The story of cover: Signatures of my friends on the book, Reasons Not to Worry, as my birthday gift.

At the Beginning

Reading a philosophy book written by an English professional journalist is tough and dull due to my limited English vocabulary. However, it is a good time point that offers me sufficient time and passion to keep reading, spanning 18 days. I haven’t read a book so carefully for so long, and I wish I could also cultivate my reading habit from this experience. Anyway, I am glad I keep my promise, to finish reading the book by the graduation ceremony.

What is Stoicism

Stoicism is an Ancient Greek philosophy that emphasizes inner tranquillity, self-control, living virtuously, and aligning with the natural order. To understand and master the theories, we need to practice and apply them to our daily life for a time long. It’s obvious that I cannot cover them in just one post (seriously, I even don’t think I have a comprehensive understanding of it). What I am doing is just to have a glance and record the most beneficial parts to me.

Negative Visualization

Negative visualization is an approach to help you accept the possible but unwilling outcome in advance, by imagining the scenario you gonna face, which is a mental preparation for the case. However, you must have the same doubt as I just read the book, won’t it cause you to feel depressed? The trick is to imagine the scenario only, rather than its further influences and reactions, regarding it as a reminder that the things you don’t want to face might happen.

Control Test

The control test is the main medicine provided by stoicism to relieve your inner mental friction. The principle is to care about what you can control and let things you cannot control go from your mind. You need to imagine that there is an objective observer to your mind (actually, before reading this book, it’s also what I did, and I called it mentor), asking yourself, is the thing you are worrying about fully controllable? For most things, you can only do your best but you cannot control the outcome. Stoicism said the only three things we can control:

• Your character
• Your actions
• Your reaction to the external world

As a graduate, with the desire to work, I of course wish that I can successfully pass all interviews, which is out of my control scope, while the rising popularity of AI brings more peers and fierce competition, which is out of my control scope neither. Following the principle of control test, I should ignore these subjective thoughts.

Wait, how could these be subjective? They are all objective truths, isn’t it? Truth is all neutral, but we always label them unconsciously due to our desire. In this case, my actions (how to prepare for the interview) and my reaction to the external world (how to hone my interview skills according to the feedback) matter.

Preferred Indifference

Preferred indifference means accepting all possible outcomes. After the control test, the inner observer has already told us what we should care about. On the other hand, stoicism teaches us to focus more on the process instead of the result (it’s not controllable!), so preferred indifference comes out naturally. Success in worldly concepts is no longer important to you, whether poor or rich, whether single or in a relationship, no matter infamous or popular, even whether sick or healthy, all of them, it’s preferable to have but ultimately you should be indifferent. To avoid being too pained by the loss of something (e.g. wealthy life), it’s far better to have been indifferent to them in the first place.

The Virtues of Stoicism

Stoicism encourages people to achieve inner peace and happiness through a rational mind and virtues. The four virtues guide people who believe Stocisim to what a stoic person should be. These concepts might be void and abstract, and the extent you should follow is upon your state and judgement, so the explanation involving my experience/thoughts might be incomprehensive and subjective.

Courage

Accepting any possible uncertain circumstances needs courage, while to admit the truth and keep moving requires more. In my opinion, it is not identified as emotionless, as you need to clarify the truth first, adjust your state, and then still choose to act and take corresponding risks. There will still be a struggling process, but courage helps you make the decision eventually.

People who judge themselves frequently, often get negative feedback from their inner voice, and even lose the courage to believe in themselves as a result. Once avoiding becomes a habit, “no act no risk” is their creed instead of “no pay no gain”. Although that might also lead to a transient peaceful life, the overall life still lacks experience. No one can stay in the warm room forever since the world is dynamic and never varies as you wish.

Justice

Regarding yourself as a part of nature, and so do other people. The virtue of Justice guides us to treat everyone equally and take responsibility (e.g. follow rules/laws, and respect individual dignity). It leads to your kind manners to society, beyond selfishness. While you contribute to society without external push, you will indeed gain happiness and a sense of achievement.

Temperance

Temperance is more about self-control. “Only take the part that you should/deserve”, it’s my first impression of temperance. On the other hand, temperance prevents you from all addictions. Moderation should not be a mix of extreme temperance and indulgence. Rewinding the process of losing weight, I controlled myself in the very first few weeks quite well, with a low-calorie diet, and frequent exercise, driven by the initial passion. However, passion cannot last that long, and the moment I indulge announces the failure of this round. Instead, I eat the same amount of food to avoid hunger, but with more nutrients and less fat, making the process sustainable. I don’t know whether I can reach the goal, but I am optimistic for this time.

Wisdom

In other words, the ability to make reasonable decisions. In my opinion, all these four virtues work together: a decent state without any addiction from temperance, moral sense from justice, offering you a firm ground to make wise decisions, and then your courage gives you the power to identify the truth and take action accordingly.

Apply Stoicism to Issues

FOMO & Comparison

Being neglected or not invited to events might make you depressed since you only focus on the downside of it. On the contrary, you also gain your own time back and space to occupy yourself with another thing. On the other hand, it might expose a potential problem: you cannot pleasure yourself independently. The solution is still the same: build your own emotions upon yourself instead of others or their behaviours and spend time exploring your interests. Be kind to yourself because he/she is the only one who can stay with you forever.

Undoubtedly, comparing yourself to others is a sure road to unhappiness. A zero-sum mode comparison always leads to two results: win or lose, you lose your confidence when you lose, and you gain pointless achievement when you win, which also causes further pressure: what if your rival catches up? It’s also not scientific to compare with people around you, even if you stay in the same space and time, but you have different experiences of personal development, which means the variables are not under control. Furthermore, the scarcity mindset will only limit you and collaborations with you, while things become the result of comparison-oriented instead of the actual output. It would be great if you could give up the comparison game and instead focus on your race. Are you doing better now than you did a year ago? Are you coping better? You just need to be better than yourself or do the best that you can do. Be glad for your growth and reflect on the drawbacks.

Hedonic Adaptation

I categorize the issue into the addiction issue category. Once you experience a better material life, you will increase the threshold and expectation of the future, unwilling to roll back to relatively tough conditions. That’s why people who experienced bankruptcy but still come back are so admirable. People always want better stuff when they find one, but ignore their real needs and what they have. Driven by endless desire, these goals never feel fulfilled as there always seems to be more to do, or other people seem more successful than us.

We can slow down this hedonic treadmill by recognising when something is an empty desire and taking steps to stop chasing it. Don’t regard the present as the cornerstone of the future, in other words, live in the present rather than the expectation of the future. Please keep in mind that you cannot keep anything forever, so you should be appreciated for everything you have.

Anxiety

First, you need to recognise the essence of anxiety: it is subjective imagination rather than objective existence. The second step is to find the cause of your anxiety, but before being anxious, Stoics prized rational thinking, acting on good information and contemplating the situation fully rather than acting rashly or from a place of panic and anxiety: How this may look for you includes sticking to only one or two trusted news sources and limiting the time you check the news and social media. You should always be vigilant about what information you take in, especially in such an era of explosion of information.

Once you confirm that your anxiety is from a trusted information source, reflect on yourself if you overvalue the result or have unrealistic expectations. Remember: Cease to hope and you’ll cease to fear: Hope and fear are two sides of the same coin. If you have hope then you also have a fear that the hope will not be realised, so don’t be overwhelmed by what you imagine, but just do what you can and should; not being lost in reveries of the past or fantasies and fears of the future, but just dealing with what is in front of you right now.

Resilience is not inherited; it’s a skill that can be developed, much like a muscle. Viewing setbacks as Stoic tests allows us to face challenges with strength and determination. One major obstacle to overcome is the subconscious mind, which tends to blame and judge in difficult moments. Courage plays a vital role in building resilience, serving as the driving force that helps us navigate tough situations and prove to ourselves that we are capable of overcoming hardships.

Death

No one can be with you forever, stoicism advises you to imagine their death beforehand, so you can reconsider the relationship with gratitude. Don’t leave things unsaid; don’t neglect a friendship or familial relationship; properly enjoy your time with people. There is a defined stage when we have a loss: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and, finally, acceptance. But stoicism would advise that you skip the early stages and go straight to acceptance.

I believe most people are afraid of their death, including me, as we forget the truth: Everything—even our own life—is on loan and must be returned. I tend to imagine in this way: I am independent every day, just extending my experience and memory somehow, and I will die tonight, but the “me” of tomorrow will perform better to continue uncompleted things. If there are no further “me”, that’s it, and at least I hope today is a happy day. You never really die if you live on in someone’s memory. Your community, your friends, your family—they are a living memorial to you.

Nothing in life comes with a guarantee, again, cherish your present, appreciate what you have and lower your expectations.

The Last

I hope my explanation and thoughts about Stoicism are reasonable. If you are curious about Stoicism as well, I would recommend you to read the original book. The main reason I wrote this post is because stoicism also needs daily practice, helping me to refresh my valuable mindset if I lose it someday. This is a relatively long post, thanks to your patience in reading till the last. I appreciate the friends I knew from QUT, and I sincerely wish we could all enjoy our desired life.