An over-thinkers’ guide to achieving happiness (Stoicism)
Index:
1) Intro
3) How to always be calm | Rationality
4) How to fulfil your dreams | Fatal Influence
5) What to do when life is overwhelming | Presence
6) Learn more!
Good morning!
Okay, so people have asked me about Stoicism.
And so I researched it.
Basically, one of its key things include not controlling the events, just control how you respond to them.
There are more key principles, though.
So if you’re an overthinker, listen carefully.
Because these principles, it turns out, are what significantly helped me not focus so much on my anxious and intrusive thoughts.
And they work for people of ALL genders and backgrounds.
It’s a philosophy to keep in mind, not a new religion or something only for “masculine” men.
Everyone can substantially benefit from this shit.
This is an opportunity for you to be different from other people now, because no one successfully lives in accordance with these things, I wouldn’t say.
But God forbid, they’d like to.
Gonna explore 4 principles today: Virtue, Rationality, Fatal Influence and Presence
How to be happy | Virtue
Purpose of stoicism is to reach eudaimonia (happiness).
Stoicism just acknowledges that you WILL learn from everything, if you decide to.
If you’re religious, you might believe that every hardship is a test of your will, which in passing, will help you grow as a person.
It’s true, and everything is an opportunity to move forward.
Stoicism is also a solution to people beginning to view human existence as abnormal in the scope of the calm, uniform and ordered universe.
Like humans thinking that we’re different, I believe.
The 4 main cardinal virtues of Stoicism are courage, justice, discipline/self-control/temperance/moderation and wisdom.
Respond to things with some, or all of these virtues.
The opposite of this, is known as irrationality.
Like when you freak out as things happen in your life that you didn’t hope for, or were unprecedented.
Virtue is important in Stoicism, because material or corporeal bodies are governed by reason or fate, in which virtue is inherent.
You must be virtuous and contribute to the world.
We’ll talk more about fate later.
How to always be calm | Rationality
Many Stoic philosophers talk about “Living in accordance with nature”.
This refers to the Divine Logos or divine reason, which means living with the understanding that every occurrence happened as it was supposed to, with an inherent meaning that should never be doubted.
In other words, the divine reason, or the nature and order of the universe, has a predisposed meaning for all things to exist and to occur.
So each event in your life, is an opportunity for you to live virtuously, which contributes to self-preservation and with the right virtues, contributes to the order of the Universe.
Using reason and logic to understand that all things were meant to happen, helps us create inner peace of Ataraxia, which will allow us to deal with big events virtuously and calmly.
Similar to all of that, is something that I strongly agree with and that I think is a helpful belief to have in life.
That is, you never know what’s good and bad, because you don’t know the meaning of anything.
So, you must simply trust in that nature and order, and not judge any event, just respond as best as you can, or in this case, within the scope of the 4 cardinal virtues.
How to fulfil your dreams | Fatal Influence
You have a destiny, and while it’s not inevitable, you can make progress in fulfilling it by making a continuum of virtuous choices in response to what crossed your life-path.
Now, human actions can INFLUENCE supposedly inevitable parts of fate, and affect the consequences.
So parts of fate can change, depending on the kind of person that you are at a particular time, in my opinion.
According to Stoic philosopher, Chrysippus, there are both simple and complex fates.
I think that things like illness are usually a “simple fate” , or simply inevitable.
And the reaction to that, is a “complex fate”.
The way that I see it, is that each decision you make in response to an event will either lead you to make a virtuous decision the next time, or a non-virtuous one.
The reaction to illness was fate, because of the decisions that you made beforehand.
This sort-of means that fate works in the present moment, and it always matches it.
So, if you can live in the present moment, as we’ll discuss in a moment, then you can use rational decision making to pivot your direction in life and “manipulate” fate.
But in some weird spiritual way, you’re not.
Ultimately, this leaves us with a choice.
To either experience the exponential curve towards a virtuous life, or towards a non-virtuous life.
Depending on the kind of choice you make.
And therefore, the kind of person whom you choose to demonstrate.
That’s why it’s hard to judge those born in non-favourable circumstances, because perhaps the decisions that they were most inclined to make in early life, as well as what was predisposed by the nature of the divine logos, were more non-virtuous and therefore that continued.
What to do when life is overwhelming | Presence
Live in the present moment, as a means to minimise desire.
As if things don’t turn out as you desire, which they may not, you might be unhappy about it.
A more seasoned stoic can have ambitious or flexible desire though, as they understand that they can choose how they react to things.
Indifferent, rather than emotional.
That’s it!
Thanks.
Join the Peaky Pines Email Community, with people who’re trying to learn how to be calm not just when things happen to them, but always.
And to not give into overthinking.
References:
Process of finding YT titles:
My perspective on stoicism
Stoicism:
An overthinker’s guide to Stoicism.
Stoicism: My perspective on the “Eternal Philosophy”
“X Stoic Lessons That I Use In Everyday Life”
“X Stoic Lessons That I Use In Everyday Life: Mr. Caldwell”
An overthinker’s perspective on stoicism.
Stoicism: Why it could save humanity
The philosophy that could save your life.
The most HATED (and most loved) philosophy ever created
Stoicism: The most HATED (and adored) philosophy to ever exist
Marcus Aurelius: The most HATED (and adored) philosopher to have ever lived.
Marcus Aurelius: The most HATED (and adored) philosopher to ever live
The most HATED (and most loved) philosopher to ever live
Thumbnail including Marcus Aurelius. In middle, with angry crowd on one side and happy crowd on the other?
Stoicism: The most HATED philosophy to ever exist
Thumbnail including Marcus Aurelius. In middle, with angry crowd on one side and happy crowd on the other?
An overthinkers’ guide to achieving happiness (Stoicism)
Guide is used a couple times by other guys who did well. (Stoicism) is used often. Achieving happiness power phrase that targets those who’d benefit the most from my content. Makes the person curious as to whether I’m gonna say that you can achieve happiness WHILE overthinking. It’ll work for overthinkers. Short and sweet.
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x Reasons Why Stoicism Will RUIN Your Life
Why Stoicism will RUIN your life
The most life-saving philosophy I’ve ever come across
The most life-changing philosophy I’ve ever come across
The one reason why Stoicism will RUIN your life
ADVICE FOR OVERTHINKERS: How to become unstoppable
You know what it’s about, but still sparks curiosity. All caps, direct audience - overthinkers. Used an un-word, Unstoppable. Thumbnail still tells you what the video will probably be about. But the title’s quite powerful.
Thumbnail with a picture of a statue stoic with some flaming eyes of sorts, next to him text says Stoicism. Or says Stoic Rules.
Tone of the video: “Serious talk. We need to have a discussion about this (Stoicism). This is extremely fucken important (because of how people live in opposition to Stoic philosophy)”.