(1) The people with whom you choose to spend your time will ultimately influence the kind of person you become. If you’re around people who push you to be better, you’ll improve. Of course, the opposite dynamic is true: people may try to bring you down to their level.
The Roman playwright and philosopher Seneca, who was a generation older than Epictetus, advised that we should each keep someone in mind whom we respect and admire. Their presence in our mind is sure to guide better judgments and actions.
The eighteenth-century economist Adam Smith was of a similar mind, and even had a name for it: the indifferent spectator. For Smith, it didn’t even have to be a real person. The mere thought that someone is witnessing and sympathetically judging our behavior will help us.
(2) Modern life is overwhelming. Messages bombard us, work is all-pervasive and politics is one big roller-coaster. It’s no wonder so many of us end up getting constantly distracted.
But we don’t have to give in to distraction – it is possible to maintain focus.
Take Bill Belichick, the coach of the New England Patriots, an American football team. He gets his players to block out interference and noise through a simple instruction: “Do your job.” It’s a reminder to the players to reduce their focus to the task in front of them. Everything extraneous to the immediate situation can and must be blocked out.
The Roman Emperor and adherent to Stoicism, Marcus Aurelius, had another way of putting it. He advised that we approach each task as if it were our last. Work like that and you’ll find that external distractions will quickly dissipate.
You can also heed another of Marcus Aurelius’s excellent suggestions: create your own mantra. Something like “I am able to keep out anything that might disturb me; I can see things for what they are, and not give them undue attention” might do the trick.
But your mantra can be anything you want. Use whatever words feel natural to you – just remember their purpose. They’re there to shut down anything that might lead you astray.
There’s another way you can keep your focus. If you recognize and accept that some things are simply beyond your control, you’ll ensure that your attention is fixed only on what’s important.
For the Stoics, the mind is the only thing you can truly control. In contrast, you may think you have control over your body, but it’s going to get sick or injured whether you like it or not.
And it’s a good thing to realize your limits, as this will help lift the burden of responsibility. The only thing you need to worry about is your mind, and the choices and actions that are the consequences of its reasoning.
Practically speaking, you can use this knowledge to create a useful daily routine.
In the morning, take a minute to remind yourself of what you can and cannot control. Focus only on the former.
At midday, remind yourself that the only ability you really possess is the capacity to make choices.
And before you turn in for the night, think again how much is outside of your control. You can sleep easy knowing that, as Epictetus taught, those matters can be left for “God and fortune.”
(3) Much like Roosevelt, most of us are prone to letting our impulses dictate our actions. But you needn’t fall into the Rooseveltian trap; intelligence and reason can help you determine whether it’s really worth taking action. For instance, just because a plate of cookies is sitting in front of you, it doesn’t mean the emotional impulse to take one – or five – should win.
You are in control. In fact, putting your emotions to one side is a decision that will get you far. Look at the American heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis. His calm, unemotional demeanor in the ring gave him the upper hand even before he let loose with an uppercut. It was what earned him his nickname, the “Ring Robot.”
There are still going to be times though when action seems like it’s your only option. But it’s then that a spot of premeditation is sure to reap rewards.
Julius Caesar’s longtime rival, the senator Cato the Younger, was famed for this. When he first entered politics, everyone expected the world from him. However, instead of giving way to pressure and delivering the profound speeches expected of a politician on the rise, he resisted the temptation.
Cato repressed his ego and took the time to examine and honestly evaluate his own thoughts. Although his powers of address could move the masses like no other, he chose only to speak when he was sure that his words were worth hearing.
All this goes to show that even though emotions are capable of inducing us to action, there’s good reason to avoid letting them rule us.
(4) CBT patients are taught to look for patterns in their thoughts and actions that don’t serve them well. Then, over time, they attempt to rework those patterns into forms they can benefit from.
The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius had much the same idea. He instructed his readers to look for cause and effect in their thoughts and actions, and thereby understand what sorts of actions result from particular prejudices.
Another way to identify flaws in thinking is to stay alert to an all-too-human tendency: Do you automatically and involuntarily add interpretation to what you observe?
Seventeenth-century samurai swordsman and philosopher Musashi had some choice Stoic words for this impulse – and he wasn’t even formally a Stoic! According to Musashi, a person can look at something with an observing eye or a perceiving eye. There’s a big difference between the two.
The observing eye sees things for what they truly are. In contrast, the perceiving eye imbues things with meaning. It’s the perceiving eye’s tendency to add its own spin and prejudice to things that can cause trouble. It causes stress where none is necessary.
(5) The multitude of possibilities that face us each and every day can be overwhelming, to say the least. It’s no wonder, then, that a lot of us are crippled by indecision.
You can overcome this by setting clear goals for your actions. That should really help clarify your priorities. And what’s the noblest goal of all? Why, it’s nothing less than behaving as the best version of yourself.
Try imagining the person that you’d like to be. Then, appraise your actions. Are you acting as the person you’d like to be would? If not, then don’t procrastinate in resolving the issue.
Marcus Aurelius understood the tendency to put things off until tomorrow. He pointed out that if you want to change something about yourself, the best day for action is always today.
Think of yourself like an archer taking aim at a target. You’re only going to hit a target that you aim at, and you’ll certainly only hit something if you actually let go of that arrow!
Ultimately, then, procrastination is best thought of as a form of resistance that blocks you from achieving your goal. As author Steven Pressfield points out, we all tend to say, “I’ll do it tomorrow”, when what we really mean is “I’m never going to do it.”
You’ll also find that what’s just as valuable as achieving a goal in itself is the journey to get there.
Have you ever heard the phrase “It’s the process, not the product”? That’s the Stoic approach to life encapsulated: life isn’t about big, earth-shaking epiphanies, but incremental progress. Ideals are there to carry us through the small events in life as much as the big ones.
(6) The mission or duty for students of Stoicism is to aspire to virtuousness.
Virtue is seen as the highest purpose one can commit to. What’s more, virtue itself is a composite concept comprising justice, honesty, discipline and courage.
There’s no point living your life with goals other than virtue in mind. You might, for example, bust a gut to earn money, but that will just lead to further problems and a desire for more cash. That’s true of climbing towering mountains too – you’ll just want to reach the next summit.
Virtue is different, though. For the Stoics, either you’re a virtuous person or you’re not, and which category you fall into depends on the actions you take. That’s what makes virtue so incredibly valuable.
Of course, the other side to virtuousness is that you have to be entirely self-committed to achieve it: no one’s going to make you do it. As Seneca wrote in his Moral Letters, “Every noble deed is voluntary.”
(7) Artists are also people who tend to find themselves stuck in their work. They chase inspiration with new experiences or new locations, but they often just find themselves blocked.
That’s because, ultimately, if you’re looking for the perfect set of working conditions, then you’re just deceiving yourself. In reality, it makes no difference where you are, you’re just going to have to get down to it and press on.
The same principle goes for practicing stoicism itself. It’s for real-world situations – there’s certainly no need to enter a monastery to live stoically.
Another truth that Stoicism recognizes is that while the things we do might be imperfect, this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.
This kind of disproportionate thinking, including “all-or-nothing” thinking, will ultimately impede you. Psychologists refer to these as cognitive distortions. And they usually lead to unhappiness.
In his book Rules for Radicals, community organizer Saul Alinsky argued that we shouldn’t let our idealism limit us in setting our goals. An organizer, Alinsky claims, has to accept that the world is as it is before she tries to change it. Accepting things as they really are doesn’t weaken the desire for change; in fact, it makes the effort to do so more effective.
One step at a time and it will get done: that’s the Stoic way.
(8) Stoics believe that no matter what happens to us, we always remain in control of who we are. As a nod to this, they even name the space inside each of us that houses the soul the Inner Citadel. No matter what each of us physically endures, this Citadel will remain impregnable.
The only danger the Citadel faces, therefore, comes from within.
Because of this mentality, Stoics prefer to rely on themselves rather than circumstance.
Cato the Younger, whom we looked at earlier, liked to be prepared for any eventuality that might befall him. For instance, even though he could afford clothes, he chose never to don a hat regardless of the weather conditions and walked around barefoot, so that he could learn to be prepared for any circumstances.
After all, to a Stoic, misfortune is just another opportunity to become stronger. In On Providence, Seneca even claims that someone who has never known difficulty is unlucky; it shows he’s never been tested, so there’s no way he’ll know his true potential.
There’s a second consequence to the Inner Citadel: Stoics know that only they have power over their own minds, which makes them very resilient.
(9) Don’t look for happiness in external things.
There’s nothing wrong with appreciating fine clothes or a square meal. But the more we let our happiness depend on external rewards, the less free we become. So the next time you’re looking for “likes” on social media or trying to boost your mood with a fancy purchase, ask yourself what meaningful action you could be taking instead. The effects will last a lot longer.
(10) Think of a man asking his lover whether she ever feels attracted to other men. Before answering, she pauses before telling him that, no, she doesn’t. An anxious cast of mind would interpret that pause as a sign that she’s lying and attempting to avoid a confrontation.
But what happens if he sticks to first impressions? Well, the exchange appears in a completely different light. He has asked a direct question, and she has given a direct answer. There’s no reason to doubt her honesty, either – after all, her pause could just as easily indicate thoughtfulness as a desire to deceive. Perhaps all she wanted to do was take a moment to consider how she was going to answer a difficult question.
This approach is designed to preserve your peace of mind, and it goes hand-in-hand with a technique called prosoché, which means “paying attention” in Greek. Think of it as a kind of self-awareness that wards off any troubling thoughts that could disturb your inner tranquility.
The most important thing to understand about prosoché is that it emphasizes tenacity rather than perfection. You can see how that plays out by imagining someone trying to quit smoking.
Say he’s given up for two weeks but has recently had a wobble and smoked a couple of cigarettes. If he is focused on achieving the perfect – giving up for good – he might well feel like he has failed and take up the habit again. If he practices prosoché, however, he will understand that perfection can be the enemy of the good. And knowing that, he can preserve his peace of mind. Relapses happen and quitting is notoriously difficult. One moment of weakness doesn’t make him a failure. The key is to accept that he made a mistake, move on and try again.
