Modern Stoicism (Part 3)

 Marcus Alden Meredith
October 19, 2024

Modern Stoicism (Part 3)

“Sometimes the lesson you were gonna teach gets taught to you.”

One of the major ideas in Stoicism is to recognize what is “in our control” and what is “outside our control.” The Stoic teacher who is most noted for his lessons on “control” was Epictetus, a man who spent the first 30 years of his life as a slave in Rome and whose writings had a great impact on Marcus Aurelius and by extension Nelson Mandela. Epictetus emphasized in his writings that we recognize a big distinction in our thinking: (paraphrasing) - know what is within your “reasoned control” he would state. He wanted us to realize that it is a useless exercise and waste of mental energy to “worry” or to be thinking about situations you have no control over. He often stated the idea as “reasoned control” not just as an emphasis but as a reminder that all our views come from the judgements our mind develops about all the things we experience. In short, we don’t control what happens in the world, but we do control how we think about it and the P.O.V. we develop as a result of our judgments of these events. 

This part of Stoicism has always struck me as very similar to the Buddhist admonition that “you are how/what you think.” For instance, if you think that the world is secretly aligned against you, you’ll feed that feeling of paranoia you’ve been slowly growing inside your head and act accordingly. “The world hates me, so I’ll hate it back!” is not an unheard of mental state that many people develop (and, yes it is a terrible state to be in). Take a scenario where the tree outside your house has a branch fall on your car and you say, “Really?!? This?!? The world hates me!” Instead, Epictetus says look at the situation differently. The tree was old and the summer heat stressed if out so much that it lost a branch as a result of the dry, hot conditions and a drought you’ve been in. What happened was utterly out of your control. Was it unfortunate? Yes, but that’s why we pay for car insurance, because the unexpected does happen (the Stoics  call preparing ahead of time for such circumstances you might anticipate as Permeditatio Malorum, but that’s a discussion for a later time). The events were out of your conscious control so the anger at the tree, or the drought, or the wind is utterly useless and just keeps our emotions upset and heart rate elevated. Instead, recognize it as unfortunate, then call the insurance company and make your plans accordingly.  This recognition or situational awareness, if you will, is what Epictetus warns you to be aware of and what the Stoics work on cultivating in their daily practices. Note, Epictetus understood this better than most having been a slave. His name literally means “He who has been purchased.”  Epictetus also walked for a large portion of his life with a permanent limp after a master had broken one of his legs out of spite.

Anxiety is also something that Epictetus’ lessons on “conscious control” tries to address. A classic example of the terrible toll anxiety takes on us is given by remembering situations like studying for a test. Now if you haven’t done the work to learn the material for the test sufficiently ahead of time, it would not surprise people that you would be anxious about the exam. But, Epictetus would say, “You know you didn’t study, your chances of passing are not good, so plan what needs to be done given the likelihood that you won’t pass because that kind of thinking is in your control. If you know you have another exam and can prepare for that now, that is in your control so focus on that. Trying to cram for tomorrows exam is just futile.” At this point we should recap what Epictetus is saying: I didn’t study to pass the test, so that is no longer in my control. I can plan to study better for the next exam because that is in my control and I have the time. So - being anxious about the upcoming test? Useless. You can’t do well (most likely) and the anxiety is a waste of time and mental capital. I can still be ready for the next exam - this is in my control.

Continuing to expend emotional energy on the test you can’t pass is useless - the anxiety amounts to paying a bill for something you didn’t buy. And this is what Epictetus is pointing out. We control what we think about (nothing else!) and the more we practice this control, the less likely we are to let circumstances dictate our emotional state of mind. We are in control of the circumstances of our minds, not the reverse. In the practice of Stoicism, most stoics enhance this process of control by daily journaling. I personally journal every day, in the morning and the evening to be able to review what my thinking was like that day (or even that week).  It’s an interesting confluence of events and psychological techniques in history that journaling is often used in Cognitive Behavior Therapy as a tool to help patients deal with emotions that might overwhelm them. I find it both comforting and a tad ironic that the Stoics figured this technique out over 2000 years ago only to be rediscovered by modern psychology in the 20th century.

I also had to use my stoic training today in a situation involving internet bills and telecomm companies. To preface, I moved 3 months ago after living in my last residence for over 30 years. I received a bill that was for the old address that only came to my attention after it was forwarded to me by the USPS. So, I went to a service center to talk with a service rep and square things away. The rep looked up my info and we called customer service… waited… had to call billing… waited… gave the account info… waited… answered questions and gave pass codes… waited… ad infinitum…. Eventually we squared things away ( I arrived there at 1 pm and got home at 3:30 pm, cue the eye rolls). Account cancelled and bill credited. Then, in a refreshing bit of thoroughness, the service rep found out I had been paying for satellite services with the company that I thought had been cancelled a year ago! More calling and more relaying of account information and waiting ensued. All the while, the other customers being helped were just a bit amazed at how calm I seemed to be: control what you can, deal with everything else as it comes, stay focused on accomplishing the task. It seemed that the Universe was teaching me the lesson on stoic control (and the Universe has a way of dolling out lessons when we least expect them). In the end, almost as a reward for my patience and persistence, I ended up saving over $200 in bills I didn’t need to pay anymore! Outstanding, a discovery that saved me money while trying to correct a bill. That’s how I chose to look at it. So, driving home, not having written this blog yet, I thought, “Sometimes the lesson you were going to teach gets taught to you.”