Stoicism in a nutshell

Of all the self development books I’ve read, there is only one that has made an indelible impression on me; that book is called, "The Obstacle is the way" by Ryan Holiday.

It isn’t even a stodgy or intimidating book like I imagined it to be when I read the title– it’s less than 300 pages, simple and easy to read, except each chapter renewed my soul when I read it the first time. I read it at an interesting time in my life, but the lessons have stuck with me since the moment I first learned them.

The book is somewhat of a beginner’s guide to a powerful ancient philosophy called, Stoicism. Each chapter starts with a quote from a revered Stoic and is accompanied by a real–life example of the philosophy in action.

Stoicism itself isn’t a theoretical philosophy where the practitioners spend their day in thinking about the meaning of life. Stoicism is a philosophy for people who live in the real world, who face uncertainties and challenges and difficult decisions every day. It’s not a way to escape your troubles, rather a device to help you face the world and all its peculiarities without losing your head. More corporations would do well to take into account the teachings of the Stoics to separate fact from fiction in an overly polarised world.

The best thing about Stoicism is that it works just as well in personal life - something that I’ve found very useful over the years.

While there is a great deal of discourse available on the internet on Stoicism as it gains massive currency in the corporate world; the following quote encapsulates the essence of the philosophy rather succinctly -

“Objective judgment, now at this very moment. Unselfish action, now at the very moment. Willing acceptance, now at this very moment – of all external events. That’s all you need”

Let’s break it down, shall we?

Objective judgment= Manage your perceptions

 Every single day every single moment, we witness and experience many things – and then we decide whether these things are ‘good’ things or ‘bad’ things. We then act based on the decision. The act of evaluating things that happen to us and judging them as good or bad is called perception – the way of looking at the world through our lenses. When we’re overwhelmed, our perception tends to exaggerate the unpleasant aspects of life and makes us feel despondent.

On the other hand, if things are going well, we tend to get a little over-confident and disregard warnings and see ourselves as invincible.

Objective judgment seeks to bring back your attention from either extreme to the absolute centre. The idea is to see life just as it is without letting our emotions, and the exaggerations of the outside world distort the image. Marcus Aurelius used to refer to wine as ‘old fermented grapes’ to practice objectivity – the point is, once you see things as they are, you can choose if the event itself, in isolation, is something that should cause you to panic and run; or something that will wake you into taking charge and facing circumstances boldly.

For example, you’re trying hard to learn a new skill; you fail the first few times, this doesn’t mean you’re a failure, it just means that you failed the first few times at the new skill you’re trying to learn. On the flip side, you’re trying to learn a new skill, you’re fantastic at the first few tries, doesn’t mean you’re a pro already, it could just be a case of beginner’s luck or the fact that it isn’t stretching you enough – examine it and see it for what it is.

Which brings us to...

Unselfish action = Do what is necessary

Once you start to see the world as it is, without its exaggerations, what you can and can’t control becomes evident. The options open to you are visible to you to act on. Ask yourself, “What should I be doing to get closer to my goal?”

And then do it. Simple as that.

Notice that no time is wasted on sulking of self-pity or any other action that takes away energy from the goal. This is only possible if perception and action work in tandem.

If you’re failing at something new, slice up the failure and figure out what is holding you back and direct your efforts towards correcting yourself.

If you’re getting better at something, find out if you can take on more advanced levels of the new skills you’re learning. Do what it takes to get closer to the goal.

Lastly,

Willing acceptance = graceful acknowledgement of reality

The last part of the quote refers to accepting what one cannot change – while we may control our perceptions and actions, how things will pan out is not in our control. The idea is to exercise and direct all our efforts over things that we DO control instead of fretting and fuming over matters that we can do nothing about.

You planned out a vacation and just as you’re about to leave the weather turns bad resulting in plans being cancelled? Yeah, it happens. You can ether choose to disregard reality and hate what’s happened, or accept the change and choose to have fun in another way by staying in – this way external events will never hold sway over you.

You don’t control what happens to you, you just control how you react to what happens to you.

That’s all there is to it – manage your perceptions to identify the right course of action; act as per the right course of action and accept the results as they are.

While the basic premise is quite simple, it’s not always easy to apply the principle in practice. It’s easy to react to things before reining in your impulses and willing yourself to exercise objective judgment. That’s exactly why Stoicism is something that needs to be reflected in your actions, every single day. One needs to practice the discipline of perception, action and will to truly be a Stoic.

If this article has piqued your interest, and you want to deep dive into Stoicism, I’ve included some further reading in the footnotes.

Let me know what you think of this article in the comments section.  

Further reading:

The Daily Stoic contains one chapter focusing on a key Stoic principle for each day of the year - ideal for beginners

Ryan Holiday's website has everything you need to embark on the path of a Stoic