Yep, that's right. Sunday is a great day for a philosophical discussion.

My latest obsession: Stoicism.

I've been studying it for a while now, but there are a lot of misconceptions out there, so I thought I'd make it easy for you. -Jay

Stoicism 101:

Stoicism is generally thought of as a philosophy. But, it was a very early way of manipulating your psychology as well. It’s been said that Stoicism is kind of like the pragmatists Zen. I was exposed to Zen through all of my martial arts research. And, while it appealed to me very deeply, it also seemed a tad too esoteric. Stoicism, seems like a scientist’s attempt at Zen. Let me break it down for you. Stoicism simplified: Think negatively. Give up. Suffer. Yep, it’s all about becoming happier. What? Ok, maybe it needs more explaining.

Thinking negative. That’s easy. They’re just throwing the “starving kid in Africa” line at you. You know the old line “I felt sorry for myself because I had no shoes, then I saw a person who had no feet”. That’s the idea behind stoic negative thought. It’s not to be morbid. It’s to develop gratitude, and joy. Stoics spend some time every day picturing all the bad that could be. And then they open their eyes to the beauty of what they still have. Thinking negatively is really just a technique for developing gratitude and joy.

Give up, really? Ever heard the “Serenity Prayer”? “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Well, that is the essence of Stoicism. Stop caring about the crap you can’t effect. Have absolute control over what you can. Don’t run yourself into circles putting things in the wrong category. Done. Recipe for happiness. I think that’s how Stoicism eventually became to mean to have “no” emotion. Because most people are sooooo emotional over nonsense that is not in ant way under their control, and stoics (about those things) would have nothing. All people remember are the deadpan moments. The don’t realize that Stoics were just maximizing their joy. The biggest killer of joy, is stress and worry. No stress and worry, more joy! Stoics weren’t being devoid of ALL emotions. They were just ridding themselves of the ones that didn’t help. That’s the give up part.

The other real advanced thought in Stoicism, was the concept of “Adaptation”. That’s what I was hilariously referring to, when I said “suffer” earlier. They already understood progressive resistance. You all know it. If you run 1 mile for a while it stops being hard. So you can add another quarter mile, and another, and another. Until, one day, you’re running way further than you ever thought was possible. Because you added stress, adapted, then “progressively” added more “resistance”. It works with weights, suntans, calluses, …. Everything. We are familiar with this in the physical world. But, not so much in the mind. Stoics understood, that if you could progressively learn to endure suffering, then suffering would be less able to take your joy. So, they had some austere practices. Fasting, cold exposures, zenlike simplifications, physical exercise, etc. People see these practices, and think they wanted to suffer. Wrong. They wanted to be able to endure suffering, so they would suffer less. If you really don’t like getting sunburned, your best defense (besides hiding) is to EXPOSE yourself to the sun. And get accustomed to it. Smart, controlled exposure, makes it effect you less. Hell, it’s why you get flu shots. They were on to something WAY ahead of their time. As a non mystic, non esoteric philosophy of life and way to achieve psychological health…. You can’t beat Stoicism.

Read up on it!:

A couple of great resources are: