I am always interested to learn new concept and ideas about life.
So, today I was reading about stoicism and realised that I was already following some of its core principles.
Treat every problem as an opportunity
German Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche had a concept called amor fati(a love of fate).
The idea of this concept is that you accept whatever happens in your life(good or bad).
Stoicism has a similar concept. Although, this concept can be hard to practise, especially during the difficult times. But it is during the difficult times that you need to remember this concept the most.
While you can't control everything that happens to you, you can always control how you react to it. How you behave in a problem/situation is up to you.
For example, when you get in an accident, you can be sad that your car got damaged, or you can be happy that you didn't die.
I had a severe accident in 2011. I used to ride my bike at insane speeds. So, one day, while driving recklessly, I got into an accident. It was a very bad head injury, lost almost one of my finger and couldn't use my hand for 2-3 months. Though it was very bad, but it taught me a life long lesson. Now, I drive my bike and car very carefully. If it hadn't happened, I could be in a worse accident some day, or I could have hurt someone, someday.
Even though I am not happy about that incident, I embrace it.
Similarly, when I lost a lot of money investing in shitty coins, I learned how important is financial knowledge. I can get lucky a couple of times investing in random coins, but if I have to grow my wealth in a long period of time, I have to make better decisions. I need to be very careful about where I should invest my money and where I shouldn't.
In fact, every bad experience in life could be a good lesson. Being unemployed is a good lesson about how important a job could be( as a lot of people who have good jobs complain about their work.)
Being born in a poor family, you will value every penny. Being born in a toxic family, and you will value good relationship with people, and humbleness.
Every bad experience is a blessing in disguise.
By adopting this attitude, we can turn life's obstacles into opportunities. And we can embrace life's challenges as a way to advance and improve.
Appreciate what you have
A simple word gratitude.
Though, I am not a big fan of it, but I am learning that appreciating what you have, makes your life better. And it is even more relevant when materialistic things have gained so much importance in our life.
Practising gratitude increases happiness. Because you focus on the things you have.
Bad things happens— always be prepared
Soticism has a practise called pre-meditation of evils. You start each day by imagining all the things that could go wrong.
I agree that for some people, it's not the best way to start their day. But when you encounter some setbacks in life, you are less likely to collapse, because you were prepared for it.
I don't do it daily and can't imagine myself doing it daily. But whenever things aren't going my way, I do imagine the worst possible scenarios. But once I am done imagining them, either I am prepared mentally to face them or I come up with a solution to deal with them.
Also, most of the times things don't happen in the worse way. So, this makes me positive in life. Realising that things always don't turn out to be so bad. Sometimes they are okay, sometimes they are good as compared to how I imagined it.
Don't fear death— use it to give meaning to life
A lot of people around me want to live longer, or maybe forever. The longer we live, the less valuable life will become. At least that's what I believe.
If humans were to live 1,000 years, life will be more unfortunate. Although, It would be good for the 1% population, people who are ruling this world, it would be bad for the rest. There are people who are struggling daily to improve their life. To give some meaning to their life.
If you had infinite time, would you work so much?
Time in life is limited. And that makes it precious. That's why there are monthly goals, quarterly goals and yearly goals.
We need to enjoy our time from the age of 15-25. Then build something from the age of 25-40 and watch our children grow later.
Death is the ultimate truth for everyone who is born. So, it's better to live the most out of it as long as we are here.
When stoics don't meditate about things that could go wrong, they remind themself that they will die one day. This practise is known as meditating on your mortality.
Though stoics looks like morbid and miserable people, they live a happy life.
Being aware that we are going to die one day, gives us a sense of urgency and purpose in life.
In short, make the most out of every day!
As each day arises, welcome it as the very best day of all, and make it your own possession. We must seize what flees. — Seneca
Always see the bigger picture
Marcus Aurelius wrote about a practise that referred to "taking the view from above" or "Plato view".
As people say, if something won't matter in 5 years, don't spend more than 5 minutes stressing about it.
The idea is that we all are very insignificant in the grand scheme of the things. Therefore all our problems are also insignificant when we put them in the bigger picture.
We're like-minded on many things, @looftee! I hadn't thought of myself as "stoic" before, but I just might now!
There are always two piles in front of me: one is things I can control, the other is things I cannot control. I do my best to only work on the one pile, confident the second one will handle itself as long as i keep my fingers out of it.
Once a problem is identified, the only energy should be spent on possible solutions! Re-visiting "we have a problem" is a waste of time and energy!
Death is the only thing guaranteed in life. Accept that fact, and live life to it's fullest in a way that will allow you to meet death with your head held high.
Jimi Hendrix said it best, I think. "I'm the one that's got to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to"
Great post, thanks for writing and sharing it!
Great quote.
My life’s basic rule is live the way I want it to be.
It’s really difficult to live on your terms, but if every year, we make our life somewhat more of what we want it to be, one day we can be 100% happy with how everything is.
Control your thoughts and actions is like getting over half the miseries in our life.
I do it every now and then. And feel better.😁
You're a great writer and philosopher :)
I like how you write in a way that it is Healthy Positivity, like being grateful while still acknowledging that a problem exists (but not dwelling on it).
My father has this toxic positivity, where he denies that a problem exists and what's wrong is your mindset. This goes problematic especially on his health, he acts so stiff, but I know sometimes he cries at night in physical pain. I don't know why he's acting like that, it's either he acts strong to protect us emotionally or he's just arrogant. His words can be demeaning, but it's just his words, he is a low-key caring father. On all of our hospital days, he's always present (take a leave from work) and provided us with treats.
I have one of those in my family too. My sister acts like that with money.
Too optimistic about it. That everyone can be a millionaire. And money is never a problem. She achieved good success in her life, I would say that.
Self confidence is good, but being optimistic about others, I don’t know.
Whenever I have money problems, she is like don’t worry you will make a lot in future.
I almost had a nervous breakdown in Nov-Jan. Lived through depression.
Still haven’t fully got out of it. And she was like, don’t think too much, everything is okay.
Most of my family members are either complainers or negative thinkers. She is overly positive thinker. I consider myself somewhat realist...a little bend towards negativity.
I feel like being surrounded by too much optimism makes us lazy.😅
Sorry to hear about that, hope you're getter better.
Every family is unique :D it's like a raffle and we don't know who we will be together in most parts of our lives 😆
For me fear and negativity is good, but in a healthy approach. It made the primitive humans survive in the wild, the fear being attacked by wild animals or caught by a bad weather so they made weapons and safe dwellings. Fear and negativity drives innovations when paired with action.
It really good that your mind is aware of many things most men are blind of, you deserve to have a book of your own. Aside from leaving a legacy, it will surely help people who will stumble on your works. :)
Lol, writing a book is definitely one of my goal, but 10-20 years later.
Lot of people in this world suffer through severe negative thinking, depression, over analyzing things.
It happens with me once a week or so now, but I still suffer from severe negative biases.
A little bit more control and I am okay. A good average human being.
It's really a long journey from being a severe introvert, negative thinker, suffering from anxieties and god knows what.
Started reading books in 2017. Realized life is not all that shit.
But things got bad again in nov-jan....because I lost a lot of money. I was always in some kind of depression, but having good money in bank accounts helped. I could travel every month, buy anything. Not care about a lot of things, or opinions.
Lol, but now, I am improving from my core. Now even if everything is strapped away from me, I will survive.
And you know what's the most wonderful thing is? The biggest changing factor was hive.
I started writing daily on hive from 27th May. Wrote a lot of self analysis posts, motivational and self development post.
Questioned a lot of biases. And little by little I am improving.
I am pretty sure if I continue writing daily for 1-2 more years, I will be a completely different person.
And because of this terrific change in myself, in the core me, I don't care much about money too, or if I have written a well explained post or not.
90% of my focus while sharing a post is self growth, and expressing myself daily, even though if it is a shit post. 😄
You really are a good writer, continue it. Aside that many will learn from your posts, writing can also be a form of outlet to calm the mind—it can be therapeutic.
Hope you get better day by day, take at your own pace.
Thanks a lot. I am making good progress. Just need to continue the momentum🙂🙂
Oh, this was a BRILLIANT post! I had listened to the word "Stoicism" before but never really got it until I read this. I realize I am already following that path now.
And I specially loved the last part of your post:
Thank you so much for sharing!
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Thanks a lot. Someone recommended me to post in the Natural Medicine community. I was only posting in OCD and Leo Finance.
Are these types of posts okay for Natural medicine community?
Thanks a lot for your support.🙂