Many people have the impression that Stoics are folks that don't care about anything and pessimistically endure whatever life throws at them. Nothing could be further from the truth because one of the most prominent Stoics in history, Marcus Aurelius, was the most powerful man on earth in his day. He cared very deeply about his Roman Empire AND he had the ability to enforce his wishes. And yet....he said things like:
"Ok!' We might just brush that quote off because, well, he HAD everything so could spout things about being happy with very little. What about those who had to live in the real world where a little bit might mean the difference between life and death?
Allow me to introduce you to a second Stoic, no less influential in his teachings and actually more well known as a Stoic philosopher: Epictetus. By the way, he was born a a slave.
And he really knows what he is talking about here! Being a slave has a way of distilling life down to what really matters. Both Marcus, the Emperor, and Epictetus, a slave, agreed on Stoic philosophy and bound their lives to its tenets. In other words, it works for about as broad a range of human experience as one can ever imagine.
Look at that diagram I started this post with. Study it and realize that that simple picture holds the key to enduring happiness IF you rigorously apply the truth it portrays.
Focus in this context does not mean casual interest, but rather an intense gathering of will to bring about change in your life. The only two categories of life that deserve that kind of focus is those things that really matter to you, and those things that you can actually control. The intersection of what really matters and things you can control is the ONLY PLACE where a person can actually change things that affect happiness. Everything else is just distraction and illusion to a Stoic.
Let me repeat that little truth: Keeping our focus on that space where what matters and what we control intersect is the key to happiness. The rest is dross, illusion, and poison to the soul.
What we think about, and the way we think, defines our life. If we marshal our thoughts and focus them on the nexus where we control what really matters to us, we will change our reality.
That is Stoicism in a nutshell.
Happy Stoic Monday:-)
Namaste.
If you want to learn more about Stoic philosophers this is a good place to begin: https://dailystoic.com/epictetus/
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