Readers, take or leave this one as you will! I am posting it here because I've found it useful for myself the past few weeks in trying to overcome some longstanding patterns of bad behavior in response to minor stresses. The author demonstrates Cognitive Behavioral Therapy's (CBT's) link to Stoic philosophy, and gives four "tips" based on Stoicism to help us weather the crises that face us every day.
My favorite tip, and the one I've been using daily, is to begin each day by telling myself to expect the worst - my kids will make a horrific mess, there will be aggressive drivers on the road, other people will treat me discourteously - and plotting out in advance how I'll respond - I'll calmly clean up, I'll patiently distance myself from the bad drivers, I'll respond to others with good humor. I've found that it's made me more equanimous when dealing with difficulty, and made me paradoxically really delighted and happy when my (negative) expectations aren't met!
I hope you find something helpful, insightful, or perhaps even just humorous, in this piece as well!
I just skimmed quickly, enough to get the gist and the flavour of it --- but thank you, thank you, thank you! A good-humoured look at Stoicism! Who knew? Any essayist who refers to those in the ancient world as "the toga-guys" is somehow a friend of mine!
ReplyDeleteBut yes, sound advice in many instances. As the 12-step folks like to say, "You control you, you don't control everybody else." There's so much truth in that serenity prayer. Especially that part about "the wisdom to know the difference."
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