Simple Stoic Advice
Embrace It
Embrace It
The beautiful thing about Stoic philosophy is the advice contained within it is just as applicable today as it was when it was first written all those many years ago. We can learn a great deal from interpreting the advice provided and using it to our advantage as we go throughout our own lives.
Today’s quote comes to us courtesy of Epictetus and his Enchiridion (from recent translation entitled How to be Free):
Quote
“Don’t ask for things to happen as you would like them to, but wish them to happen as they actually do, and you will be all right.”
Advice
What is Stoic resilience? Many people turn to Stoicism in times of stress because many have seen it as a way to cope with their situations and build emotional resilience to weather the storms they face.
Epictetus above provides a perfect response on building emotional resilience. There really isn’t any grand strategy that will build your resilience other than your perspective shifting from feeling like a victim (this was done to me) to feeling in control (I can handle this). The easiest way to attain this is through an acceptance of fate.
Acceptance of fate, regardless of what that fate may be. It is about accepting it, and molding it, so that we can grow from it.
Marcus Aurelius writes in Meditations:
“That every event is the right one. Look closely and you’ll see. Not just the right one overall, but right. As if someone had weighed it out with scales.”
We choose how to handle the event, whether we use it to help us, or to hinder us. Epictetus in the Enchiridion also says this and uses the metaphor of the jug as an example:
“Everything has two handles, by one of which it ought to be carried and by the other not. If your brother wrongs you, do not lay hold of the matter by the handle of the wrong that he is doing, because this is the handle by which the matter ought not to be carried; but rather by the other handle — that he is your brother, that you were brought up together, and then you will be laying hold of the matter by the handle by which it ought to be carried.”
Life is hard. We will all face adversities as we go about our lives. But true resilience is built through continuous work at trying to mold fate, accepting the events that happen in our lives and finding ways to learn and grow from them.
If you so choose, you can learn something from every event in your life. Learn from every event and help build your wisdom. This will lead to resilience.
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