A Stoic's Path towards a Happy Life….
Control is one of the most misunderstood aspects of life.
We barely understand this concept of what we can and what we can’t control.
So today, I will majorly talk about two things that I have discovered while studying some of the greatest philosophers and individuals.
First, I am going to discuss what “control” is? What did some of the greatest Stoics meant by it?
(I will try to explain what I understood by control)
Secondly, few examples of our daily life, where we fail to understand the essence of this philosophy.
So.
Stoicism is in a lot of ways based on the concept of Control.
It is also fair to say that the absolute beginning of stoicism came from the fact that Epictetus lost everything he had and was left with only two choices. One is to restart his life with whatever he had or to sit back cry and complain about his faith.
He chose the first one.
He realized what he has control over!
Epictetus was the one who coined the Dichotomy of Control. And every other stoic was in line with his thought.
Seneca and Marcus Aurelius has given their own touch and lived their whole life with the virtue of control.
Now, what do Stoics mean by Control?
Epictetus said that to lead a Happy and Fulfilled life you need to understand and walk on the path of Control where
1) You need to figure out What are the things you can actually control.
2) Shift your focus completely onto what you can Control. And forget everything that you can’t control.
Now,
In life, you need to have the disciple and honesty towards yourself to pause and realize what exactly are the things that you can Control. And this will not come in one day. Days of conscious practice can change our thought patterns.
Let us take a common situation to understand how we generally react!.
Let’s say you went for a game on a bright sunny day.
Friends are happy, the game is on and just as you guys were getting into the crucial 15mins of your game, Nature decides to give it a break.
Suddenly dark clouds covered the last ray of light and it started raining cats and dogs.
Ever got into this kind of situation?
I think to some extent YES!
It is as clear that no matter what you do, you can’t stop the rain.
You just can’t.
Nature is beyond control.
But you know, what we all do at that moment, we will get furious and start complaining.
This is exactly where the Stoics showed us How strongly they had self-mastery.
It is super easy to get furious and start a blame game as to why you decided to make a plan on that day or why you chose that part of your town and etc etc.
But what a Stoic says, is that it is a complete and utter waste of energy and time. Every single day, you are given a particular amount of time and the Stoics wanted us to use that efficiently.
No matter how much we yell, it is not going to stop the rain or anything.
Stoicism asks us to find a way out by finding what is exactly under our control. The idea is to change the direction of your thought.
You cannot win the battle against uncontrollable, rather fight for what you can control.
Here are some of the Stoic quotes on “Control”
The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own…
-Epictetus
You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
-Marcus Aurelius
There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.
- Epictetus
In life, everyday life we are dealt with 100s of problems.
But the energy and time we have are limited.
Thus we should we can achieve a lot more if we focus on what we can control and change.
This shift in outlook towards the problem might seem small, but overtime it creates huge momentum.
Moreover, you find happiness, when you start to realize the difference.
Look, at a certain level we all want things in our lives to be in our control, but when that doesn’t happen, you feel helpless.
But you realize that out of 100 situations, you actually can control only 20 of them, that is the exact moment you get your power back.
You start to feel that some things in your life can change. And now you can focus on very few things to make it better. Which in turn will make other things better.
That’s the way of life. And what we all do.
I believe it has provided you guys with some clarity.
Thanks a lot for spending your time with us!