Stoic philosophy:
Stoic philosophy originated in ancient Greece, under the shade of a painted porch in Athens, as a way to help people live flourishing, resilient, and happy lives. Through changing the way we perceive life and our place within it, this ancient school of thought teaches us how to live a life of tranquility and inner peace, protected from the anxiety and destructive influence of the world around us.
As a practical philosophy, Stoicism has been used by people across all walks of life to overcome anxiety and stress in day-to-day life. In this article, we will explore how Stoic philosophy can help with anxiety, and we’ll look at some quotes from the Stoics to understand their thoughts on the subject.
One particular Stoic, called Epictetus, taught that individuals have control only over their thoughts, actions, and emotions. He believed that we should focus on what we can control and not worry about things that are beyond our control. A concept known as the dichotomy of control.
Epictetus believe that fixating on, and worrying, about things beyond our control is not only a waste of time and energy, it leads us to anxiety and stress. Whereas, when we accept what we can’t control, we free ourselves from the impact those things might have on our peace of mind, and we are left to focus on the things we can actually do something about.
This shift takes us from a person the world is acting upon, to a person who is acting upon the world, and this subtle change in mindset can be very powerful.
Amor Fati:
The Stoics had a phrase for this practice of acceptance: Amor Fati, or “Love of Fate”.
This principle has us not only accept the happenings of the world, but love them. After all, we would not be here if the world did not behave the way it did, bound by the laws that govern it, and to resist them is to resist the very thing that has given us life and experience.
Now there is an argument against this practice, and some believe that through acceptance we become passive and submissive, allowing anything and everything to happen to us and for us to be happy about it. This is not the case.
Amor Fati is simply the practice of accepting what is. No matter how hard we resist it, we cannot change what is. So we accept the state of the world around us and then we look to see what we can control, and focus our effort there. This is not the same as lying down and taking whatever comes.
Summary:
In the end philosophy is simply a tool. We can decide if it works for us, and implement it where we feel it fits within our own life. It can help us to overcome anxiety by teaching us to focus on what we can control. It can also help us lessen the impact of hardship by accepting whatever happens to us.
The Stoics also taught individuals to live in the present moment, be self-reliant, and not worry about, or rely on, external sources of happiness to make a happy life. By applying these concepts in our daily lives, we can reduce their anxiety levels and live a more peaceful life.
Quotes For Anxiety:
“Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions, not outside.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“True happiness is to enjoy the present without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied, for he that is wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not”
– Seneca
“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.”
– Epictetus
“It’s ruinous for the soul to be anxious about the future and miserable in advance of misery, engulfed by anxiety that the things it desires might remain it’s own until the very end. For such a soul will never be at rest, by longing for things to come it will lose the ability to enjoy present things.”
– Seneca
“Wild animals run from the dangers they actually see, and once they have escaped them worry no more. We however are tormented alike by what is past and what is to come. A number of our blessings do us harm, for memory brings back the agony of fear while foresight brings it on prematurely. No one confines his unhappiness to the present.”
– Seneca
“What upsets people is not things themselves, but their judgments about these things.”
– Epictetus
“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself with are externals, not under my control, and which have to do with the choice I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own.”
– Epictetus
“The first step: Don’t be anxious. Nature controls it all. And before long you’ll be no one, nowhere—like Hadrian, like Augustus. The second step: Concentrate on what you have to do. Fix your eyes on it. Remind yourself that your task is to be a good human being; remind yourself what nature demands of people. Then do it, without hesitation, and speak the truth as you see it. But with kindness. With humility. Without hypocrisy.”
– Marcus Aurelius
When I see an anxious person, I ask myself, what do they want? For if a person wasn’t wanting something outside of their own control, why would they be stricken by anxiety?
– Epictetus
“Caretake this moment. Immerse yourself in its particulars. Respond to this person or that person, this challenge, this deed. Quit the evasions. Stop giving yourself needless trouble. It is time to really live; to fully inhabit the situation you happen to be in right now. You are not some disinterested bystander. Participate. Exert yourself.”
– Epictetus
“Many of the anxieties that harass you are superfluous… Expand into an ampler region, letting your thought sweep over the entire universe.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“Leave the past behind, let the grand design take care of the future, and instead only rightly guide the present to reverence and justice. Reverence so that you’ll love what you’ve been allotted, for nature brought you both to each other. Justice so that you’ll speak the truth freely and without evasion, and so that you’ll act only as the law and value of things require.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“It is likely that some troubles will befall us; but it is not a present fact. How often has the unexpected happened! How often has the expected never come to pass! And even though it is ordained to be, what does it avail to run out to meet your suffering?…Perhaps it will come, perhaps not; in the meantime it is not. So look forward to better things.”
– Seneca
We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.
– Seneca
“The mind at times fashions for itself false shapes of evil when there are no signs that point to any evil; it twists into the worst construction some word of doubtful meaning; or it fancies some personal grudge to be more serious than it really is, considering not how angry the enemy is, but to what lengths he may go if he is angry. But life is not worth living, and there is no limit to our sorrows, if we indulge our fears to the greatest possible extent; in this matter, let prudence help you, and contemn with a resolute spirit even when it is in plain sight. If you cannot do this, counter one weakness with another, and temper your fear with hope.”
– Seneca
“For the only safe harbour in this life’s tossing, troubled sea is to refuse to be bothered about what the future will bring and to stand ready and confident, squaring the breast to take without skulking or flinching whatever fortune hurls at us.”
– Seneca
“Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.”
– Plato
“As a rule, men worry more about what they can’t see than about what they can.”
– Julius Caesar
“What is the point of dragging up sufferings that are over, of being miserable now, because you were miserable then?”
– Seneca
“Frame your thoughts like this— you are an old person, you won’t let yourself be enslaved by this any longer, no longer pulled like a puppet by every impulse, and you’ll stop complaining about your present fortune or dreading the future.”
– Marcus Aurelius
