STOICISM - CALM & BEYOND EMOTIONS THEREFORE HAPPY
Stoicism holds that the key to a good, happy life is the cultivation of an excellent elevated mental state, which the Stoics identified with virtue and being rational. The ideal life is one that is in harmony with Nature, of which we are all part, and an attitude of calm indifference towards external events.
Control how you think !
So, what were the ideas? The first is that some things are within our control and some are not, and that much of our unhappiness is caused by thinking that we can control things that, in fact, we can’t.
What can we control?
We actually control very little. We don’t control what happens to us, we can’t control what the people around us say or do, and we can’t even fully control our own bodies, which get damaged, sick and ultimately die without regard for our preferences. The only thing that we really control is how we think about things, the judgments we make about things. The ranking we assign to people & material things.
Our judgments become our misery !
This leads us to the second foundational principle : it’s not things that upset us, but how we think about those things. Stuff happens. We then make judgments about what happened. If we judge that something really bad has happened, then we might get upset, sad, or angry, depending on what it is. If we judge that something bad is likely to happen then we might get scared or fearful. All these emotions are the product of the judgments we make.
What value we assign to events !
Things in themselves are of neutral value, for what might seem terrible to us might be a matter of indifference to someone else, or even welcomed by others. It’s the judgments we make that introduce value into the picture, and it’s those value judgments that generate our emotional responses. The good Stoic news is that these value judgments are the one thing over which we have complete control. Things happen, none of which are inherently good or bad, and it’s within our power to decide how we value them. The paradox of Stoicism, is that we have almost no control over anything, yet at the same time we have potentially complete control over our happiness.
Re-Train your mind through Intellect !
At first glance, this might seem to understate the very real challenges that people face in their daily lives. How can just thinking differently help someone who is struggling to put food on their table, for instance? The Stoics didn’t shy away from this. They fully acknowledged that life can be hard sometimes. Keeping this fact of poverty as a common denominator, the understanding & the attitude of few daring ones has changed their lives for the better.
AUTHOR – MAGIC OF MIND & MIRACLE OF BODY
https://www.amazon.ca/MAGIC-MIND-MIRACLE-Rohit-Khanna-ebook/dp/B004RHX8JC
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