Mind the Beginner

This blogpost is part five in a series of five exploring the Stoic psychological tactics that can be used to rediscover joy in your life.

A lot can be said about meditation and there are countless ways to practice it. None of them are wrong or inferior. They are however all different save one aspect: meditation is undivided attention. On the whole meditations is a way to gain insight in what it is you’re meditating on.

This being said, how did the Stoics implement meditation. Seneca advises us to periodically meditate on the events in our daily lives, how we responded to them and how we -in accordance with Stoic principles- should have responded in stead.

It’s very simple actually, before you go to sleep lay there for a moment (or kneel beside your bed if you prefer) and think about how your day as. This type of meditation is completely unlike the meditation of a Zen Buddhist. Where a Zen Buddhist sits still for extended periods of time trying to think of just one thing, calming his mind and focusing on his breath or a koan a Stoic will be all over the place with his mind. Focusing on all the events of the day and reliving them. Total chaos if you ask a Zen Buddhist, functional if you ask a Stoic.

Level Up

Epictetus takes Seneca’s bedtime-meditation to another level. He suggests that in daily life we should “simultaneously play the roles of participant and spectator” living the moment and scrutinizing it while doing so.

Marcus shares this idea and advises us to examine every thing we do, determine what our motives are for doing it and and evaluate the value of what we are trying to accomplish with this action. “We should continually ask whether we are being governed by our reason or something else. And when we determine that we are not governed by our reason, we should ask what it is that governs us. Is it the soul of a child? A tyrant? A dumb ox? A wild beast? We should likewise be careful observers of the actions of other people.” After all, we aren’t the only ones who make mistakes, if someone else makes a mistake we can learn from it. The same goes for success.

The bedtime-meditation can also be used to review all the tactics. Did we engage in negative visualisation lately? When was the last time we practiced self-denial? Were we trying to control something that was completely our of our control? And how about our goals, are they internalized? Take some time to look at everything.

Changes in daily life

After practicing these tactics for a few months your relationship with other people will have changed. It has to after all, you’re thinking differently about yourself and about life. Has your social circle noticed any changes about you? Be aware here. Perhaps you get insulted sometimes and manage to shrug it off. But also shrug off the praise. Epictetus shares with us his thoughts on the admiration of other people, it’s a negative barometer of our progress as Stoics: “If people think you amount to something, distrust yourself.”

Signs of progress as a stoic (according to Epictetus)

• We stop blaming others
• We stop censuring others
• We stop praising others
• We stop boasting about ourselves
• We stop boasting about how much we know
• We blame ourselves, not external circumstances, when our desires are thwarted
• Because we have a degree of mastery over our desires, we find we have fewer of them than we did before.
• Our “impulses towards everything are diminished”
• Quite significantly, is we have made progress as a Stoic, we will come to regard ourselves not as a friend whose every desire must be satisfied but “as an enemy lying in wait”

How can you tell if someone is a Stoic

A Stoic, although capable of spouting Stoic principles and telling stories will not resort to this for “Those who know… don’t speak. Those who don’t know… speak.” It’s because of this that Stoics will not get noticed a lot especially if they choose not to write a series in Stoic psychological tactics on their blog and thus boast about it. I’ve yet much to learn…

Measuring progress

Seneca took his daily practice to be adequate as long as “every day I reduce the number of my vises, and blame my mistakes.”

Marcus offers us with a great piece of advice I’d like to close this series with. One I think applies to practicing Stoicism but also in all other ventures in life: Continue to practice Stoicism “even when success looks hopeless”.

These five tactics combine to form a philosophy of life and as such, if you practice them they will change your life. I hope you enjoyed reading this series as much as I enjoyed writing it. If there is anything else on this subject you’d like to know please do contact me and I’ll do my best to answer all your questions.

The posts in the Stoic psychological tactics series:

1. Negative Visualisation

2. The Dichotomy of control

3. Fatalism

4. Self-Denial

5. Meditation

This blogpost is part four in a series of five exploring the Stoic psychological tactics that can be used to rediscover joy in your life.

This tactic takes the negative visualisation a step further. Not only do we contemplate what the worst thing is that can happen, we act as if it really has. Fake anything from oversleeping to a total blackout or a breakdown of your car. You might want to act as if you have only a few dollars left this month to spend on food and have to make due with the mere basics of bread and water.

The seemingly strange

A while ago author Neil Strauss (Emergency) did just that. For three full days he shut off all power and water in his home. He did this to see if all his preparations for such events were in order and to practice his skills in a real environment but still with some control. He could after all get the water and power back if things really went wrong.

But why in -insert your deity’s name here- name would you want to do that when you have all the comfort you need and see no use in turning off the air conditioning in the middle of a hot summer. We work hard to obtain all kinds of comforts we believe we need to survive but the truth is we can life perfectly without a lot of these comforts but we don’t know what they are until we go without them for a while.

Again (just like running) this is a form of self torture. A form that will help us in more ways that one. First off it will show us that we can easily do without most things we believe we need to survive and secondly it prepares us for the event that things do really go wrong. (Or WTSHTF as Neil puts it in the most extreme of situations.)

Instead of standing there dumbfounded when our car won’t start we know where the nearest bus-stop is and waste no time in executing the alternative. No more Internet? We pick up that book we have planning to read. No stress, no discomfort, only a change of plan but not one we can’t handle. It won’t jeopardise our joy in life.

Voluntary discomfort or self-inflicted discomfort

The Stoics didn’t inflicting discomfort on themselves, they didn’t do something they didn’t want to. They chose to do this and so it was voluntary, a huge difference. In modern days however, why would you want to do without all the comforts that are so easily accessible. (TV, Internet, hot water or even running water for that matter)

There are three advantages of practicing voluntary discomfort:

• Hardening yourself
• By living through minor discomforts regularly you’ll grow more confident that you can cope with major discomforts as well. Such a major future event will no longer be a source of anxiety.
• It helps us appreciate what we have and stops us from taking things for granted.

Even though we do our best we can’t ban discomfort out of our lives completely. Discomfort is something we sometimes just don’t have control over and it would be a waste of time (and thus productivity) by concerning ourselves with this discomfort. We’ll just have to live with it and in getting used to some discomfort it no longer affects s that much. Very cold temperatures don’t bother the Inuit that much, they’re used to it.

Getting back control

From time to time try and abstain from harmless pleasures. Don’t drink that cold beer on a warm sunny day. It’s not because you might become an alcoholic. It’s because you can practice self control. The easiest things at first (don’t eat that cookie) and the things that you find harder later until you are no longer a slave to pleasure anymore and can turn down anything offered to us.

Make sure you regularly prove you can abstain from pleasure by actually saying no to the pleasure. This is the difference between those why say they can (Know any smokers who claim they can stop at any time but just don’t because they don’t feel like it right now?) and those who truely are their own master and not a slave to pleasure.

As the Stoics went about their daily lives they subjected themselves to discomfort and abstained from things that would provide comfort from time to time. It was perfectly okay to enjoy yourself and to experience all the comforts the world has to offer but there is a fine line between a good meal and gluttony.

The posts in the Stoic psychological tactics series:

1. Negative Visualisation

2. The Dichotomy of control

3. Fatalism

4. Self-Denial

5. Meditation

This blogpost is part three in a series of five exploring the Stoic psychological tactics that can be used to rediscover joy in your life.

Let go of the past and the present. That’s what fatalism is here. In certain religions and in the Roman Empire it’s accepted that we as individuals and we as a society have a predestined path to walk. In other words fate or as Seneca puts it “it’s a great consolidation that it is together with the universe we are swept along”. The Stoics believed firmly in the Fates and that we are all nothing more than actors in a play that has already been written. Things simply put, are just as they are and “happen as they do happen”. According to Marcus, a good man will welcome “every experience that the looms of fate may weave for him”.

Complaining about the fates

As I said the Roman Stoics like all Romans took it for granted that they had a fate and that they could not escape that fate. For the Romans life was a written play or a fixed race, the plot or outcome was already known to the Gods. (Or to the three Fates to be more precise: Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos)

Now it might seem a bit strange that the Stoics believe in the dichotomy of control and at the same time advocate fatalism. After all, if the future was set in stone already we wouldn’t have control over anything in life now would we.

This is where things get a bit confusing. Although the Stoics believed in the Fates they didn’t practice fatalism with regards to the future. No, they only practiced it with regards to the past and the present. The future was left open until it became the present. They didn’t just sit round moping and complaining that everything was already decided. If things were already decided, complaining wouldn’t do them any good now would it.

Combined fatalism and burning your finger

What the Stoics did do however was combine fatalism with the dichotomy of control. This very instant and everything before it that we know as the past can not be changed anymore. We have no control over the past or the present and thus we should not concern ourselves with it. The fact that the past can’t be changed is widely accepted. But why can’t we change the present? This is again a bit of a mind game. As soon as we act on the present the present is the past.

Stick your finger in a flame and your body will react to it by pulling back your finger even before it hurts. But how long did the neurons take to tell your muscles to contract because of the flame? More than enough time to make the finger in the flame a matter of the past.

We didn’t change the fact that our finger was in the flame, but with some control over things to come (a blister if we don’t cool our finger under running water) we do have some control over the future. It is of course possible to affect what will happen ten years from now, or a week, an hour or even half a second. But as soon as it’s the present it’s our of our hands.

The paradox of ambition

You see, the past and present can never be changed, so why worry about them any longer, they will only make us uncomfortable and distressed all over again without doing us any good. We can learn from the past, but that’s about all it’s good for.

In this regard and combining this tactic with the first two I described you might think the Stoics were very unambitious, being happy with every experience the Looms of Fate weave for them. The truth couldn’t be more different. Seneca was (among other things) a political adviser, investor and play writer. Marcus Aurelius was (aside from a stoic philosopher) the Roman Emperor. You couldn’t get more ambitious than that back in those days. If anything these guys were highly ambitious and achieved great things in their lifetime.

A nice paradox is unfolding itself in front of our eyes it seems. Accepting that the future is already written and being happy and content with the simplest of things. The Stoics believed in living accordance with nature. Humans are by nature a social species and it’s for the best of society that everyone take part and did their social duty. If by fate Marcus found himself the Roman Emperor there is nothing there that prohibited him from enjoying that, the looms of Fate made him Emperor and it was his social duty to perform that task as best as he could. He kept in mind however that all things were temporary and that one day he would no longer be the Emperor, or be alive for that matter.

Stoic Riches

Note also that the Stoics were financially comfortable and that Seneca and Marcus in particular had riches beyond their dreams. That would seem strange if they didn’t care for such things and didn’t concern themselves with what we today can call consumerism. (Getting the latest gizmo’s just because..) Although they did have an income, they hardly spent it and certainly not on those trivial things. It’s through “living below your means” (As is being taught by hundreds of financial blogs and books) that they amassed wealth. Although they didn’t crave wealth it was because of their philosophy that they did achieve this.

Be happy about whatever comes on your path and enjoy it while it’s there, it will be in the past tomorrow. Don’t worry about it however, you can’t change it anyway.

De posts in the Stoic psychological tactics series:

1. Negative Visualisation

2. The Dichotomy of control

3. Fatalism

4. Self-Denial

5. Meditation

This blogpost is part two in a series of five exploring the stoic psychological tactics that can be used to rediscover joy in your life.

This blogpost borrows heavily from William B Irvine’s A guide to the good life. Although I don’t cite him literally the info in this blogpost can be found in the chapter of his book on the subject of the trichotomy of control. The split from dichotomy in trichotomy is Irvine’s idea. I merely wrote about it here because I found it so valuable that I had to share it. I hope both my readers and the publisher understand this and let this blogpost stay as it is. I say again, I borrowed this in from from Irvine’s book. If you like what you read here, please do read the book! it’s brilliant.

Today I would like to write about the dichotomy of control or rather as Epictetus puts it ” Some things are up to us and some are not up to us”. If we explore this further we come to the understanding that in life, we want things that are up to us, and things that are not up to us.

If we are constantly wanting things that are not up to us chances are that we won’t get them and we will feel miserable and perhaps upset about it. If we do however manage to get that what we want (which was not up to us) we will of course be happy with it. How long wil the happiness last, Hedonic adaptation remember? And how much anxiety will we feel before we get it. We buy a lottery ticket and get totally hyped about winning the jackpot. In our minds we’re already driving around in that Ferrari. When the winning numbers are announced we of course don’t win and are depressed about it.

Wanting things that are not up to you will disturb your sense of tranquility within yourself. Even if you do manage to achieve it you will have had the anxiety that came with the game of chance. Is your peace of mind worth that constant abuse?

Dichotomy or Trichotomy

There is a small problem with the Dichotomy however. If we look at Epictetus’ statement either something is completely under our control, or it’s not under our control at all. Now there are things we can influence and thus have some control over. In a dancing competition we don’t control who wins but we can train hard and do our best, that way we do have an influence.

There are three branches to this control phenomenon:

• Things over which we have complete control (The goals we set for ourselves)
• Things over which we have some but not complete control (That dancing competition)
• Things over which we ave no control at all (The yearly cycle of the seasons)

Everything in life will fall into one of these three branches.

How do we use this to our advantage

So now we have devided everything in life into these three branches, now what can we do with them. First off, does it make any sense at all to worry about things we have no control over whatsoever? Our worrying won’t do us any good at all, it will probably only cause distress. I know it’s hard, but try not to worry about those things anymore. Logically it would just be foolish to keep worrying about them wouldn’t you say. We should instead concern ourselves more with the things we do have (some) control over. Because we have total control over some things, these would need just a little energy to manifest. The things that we have partial influence over are the ones that should deserve most of our attention. It is here that we can make a difference.

What are the things we completely control

Our goals in life are just about the only things we truly control. If I decide to take a sip from the cup of tea that is standing on my desk right now I’m in control of that. (A very minor goal) I however am also the only one who has control over if I manage to complete the MSc. I’ve decided to get. Sure, there are those small things that might set you back a bit, but it’s all about me and if I decide to do all the homework and study no-one can influence me making my homework right? Your goals are under your control and you can easily mold them to fit the situation at hand so we have control.

Back to the dancing competition

So we train long and hard, but we don’t manage to win the contest, what a depressing thing that must be.

Let’s examine that a little closer. What was our goal here? To win the contest. Not something we have total control over and thus we might get disappointed. We didn’t win after all. But what if you internalize your goal. Internalizing your goal here would be to “dance the best you can”. You’ve now made it into something you can control. Whether or not you win doesn’t matter, you’ve accomplished your goal of doing your best and can be proud of your accomplishment. A huge difference compared to being disappointed over not winning.

This all look like a mind game right now, and perhaps it is. But our mind is very powerful tool. In the dance competition we will likely have a little fear of loosing. Not an all to comfortable feeling. (Although the adrenaline this feeling produces might help you get an edge.) By internalizing your goal you can’t loose, or the only one to blame is yourself.

By setting internal goals and worrying only about those things you have (some) control over you can spare yourself a considerable amount disappointment and frustration.

The posts in the Stoic psychological tactics series:

1. Negative Visualisation

2. The Dichotomy of control

3. Fatalism

4. Self-Denial

5. Meditation