What is Stoicism?
I came across the concept of Stoicism in YouTube. The video was by TED-Ed and I immediately fell in love with the video and also the concept of Stoicism. It’s a philosophy that was developed by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early third century. Obviously, it is an old concept of philosophy; so I believe that some concepts of Stoicism are outdated. Yet I found many gems in the concept of Stoicism and I am writing about those simple yet profound thoughts that I found in the philosophy of Stoicism.
The Core concept of Stoicism is that we have to see world as it is. If the situation is difficult, then the situation is difficult; if the situation is good, then it is good. We don’t have to pretend that bad situation is not so bad; we should see what the difficulty is and try to overcome it. If life is good then enjoy by all means and do use some time to improve upon yourself. Additionally, Character is the most important virtue of a person and we should never corrupt our character.
The world that we live in is not perfect, the people in it are not perfect. On a daily basis we will face problems and predicaments that we think will ruin our lives. But will those bad situations really ruin our life?
Loss of job, loss of loved ones, accidents.. These are tragedies in lives and some we can avert, but others we have no control over.But we can always control our reaction to the bad circumstances and the bad events. If the skies begin to fall down, we are not superman to stop it. But we can choose to panic or choose to figure out what's happening and see what can be done. The truth in life is that panicking won't solve any problems ; besides it will create fresh ones.
We as logical beings should always try to improve ourselves. We should try to avert bad circumstances but be prepared to handle difficult circumstances also. We should be able to identify Solvable problems and unsolvable problems. Solvable ones, solve it and move forward. Unsolvable ones, analyses it, do what can be done and move forward. Crying and panicking about problems is the worst way of solving it.
Stoicism VS Pessimism
There is a huge difference between being a stoic and a pessimist. Many people mistakenly consider stoics as pessimists; but this is far from the truth. Pessimist is a person who thinks that, everything is bound to go wrong and will go wrong. But a stoic thinks that, many things can go wrong so one must be strong enough to face them. It encourages a person to be self sufficient and have the courage to face adversities.
Simply put, a stoic is not devastated when he gets fired from his job. Being fired from job is so common these days that many people are familiar with the not so happy situation. Getting fired is bad but panicking is not the solution. There must be some reason behind the termination and that has to be analysed. Maybe it's because the economy is down or may be the candidate is missing some skills that the company require. So what you can do is to find out which skills sets are required to land a job and try for job in another company.
We must not be a pessimist and be afraid of losing our job the next day. Rather we need to be aware that the world is not perfect; things can go wrong. If it does go wrong, we should be able to handle it. We must also be keen in upgrading our skillsets. There was a time when knowing C programming language could land you job in IT industry.But look at the situation now; a candidate needs to have knowledge in Java, C, C# , JavaScript and many more to land a job. A pessimist will say, i cannot learn all this and that he will lose the job. But a stoic will say that Even though it is hard, i will learn and a have a better future. This is the attitude we must have these days my friend and surely it will let you achieve your goals.
The Four Cardinal Values in Stoicism
Stoicism gives importance to 4 cardinal virtues and that every person should possess those qualities. They are
- Wisdom
- Tolerance
- Justice
- Courage
1) Wisdom: It is the ability to make the right or logical decision at any point of time or at any situation. Wisdom refers not just to knowledge but the practical application of knowledge on real life situation. Knowledge is knowing the principles of stoicism and wisdom is applying stoicism in real life situation.
2) Tolerance:A person should not be swayed too much by his emotions. But we shouldn't suppress our emotions either. We are human, it's natural to have emotions. But we should make sure we are not blinded by anger or grief. There are moments where we feel like shouting at our friends or parents; but what good is it. It will only escalate the problem into new levels. What you can do is not to loose cool and use logic and try to resolve the issue. Then be kind enough to forgive. Having the heart to forgive your loved ones is also a devine quality.
3) Justice: It's more of a social quality. We should be just to the people around us. We should support the people who are less fortunate. We shouldn't harm the poor and the needy. There are thousands of people dying of hunger; that is not just. Meanwhile we are wasting food in large quantities.
4) Courage: We should be brave to face what fate throws at us. Adversities will come but we should have the strength to overcome all those. We all know that the world is not perfect and then it's for sure that bad things can happen. That's is just how the world works. But we should cultivate the courage to face them and we should improve ourselves to have the qualities to solve all the problems that may arise. Once we resolve the issues, surely we will have a peaceful time.
Sources:
Pixabay
https://www.youtube.com/user/TEDEducation
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXLesGEfmyhxqOjoAqhRwhA
https://steemit.com/life/@btcunchained/the-stoicism-lecture-1-how-to-handle-despair
https://steemit.com/life/@btcunchained/the-stoicism-lecture-2-stoicism-vs-pessimism
https://steemit.com/life/@btcunchained/the-stoicism-lecture-3-the-4-virtues-a-person-should-posses