THIS Philosophy Could End Your Suffering

A lot of my content is deeply rooted in the fundamentals of minimalism. But one of the things that I've been exposed to is the philosophy of stoicism. Looking at it more thoroughly, I really love the principles and realize, that it is a lot of what we talk about here…

The idea of self-responsibility, taking out judgment, understanding where and what you can control, acceptance, temperance of will, etc. these are the ideas rooted in stoicism. So, I want to talk about some of the few principles of stoicism and how it relates to helping you create life on your terms and level up your energies and your successes.

First, people often think of stoicism as being completely non-emotional people that don't care about anything, but this is far from true. The idea is to not indulge in too many highs or too many lows. We like to label things as “good” or “bad” … “preferable” or “non-preferable”, and stoicism teaches the acceptance that things are just the way they are. To label it “good” or “bad” can create more suffering.

Stoics believe labeling is impractical because it's not the way that life is. The best way you can move forward is to say, “it's okay that things are this way”. Also, to be able to say, “what can I do about it now? What things are inside of my control?”

This leads to principle number two: Non-judgement, or acceptance of life as it is. From what I understand stoicism philosophy believes that the only thing you really should judge, is your performance, asking yourself, “Did I do this well? Could I have done better?” Everything else, like the way people think and behave, the weather, etc. may not be things you can control despite the fact that you may have influence.

So the next best step you can take is to accept the fact that that's the way that life is. No resistance equals minimal suffering.

When we get negatively emotional it creates so much stress. It releases chemicals of stress and anxiety and we imbalance our hormones. Sometimes if we're stressed long enough, we put ourselves in the sympathetic nervous system for longer than what is considered healthy. We start taxing our adrenals, draining our energies, creating more fatigue… all the things we're trying to avoid.

So it seems like simple principles, but when you take the time to apply this to life, you liberate yourself to have more energy and more clarity so that you can be productive or effective in the actions that you take moving forward.

Number three, stoicism philosophy is also about temperance. And this is where minimalism comes in. I talk about taking the minimalism philosophy deeper than materialism. We talk about “advanced minimalism” where we root out, not just our stuff, but our thoughts, habits, people in our lives, food that we eat, etc. Being gluttonous and over-excessive over things that may even be considered valuable, can create imbalance as well. So, temperance is about practicing discipline, and in practicing discipline, you also reduce suffering.

If you practice temperance, you actually develop a part of your brain that can withstand more suffering, so future suffering feels less severe. And this is important because when it comes to recovering from any kind of fatigue, or leveling up your energy, you have to have immense amounts of discipline.

Last, but not least an essential pillar that stoicism is built on is justice. And that means doing the right thing and being always fair to others, even when they're not fair to you. When people don't act fairly towards you, applying all the principles of stoicism allows you to accept the fact that that's the way life is, not judge, but to judge yourself in how you can best move on and take action within your control.

Oftentimes we are afraid that if we don't show up a certain way, then we would be considered lazy, irresponsible, and unmotivated. We judge ourselves so harshly. But if we're not kind to ourselves, in turn, we will put those same expectations and judgement on others. So we want to make sure that we are just at all times and that justice comes from the acceptance, of both ourselves and others.

So stoicism is this beautiful thing that really encompasses everything we talk about here and something really fun I wanted to share with you. I absolutely love this philosophy. It highlights so many areas of challenge and practical skills of how to move forward in a way that takes responsibility and empowers us to create more justice and love for the world!