the work will include the work of other people (and not only you), if you have a proper plan and work well with other people, then you certainly can manage these things well.

To talk more about the idea of how to be happy, long ago in my psychology club, me and my club members have had the opportunity to meet a psychology, and during the meeting, she has told us something that I can still vividly memorize, which is that nothing is sad or happy itself, but rather, you are allocating a certain emotion, a certain feeling to it. Therefore, by shifting our mindset by thinking of life more positively, we can make life happier. So let’s take a very realistic example that we can easily empathize with, shall we? So for this scenario, the exam season is coming up, and by now, you may be feeling very stressed out and even scared by this already, right? But let’s apply what we have learned about Stoicism towards this specific scenario: you can’t control the fact that you are going to have to do the exams, right? Therefore, don’t allocate too much of your attention into it! Instead, focus on things that you can do - a huge reason why students are typically stressed out by exams is that they are scared that they haven’t been very prepared for this, so the solution here is that you should, basically, prepare for the exams - which is something that you can totally manage. In addition to that, no actions in life have a feeling itself, so let’s view it in a more positive light - that “omg finally the test is coming after weeks of preparation. Let’s look at it the way that finally I won’t have to care for it anymore and that after this I’m going to be free.” Hopefully, through this, you have learned more about Stoicism, as well as starting to think of ways to apply this into your life!