Stoicism contains dozens of tools to help us lessen stress and even avoid it completely. Here, however, we’re going to look at one Stoic practice in particular, from the Emperor of Rome, Marcus Aurelius, the last of the 5 great Emperors.
Marcus Aurelius; Stoic philosophy is best known for his personal journal, now known as The Meditations. These personal reflections take the form of a notebook, thought to have been written around AD 171–175, while Marcus was on military campaign in central Europe
In his meditations, he wrote:
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“You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can’t control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.”
Value Judgements:
Whenever we experience something in the world around us, it passes through our beliefs, values, biases, and preconceptions. This process normally ends with us passing judgment on the thing.
If we’ve been raised in a family that’s heavily career-driven, we might have been taught that creative pursuits like music or art are a waste of time, when in fact this is simply a value judgment.
Similarly, if we’ve had bad experiences with dogs in the past and we see a dog, our pre-existing biases and preconceptions could end with us thinking all dogs are scary. In reality, it’s just a dog, and we’ve given the dog a value judgment.
We can easily see when we are adding value judgments to things by being conscious of the language we use. For example:
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“This weather is terrible.”
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“That person’s an idiot.”
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“Oh great, more annoying traffic.”
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“I just lost more money on the stupid stock market.”
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“This inflation is insane.”
In reality, the weather is just the weather, other people may well behave in ways you don’t agree with, traffic is simply a reality of driving, and the stock market’s ups and downs are the nature of the system.
It’s important to develop an awareness of the language we use so that we can catch ourselves in the act of projecting judgments.
Avoiding Stress:
So how does this help us avoid stress?
In Marcus Aurelius’ quote above, he’s reminding himself that we don’t have to have an opinion about everything. This is especially true if the thing is outside our control.
More often than not, we are judging things outside our control, and this can be a problem.
In our modern day-to-day lives, magnified by the advent of social media, we are exposed to many more things than ever before in human history. We see ideas and opinions from all over the world, all over the political spectrum, and across all areas of life, and we can see into the lives of others through social media posts.
This explosion in the availability of information and people’s opinions on it has seen an equally dramatic explosion in value judgments about all of that information. Unfortunately, those judgments are often based on things outside our control.
Why is control a problem?
The Stoic philosopher Epictetus once said:
“Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our actions. The things in our control are by nature free, unrestrained, unhindered; but those not in our control are weak, slavish, restrained, belonging to others.
Remember, then, that if you suppose that things which are slavish by nature are also free, and that what belongs to others is your own, then you will be hindered. You will lament, you will be disturbed, and you will find fault both with gods and men. But if you suppose that only to be your own which is your own, and what belongs to others such as it really is, then no one will ever compel you or restrain you. Further, you will find fault with no one or accuse no one. You will do nothing against your will. No one will hurt you, you will have no enemies, and you not be harmed.”
Epictetus tells us that if we make the mistake of thinking that we have control over what is not within our control, we will inevitably become frustrated and feel bitterness toward both people and the world around us. This is because we will begin to see that no matter how much effort and emotion we put into the things we wish to change, they will be unaffected by our efforts. This, by extension, makes us feel powerless, ineffective, frustrated, and altogether unhappy.
If, however, we set our minds to focus on what we can control, namely our thoughts and actions, we become effective, empowered, and a participant in the universe. As Epictetus put it:
if you suppose that only to be your own which is your own, and what belongs to others such as it really is, then no one will ever compel you or restrain you. Further, you will find fault with no one or accuse no one. You will do nothing against your will. No one will hurt you, you will have no enemies, and you not be harmed.
While there’s no problem with caring about causes beyond the reach of our control, we do have a responsibility to be the gatekeepers of how much these things influence our peace of mind.
So, next time you feel yourself being pulled into a web of judgments, remember the words of Marcus Aurelius:
You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can’t control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.
