So it goes for Stoicism: The stiff-upper-lip stereotype finds its root in the fact that Stoics practice endurance. It arose in ancient Greece and Rome, established around 300 B.C. by Zeno of Citium in Athens. People spanning the social gamut practiced it, from slaves such as the early second-century Epictetus to emperors like Marcus Aurelius. They took to heart the idea that if there is nothing you can do about a particular situation, why beat yourself up about it? Work toward as serene a degree of acceptance as you can muster instead. This doesn’t mean suppressing emotions. Rather, it means shifting your emotional spectrum—away from unhealthy emotions like anger and toward the mindful embracing of healthy ones like joy—by working on consciously altering the way you think about yourself and the world. [...]
Well, thank Zeus I’ve never been attracted by a “naive endorsement of stoic ideology.” That’s because I practice upper-case Stoicism, not lower-case stoicism. I’m into the philosophy, in other words, not the macho attitude. Not only are the two unrelated, but in fact research from practitioners of cognitive behavioral therapy shows that the philosophy promotes eudaimonic well-being as well as engagement in life. The goal of Stoicism, after all, is to make us into the best human beings we can be, and it does so through the constant applications of two cardinal principles: the dichotomy of control and the four virtues.[...]
In essence, the idea is to internalize our goals: Instead of focusing, as it comes natural, on outcomes, let’s pay attention to our intentions and efforts. The Stoics think that the only truly good thing for us is our own character, and that therefore the only truly bad things are whatever may undermine our character. Everything else (including health, wealth, reputation, etc.) has value, but does not define who we are. [...]
It turns out that practicing Stoics experience a statistically significant increase in measures of their well-being, with fewer episodes of negative emotions (like anger) and more episodes of positive emotions (like joy). Moreover, such reduction of anger does not take place by way of suppression (which is impossible), but because Stoic practitioners reframe what happens to them in terms that simply do not trigger angry reactions in them. “We stop having ethically misguided and intense or conflicted emotions (sometimes called ‘passions’) and we move toward having ‘good emotions,’” as the handbook for the 2020 edition of Stoic Week states. “The passions are misguided because the passionate person supposes that happiness depends on acquiring or retaining ‘preferred indifferents,’ such as wealth or fame (rather than on exercising the virtues).” This folly leads to anger, fear, or overwhelming lust, emotions often marked “by intensity of feeling, instability and inner conflict.”
No comments:
Post a Comment