Introduction to Stoicism

In the city of Cyprus in 300BC, lived a rich trader named Zeno. A boat sank when in a trip to Phoenicia. Imagine you were Zeno. What is the proper reaction to this? Most of this people would be mad. Not for Zeno. The core was indifference. Zeno created and taught stoicism.

We don't have control of what effects us, but we have control on our reaction. Today, people of stoics don't go through fits of rage or bouts of anxiety. Stoicism is a way to view, describe, and understand the world, and is still applicable today. 

Perspective is key. Everyone from slave to emperor can learn to become a stoic, Marcus Aurelius. Early stoic avoids segregation and prevent inequality.  Women were allowed to become stoics themselves. Stoics invented the word "Cosmopolitan", or the cities of the world. 

In a world full of unexpected events. We get sad because unexpected bad things happen to us, not because bad things happen to us. Like rain is a good thing, but people get mad but they don't cry, since the rain passes and the sun returns. In the same way, everything bad can happen will happen. Do voluntary discomfort. Cold shower, spend a week homeless,  sleep on the ground, eat nothing but potatoes. No matter how hard it gets, you'll still survive and eventually thrive if your mindset is ready, and improve our mind with future misfortunes.

Commercials are like if we don't look a certain way, have cool things, and make money, we won't every be happy. However, schools teach us in different ways. If we internalize this, we set unrealistic expectations of a lives. We should improve ourselves for ourselves. Attaching things to our happiness leads to disappointment. We grow up being taught things at home, school, and observations. Do we need to internalize all the knowledge?

We should focus on improving ourselves for ourselves. Attaching any external hope almost always lead to disappointment, and try to fill the emptiness on external things. Stoicism means placing happiness on external forces, like natural disasters, divorce rates, cars, even the free things in life come in a cost. Living to live with less create space in life. We must place our happiness on our value as humans and keep a cool head. We don't have control over many things, but we have control over how we react to it.

We must separate what we can control to what we cannot control. Getting mad when things don't go your way is useless. Making youtube videos and programming is challenging. Form your idea, research idea, scrap it off, create video, thumbnail, then upload. The power shifts to the YouTube algorithm once you upload.

Stoics teach that you should judge the success based on concentrated effort you put in. Think about a person who has working hard, but feels like he deserves a promotion, and the boss says thanks. He doesn't consider the reasons why he didn't get promoted, but with the right perspective his goal wouldn't be diminished, but postponed. The true stoic is comforted about living comfortably without things money can buy. Wisdom is separating internal and external, between stimulus and response there is a space, and that space the power to choose a response.

Courage is persist and resist. Temperance, or moderation, is doing more or less. Well Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are fighting for richest man, stoics beliefs means that we should have what is essential and enough. Justice instructs no one should harm another but we were all born for each other. Nelson Mandela doesn't call for wrongdoers, but they should relax, rebuild, find a way to move forward and move a better nation.

REBT identifies negative thought patterns and challenge them negative thoughts with logic, and then can challenge them with rational beliefs. Even in the darkest situations, we can fill our lives with purpose. It's a process, but we have to go out with the old, in with the new. We must practice self-worth. We can see what we can control, and live a much happier life. If our ship sinks, we can take peace in the fact we lived a good life. Because everything has an end. What need is there to weep over parts of life, when the whole of it calls for tears.