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The “Great Speech” of Protagoras

Towards that for the sake of which each being has been constituted and for which it was made, towards that it strives; now in what it strives towards, there resides its end; and where its end lies, there also lies its specific advantage and good. It follows that the good of a rational being must be fellowship with others; for it has long been proved that we were born for fellowship. — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.16

This is an excerpt from my book How to Think Like Socrates, published by St. Martin’s Press, available in audiobook, ebook, and hardback.

Protagoras smiled for a moment. His followers were unsure what to make of this oddball Socrates, and a few had taken offense. Protagoras seemed to look upon him with a mixture of frustration and admiration. “I would welcome the opportunity to explain my views to you,” he said in a voice so charming, that the whole audience seemed to fall back under its spell. “Rather than developing an argument, though, I think it would be most pleasing, if I simply told you a story.” Socrates was about to object, but everyone else agreed. So the famous Sophist, the wisest man alive, proceeded to give one of the most remarkable speeches in the history of philosophy, known to us simply as The Great Speech of Protagoras.

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The Speech

There were gods, in the beginning, he said, but no mortal creatures. When the time came, Zeus, the king of the gods, fashioned countless species of animals by mixing together the elements of earth and fire. He then commanded two of the titans, Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus, whose names mean Foresight and Hindsight, to assign different abilities to each living creature.

Hindsight begged for the right to assign the abilities all by himself. Foresight agreed, and said that he would inspect his brother’s work when it was done. Some creatures were slow moving and so to make up for this, Hindsight gave them great strength. Others were weak, so to these he granted speed. Some creatures he armed while others were given various forms of protection. Small creatures were granted winged flight or the ability to conceal their dwellings underground for safety. Large beasts had their size for protection. Care was taken to grant all creatures some means for their own preservation so that no species should be in danger of extinction.

Having equipped all living beings to survive among each other in this way, without fearing that one species should eliminate another, the titan next granted them protection against their environment and the harshness of the seasons. He covered some animals with skin tough enough to endure the heat of summer and others with thick pelts, to ward off the cold through winter months. Some he shod with strong hooves and others with padded feet for the rough earth. Every creature was assigned its own source of food. Some pastured on the earth, others ate fruits hanging from trees or dug up roots from the ground. Still others were hunters who fed upon the weaker animals. To these predatory creatures he assigned limited offspring whereas their prey were more abundant so that there would always be enough to serve as food.

Hindsight lacked wisdom, however, and having assigned to each species its own special capabilities, he realized that he had nothing left to give the human race. When Foresight inspected his brother’s work, he found that man alone was born naked, and had been left unshod, unarmed, and with no bed in which to lay his head and rest safely. Not knowing what else to do, he stole the technical expertise of the goddess Athena and gave it to mankind, along with the fire of Hephaestus, the blacksmith god. Together, these gifts allowed mankind to survive in the wild, though they were as yet unable to found cities.

Once human beings were granted these divine gifts, they sensed their kinship to the gods and began praying and building altars to them. They invented clothing, bedding, dwellings, agriculture, and even the use of language to express their thoughts and acquire learning. Men lived apart at first, in scattered isolation, but finding themselves beset continually and harassed by wild beasts they sought to build cities for their mutual protection.

However, the wisdom that governs our relations with other humans, the art of politics, belonged to Zeus alone, king of the gods and patron of friendship and families. No sooner had humans gathered together to save themselves, being as yet lawless, they began to wrong one another and fighting broke out among them. Without the art of war, which is part of politics, they did not know how to conquer their enemies, build alliances, or secure peace. Scattering once again from their failed cities, they continued to perish in the wild.

Looking down upon this chaotic scene with dismay, Zeus feared for the destruction of the human race. He therefore sent Hermes, the messenger of the gods, to teach mortals about justice and to instill in them a sense of shame concerning wrongdoing, as a deterrent against injustice. By this means Zeus now granted mankind the capacity to unite themselves in cities, maintaining order through the bonds of friendship and fostering their sense of community.

Hermes asked Zeus whether he should distribute the virtue of justice, and other social and political arts, among men in the same way as knowledge concerning the technical crafts. One man who possesses the knowledge of medicine, he said, was enough to benefit many men, and so on. However, Zeus decreed that each and every human being must be granted at least some knowledge of justice and a sense of shame with regard to their own wrongdoing. Finally, he set it down that any criminal who was found unable to respect the rule of law should be exiled or put to death, being a plague on the city.

With this, Protagoras concluded his story, and the audience broke into applause, led by Alcibiades. Their hearts swelled because the great speech seemed to glorify the democratic ideals of Athens by means of its allegory. Pericles, like Zeus in the story, had said that the welfare of the city depended on the ability of every Athenian citizen to have his say regarding matters of justice, whether sitting in the courts or participating in the Assembly, a right granted to them by his ancestors.

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My Self-Improvement Framework

Photo by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash

This article describes a general framework for self-improvement that I employ in coaching. It’s based on Stoicism and third-wave cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT). It’s evolved quite a lot over the years, since we first described a similar method in the original Stoic Week online course. Based on feedback from clients, I’ve added various adjustments, and made some notes that seem to help people put it into practice.

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Values Clarification

In modern society, the majority of people orient their lives around external goals, such as wealth or reputation. Even people who pursue self-help tend to think in terms of outcomes, such as reducing anxiety or depression, which they hope to achieve in the future. Stoicism requires an epistrophe (conversion, literally “turning around”) or radical change of orientation in which we align our lives primarily with our core values, or the concept of virtue. This shift toward character-based values is also central to third-wave CBT, and has been found particularly beneficial in the treatment of clinical depression and certain forms of anxiety.

If you place supreme value on certain outcomes then your attention will naturally be drawn to the future, when you hope to achieve them, and away from the present moment. By placing more value on our own character than upon future outcomes we naturally ground our attention on our actions in the present moment. For that reason, I find that this “virtue ethic” perspective is essential to the goals of self-improvement, and it provides a foundation for everything that follows.

Instead of asking yourself what you want to achieve, ask yourself what sort of person you want to be. That’s similar to asking how you would define human flourishing or fulfilment (eudaimonia), which the Stoics define as the supreme goal of life. For many people that may consist in variations of the cardinal virtues (wisdom, justice/kindness, courage, temperance), or other important character traits.

I have found that self-improvement is difficult unless you have a way of tracking your progress. Rating yourself against the most important thing in life, your core values, is the best way to do this. Select the specific virtue, though, in relation to which there is the most room for improvement. Suppose you choose temperance. Ask yourself first of all how many minutes in total you invested yesterday in activities that involved exercising your temperance. Then rate yourself (0-10) for how well you exemplified temperance overall.

But, on the whole, tho’ I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavour, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it… — Ben Franklin, Autobiography

Stoic Mindfulness

Consider; if someone were to say to the eye, “See thyself,” as you might say to a man, “Know thyself,” what is the nature and meaning of this precept? — Plato, Alcibiades I

I have also found that some form of ongoing self-observation, or mindfulness, is an essential foundation for self-improvement. Otherwise, it’s common for people to practice self-improvement sometimes but then lapse into bad habits at other times. The Stoics called this continual attention to their own thoughts and actions prosoche — you could also call it Stoic Mindfulness. It is clearly impossible for mere mortals to be perfectly self-aware 100% of the time. Nevertheless, we can attempt to maintain awareness of our thoughts and actions more consistently throughout the day. When our attention wanders from our own behaviour, in a sense, it’s like taking our hands off the steering wheel of a car. We can only regain control of our lives when we are aware of how we’re behaving from moment to moment, in the here and now.

When you let your attention wander even for a little while, don't imagine that you'll be able to pick it up again whenever you want. Instead, keep this thought ready at hand: because of what you've neglected today, your affairs are necessarily going to be worse in the future. — Epictetus, Discourses, 4.12

Throughout the day, pay close attention to how your thoughts, actions, and feelings interact with one another. Observe whether your thoughts and actions are aligned with your core values, especially the one you’ve chosen to work on. Do your thoughts lead you toward greater temperance, for instance, or do they lead in the opposite direction? Seneca said that knowing that at the end of the day he would evaluate himself in relation to his supreme goal helped make him feel more accountable and motivated to pay close attention during the day.

When you encounter thoughts that create obstacles to acting in accord with your values, or which evoke troubling emotions, such as anxiety or depression, you can respond following the advice of Epictetus. Talk to the thought as if talking to a person (a strategy called apostrophizing in rhetoric). Say “You are just an impression and not the thing you claim to represent” or “You are just a thought and not the whole story”. Alfred Korzybski, the founder of General Semantics, used to add the words et cetera to his thoughts to emphasize to himself, in a similar manner, that they were abstractions and not the whole truth about reality.

Think of the practice of Stoic Mindfulness itself as exemplifying your core values. perhaps even state to yourself, for instance, “I am paying attention to my thoughts because I want to develop more temperance.” Your goal is not to struggle against “bad” thoughts but rather to observe your mind from this perspective, distinguishing clearly between helpful and unhelpful ways of thinking, in relation to your core values and the goal of eudaimonia. The Dalai Lama described a similar Buddhist method that entails asking ourselves whether a thought leads us toward long-term happiness and wellbeing, or not.

Self-Evaluation

At the end of each day, before going to sleep, review your progress. First yourself from 0-10 in relation to the core value you’re working on. Then consider how you could improve your rating tomorrow.

The Stoics, and other ancient philosophers, asked themselves three questions each evening, derived from The Golden Verses of Pythagoras. These are how I tend to phrase them.

What did you do well in relation to your core value? (And how could you reinforce that and repeat it in the future.)

Where did you go wrong in relation to your core value? (And how can you address that and behave differently from now on.)

What else could you do in order to exercise your core value? (And when exactly are you going to do it?)

In particular, it’s essential to remember to praise yourself for even small progress, just as you would encourage a student. Of course, you must identify problems and fix them, and keep pushing yourself to make additional small changes in your behaviour that align with your values.

Activity Scheduling

Some people read self-help books and keep journals, but never change their behaviour. A good framework for self-improvement, in my experience, will emphasize commitment to change. A common obstacle to change is procrastination. We have to take the plunge to avoid this, by adopting an “experimental” attitude toward behaviour change. Start with small changes, take a “trial and error” approach, assuming that you will want to learn from and modify the tasks you are undertaking and the changes you are making to your daily routine.

Initially, I would suggest that you begin by identifying one small change or activity that aligns with the value you’re working on, which you can schedule a specific time to do tomorrow — you have to get the ball of self-improvement rolling. Think of this as a deliberate attempt to increase your self-rating score. When performing the task, make an effort to link it with your core values. At first, you should do this by actually saying to yourself, for example, “I am doing this for the sake of developing temperance”. If you want to push yourself further, repeat those words three times, before, during, and after, the task, to really strengthen the psychological link between the activity and your values.

It is often helpful to maintain a list of tasks that you could do immediately, in the near future, or every day, in accord with the core value you’re working on. Brainstorm an initial list of roughly 6-12 activities, if possible. There’s an additional step that many of my clients find extremely helpful. Go through your initial list and sort the activities into general strategies and specific tactics. Specific tactics are actionable right away, whereas to implement a general strategy you would have to come up with an example of how to put it into practice, i.e., a specific tactic that falls under that heading. For instance, “assertive communication” might be a general self-improvement strategy, whereas a specific example or tactic, that’s actionable, would be “Politely decline the next request I receive for an interview”, or “Ask my co-worker to review the draft of my presentation, even though he might not like what it says.” You can think of general strategies as subheadings, under which you can list several specific tactics, and organize a document in that way. This is helpful because some people tend to think too much in terms of general strategies, and need to be encouraged to come up with specific actionable steps that they can take. Others may come up with a number of specific tactics, which all fall under the same heading — they’re all just variations of the same general strategy. Ask yourself if you’ve overlooked a whole category of general strategies, which other people might use to exercise the value that you’re working on. This way you can fill in gaps or “blind-spots” in your self-improvement plan by identifying a more complete set of strategies and tactics.

Value-Driven External Goals

Over time, you may want to reintroduce certain external goals. You can now do this by making them subordinate to your core values. For example, you can ask yourself what goals might help you to develop more temperance, or would serve as evidence of progress in that regard. Sometimes you can work backwards by asking yourself what character traits (virtues) you would need in order to achieve your long-term goals, but be careful not to fall into the trap of making your virtues subordinate to external outcomes. Sometimes long-term goals need to be broken down into steps, or subordinate goals, achievable in the medium or short term.

Sometimes people stall at this point. So to prevent that from happening, brainstorm a list of steps you can take immediately that would constitute progress toward your goals, and which align with your core values. Schedule a specific time to take the first step, and get the ball rolling toward your goal. Remember to keep the link with your core values in mind by telling yourself, for instance, “I’m doing this because I value temperance.”

Values Clarification

Values work often begins as a sort of pen and paper exercise, with values clarification questions. In my experience, this can sometimes lead to procrastination. I invariably find that when people begin to change their behaviour, they start to redefine their values. So I would recommend adopting an experimental attitude, and beginning with a “good enough” definition of your core values, so that you can start making small changes to your daily routine.

Of course, it’s important to clarify your values. You need to know that you’re working on your true values and in the areas where you most urgently need to improve your life. The cycle of behaviour change and self-evaluation above will help you enormously in doing this. Once you’ve started using it, you can begin to focus in more depth on questions such as the following:

What sort of person do you want to be in general, and in relation to the most important roles in your life?

How would you define your core values? How might you explain to a child what it means to have wisdom or temperance, for example?

How are your values related to one another? (Socrates believed all the virtues are one.)

What would be the longer-term consequences of exhibiting more of your core values — for example, if your rating increased slightly, or went all the way up to ten out of ten?

Sometimes it’s also useful to ask yourself what traits you genuinely admire in other people. Are these qualities you could potentially value in yourself? What would happen if you behaved more like the people you most admire? Conversely, for people who struggle to articulate their values, it can sometimes help to consider the things they detest most about other people. In most cases, clients today tend to focus on politicians, and they may talk about how they can’t stand their dishonesty and hypocrisy, etc. That strong dislike implies, though, that they probably value opposing traits, such as honesty and integrity.

Examples

This routine provides a general framework for self-improvement. You can use it to enhance any specific self-help technique, and incorporate it into a broader philosophy of life, centred on developing your character, or the goal of eudaimonia. You’ll find that Stoicism and other ancient philosophies align neatly with this approach, and modern CBT can also fit within this broader perspective. Many clients have pointed out that it resembles the framework for self-improvement described by Benjamin Franklin, in his autobiography, which was also inspired by Greek philosophy, including the Golden Verses.

Let’s suppose that you consider “emotional resilience” to be a core value. (The Stoics might subsume that under “courage” or androsyne.) You might begin by reflecting on what “resilience” means and how you define it. I would encourage you to begin implementing behavioural changes sooner rather than later, though. These initial changes can be viewed as low-stakes experiments. Your foundation will be continual self-observation, noticing whether your thoughts and actions align with emotional resilience or lead you in the opposite direction. There’s potentially no point implementing specific changes if you’re underming yourself in countless other ways at other times throughout the day.

For instance, if you repeatedly tell yourself “This is awful and I can’t cope!”, throughout the day, it will be an uphill struggle to improve unless you do something to prevent these thoughts from directly undermining your resilience. First, just notice as they happen that they are in conflict with the value you place on emotional resilience. Then literally speak to them and say something like: “You are just a thought and not the whole story.” Don’t struggle to change these thoughts, just realize that they’re unhelpful and shift to viewing them from a more detached perspective, as abstractions, or representations of external events — as Korzybski put it, tell yourself that they are merely the map and not the terrain. This is essentially what we call “cognitive distancing” or “verbal defusion” in modern CBT. The goal is to firmly grasp that your troubling thought is just a thought and not a fact, so that you gain more psychological flexibility. Think of this mindfulness practice itself as an example of emotional resilience — directly linking, in your mind, the exercise to your core values.

At the end of the day, rate yourself 0-10 for emotional resilience. Perhaps also consider how many minutes you spent developing or exhibiting your emotional resilience. Then ask yourself what specifically you did well, and give yourself praise and encouragement, to reinforce your progress. Next, ask yourself if you did anything that was contrary to emotional resilience, or exhibited an unhealthy emotional vulnerability instead. Consider how you can address that problem and change your behaviour next time. Finally, ask yourself what additional activities you could have engaged in that would have exhibited or helped you to develop emotional resilience.

Activities that align with your values might include researching, practising, or exhibiting traits such as emotional resilience, and other virtues. You might, for instance, decide on researching self-help techniques, by reading a book, doing a course, or applying strategies such as relaxation techniques in practice. You would begin testing these activities out tomorrow, if possible, and evaluate your progress at the end of the day. In reality, many people find that they can improve their character by making smaller changes, such as facing their fears one at a time or tolerating discomfort for a bit longer than normal. Small changes often lead to big improvements, especially over the longer-term.

It has been my experience that gradually, over time, clients tend to shift from thinking of their values in terms of very specific activities to different perspective, which sees virtually any activity as an opportunity to exercise the virtue they’re working on. For example, facing your fears systematically, and employing relaxation skills and coping statements, might be a typical self-help approach to developing resilience. However, eventually, you may find you can brush your teeth like a resilient individual, or change your baby’s diapers, or eat cornflakes, or wait patiently in a dentist’s office, with emotional resilience. Even doing nothing while contemplating a virtue may be a way of strengthening your connection with it.

Conclusion

Never allow sleep to close your eyelids, after you went to bed,
Until you have examined all your actions of the day by your reason.
In what have I done wrong? What have I done? What have I omitted that I ought to have done?
If in this examination you find that you have done wrong, reprove yourself severely for it;
And if you have done any good, rejoice.
Practise thoroughly all these things; meditate on them well; you ought to love them with all your heart.
It is those that will put you in the way of divine virtue. — The Golden Verses

(I would change the “reprove yourself severely” part; Seneca makes it clear that we should undertake this exercise with compassion, as if advising a friend.)

The approach described in this article isn’t intended as a substitute for therapy or self-help but potentially as a generic framework that may allow you to make more systematic use of individual techniques and behavioural changes. Think of it as a yoga or way of life. If you’re interested in ancient philosophy, you’ll find this a very useful way to turn your reading into a practice.

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Being AWARE of Anger

Aaron T. Beck., the founder of cognitive therapy, and his colleagues introduced the acronym “AWARE” in their first treatment manual for anxiety disorders: Beck, Emery, & Greenberg, Anxiety Disorders & Phobias: A Cognitive Perspective (2005). It provides a convenient tool, which many people find useful as a way of reminding themselves how to cope with anxiety. I’ve also taught it to many clients who are learning to overcome their anger. (Anger and anxiety are often closely-related emotions.)

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Photo by Dmytro Tolokonov on UnsplashHow to be AWARE

The letters of the word AWARE were used by Beck to stand for: Accept, Watch, Act, Repeat, and Expect.

Accept

Accept your initial automatic feelings as natural, transient and harmless. Anger is often preceded by another emotion, such as emotional hurt or anxiety, which it can distract us from or even mask completely. Stay with your initial feelings for a while, acknowledge how you feel and accept the discomfort. Allow yourself to feel anxiety or anger without becoming annoyed or frustrated with yourself. You can accept the feelings without having to struggle with them, dwell on them, or act on them. Just let them come and go. Most unpleasant feelings, if you do nothing but accept them, will tend to run their course, and begin to fade naturally, or evolve into other feelings, in their own time. Look out for early-warning signs of your anger, and notice things you hadn’t previously noticed. Fill in the gaps or blind-spots in your self-awareness, as this will often make it easier to nip your anger in the bud. Deepening your self-awareness can sometimes make it feel as if time has slowed down a little bit, as the more you really notice about the sequence of events, in the here and now, the more opportunities you have to act differently. Accepting your feelings can deepen your self-awareness and give you more control over your actions. Just be patient.

Bonus. Look out for early-warning signs of anger by thinking much more deeply than normal about what you look or sound like. What do other people see and hear that tells them you’re beginning to get angry? What would you see in the mirror? Notice where muscular tension is located in your body, how that affects your breathing, and how that, in turn, changes your voice. Notice your facial expression, eye movements, and what you’re doing with your jaw and mouth. Charles Darwin, for instance, observed how common it was for people to tense their foreheads and frown when angry, across cultures, but we seldom actually observe ourselves starting to do this. If you can notice things that previously went unnoticed, you will often gain more control over the whole sequence of psychological events, and may find it much easier to prevent your anger from escalating.

Watch

Watch your angry thoughts from a detached perspective. Observe yourself non-judgmentally, without strongly evaluating your thoughts or feelings as bad, or yourself as flawed for having them. Just imagine you’re observing your them from a distance, as if you’re watching someone else saying these things. You are not your thoughts or your feelings; rather you’re the person watching them. You may find it helpful to actually say to yourself: “Right now, I notice that [your name] is angering himself/herself by saying ‘______’”, and state the thought slowly as if you’re observing it with curiosity from a detached perspective. Angry thoughts tend to draw our attention toward the future and things that hypothetically might happen, or what we might do, and our focus also tends to shift on to the person with whom we’re angry, and away from ourselves. Reverse that by grounding your attention in the present moment and turning your focus toward your own actions, including the activity of having angry thoughts. You don’t need to dwell on these automatic thoughts or act upon them, just accept them but do so from a different perspective than normal.

Ask yourself: “What does me more harm, my anger or the things I’m angry about?”

Act

Act contrary to your anger. At the very least, decouple your actions from your automatic thoughts and feelings. You don’t need to do what anger is telling you to do — you can listen to your anger without agreeing with what it’s saying. At first, you’ll probably find the easiest option is simply to do nothing when you notice the early-warning signs of anger. Realize that you’re in an angry state of mind (termed the “hostility mode” in cognitive therapy). If you were drunk, you would wait until you’d naturally sobered up before driving a car. In much the same way, when you’re drunk on anger, you might want to wait until you’ve calmed down before responding. This is sometimes called the “time out” or postponement strategy, and it’s common in anger management — it was also a common way of dealing with anger among ancient philosophers. As your confidence grows, you may introduce more assertive or empathic ways of behaving, and other healthy coping strategies. Always ask yourself, though, whether your actions are in accord with your core values or against them — is this the sort of person you want to be in life? Ask yourself: “What does me more harm, my anger or the things I’m angry about?” Try to maintain a strong psychological connection between your actions and your values.

Repeat

Repeat these coping strategies every time you can. Practice, practice, practice. You break old habits by creating new ones. When you notice the early-warning signs of anger, get into the habit of responding with emotional acceptance, detached observation of your thoughts, and by acting differently than normal, in accord with your core values. On days when you don’t notice anger occuring, that’s great, but you should practice anyway, by using mental imagery to review recent situations where you did become angry, and rehearsing your new ways of coping using the AWARE strategy. In times of peace, prepare for war, if you want to develop lasting emotional resilience. Don’t grow complacent. Don’t let a day go by without improving your ability to cope wisely with the incipient feelings of anger — until you reach the point that you’re confident it’s no longer a problem for you. Practice leads to improved coping skills, but also increased confidence.

Expect

Expect to make progress, as long as you practice. Be hopeful, confident, and optimistic but don’t rush things. Be realistic about the possibility of encountering setbacks but also see them as temporary and surmountable. Approach them as opportunities to improve your coping skills. Expect that anger and anxiety may return, because it’s human nature. However, you can learn better ways of coping and experience more improvements as long as you keep persevering. Your confidence and optimism will grow with practice. Believe in yourself, and remain committed to your core values.

You might just find it helpful to learn this acronym. Some people find it useful to turn it into a cue by writing it on a sticky note and putting it somewhere convenient, such as beside their computer screen, or on the door to their office. Others go a step further and actually say to themselves “Right now, I am going to be AWARE”, when they notice the early-warning signs of anger. Or, if you want to be more thorough, you could repeat this self-statement before, during, and after a challenging situation. You can talk yourself slowly through the steps, going over each letter in turn.

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Being AWARE of Anxiety

Therefore when some terrifying sound, either from heaven or from a falling building or as a sudden announcement of some danger, or anything else of that kind occurs, even the mind of a wise man must necessarily be disturbed, must shrink and feel alarm... — Epictetus, Fragment

In recent decades, there’s been a revolution in the way cognitive-behavioural psychotherapists treat emotional disorders. A “third wave” of evidence-based therapies evolved that focus more on mindfulness of thoughts and acceptance of unpleasant feelings, rather than disputing our beliefs in order to change our emotions.

This sea change emerged from a growing body of research, which converged on the finding that people with severe anxiety and depression already tend to be trying too hard to think their way out of their problems and struggling too much to control their feelings.

The Stoic philosophy, which originally inspired cognitive therapy, had also endorsed a similar acceptance of unpleasant emotions, although this is often forgotten today.

Acceptance of uncomfortable emotions had already been taught by many earlier forms of psychotherapy, e.g., the Gestalt therapy of Fritz Perls and others, which developed in the 1950s. Indeed, even the original forms of behaviour therapy and cognitive therapy had, sometimes, taught emotional acceptance.

In his recently-revised manual for the evidence-based treatment of anxiety disorders, Aaron T. Beck, one of the pioneers of cognitive therapy, clearly states that his objective is not to teach people how to “control their anxiety”.

Instead cognitive therapy focuses on helping individuals develop a more “accepting attitude” toward anxiety rather than a “combative (i.e., controlling) attitude.” When thoughts like “I can’t let these anxious feelings continue” are replaced with “I can allow myself to feel anxious because I know I’m exaggerating the threat and danger,” then the intensity and persistence of anxiety are greatly diminished. — Clark & Beck, 2010, p. 195

The Stoic philosophy, which originally inspired cognitive therapy, had also endorsed a similar acceptance of unpleasant emotions, although this is often forgotten today. When people today speak of “being stoic” (lower-case) they typically mean “having a stiff upper-lip”, i.e., suppressing or concealing unpleasant and painful emotions. Several modern research studies have shown that this is often an unhealthy way of coping, though. Lower-case stoicism actually does the opposite of what people are hoping. It tends to make us more emotionally vulnerable. The stiff upper-lip is really a sign, in most cases, not of psychological strength and resilience but of weakness. In contrast, ancient Stoic philosophy led to cognitive therapy, and modern evidence-based protocols for psychological resilience training, which many studies have shown to be healthy and effective.

Indeed, the Stoics make a very nuanced distinction between aspects of emotion that are involuntary and those that are voluntary. We should accept the former, as natural and inevitable, but take greater responsibility for the latter. When we’re caught in a threatening situation, they said, like being in a ship during a storm at sea, even a seasoned sailor will often turn pale and tremble, if his life is in imminent danger. We shouldn’t struggle against those feelings or view them as bad. However, we don’t need to make things worse either by worrying or ruminating about events afterwards, or complaining excessively about them.

Copyright © Donald Robertson, 2021. Excerpt from author’s forthcoming graphic novel, Verissimus.

Beck and his colleagues introduced the convenient acronym “AWARE” in their earlier treatment manual for anxiety disorders, Beck, Emery, & Greenberg, Anxiety Disorders & Phobias: A Cognitive Perspective (2005). I’ve taught it to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of therapy clients and students over the years. It’s a very simple tool for remembering healthy ways to cope with anxiety.

Stoicism: Philosophy as a Way of Life is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Being AWARE

The letters of the word AWARE were used by Beck to stand for: Accept, Watch, Act, Repeat, and Expect.

Accept your anxious feelings as natural, transient and harmless. Allow yourself to feel anxious without becoming annoyed or frustrated with yourself. Say “hello” to the thoughts and feelings. Accept the discomfort and think of it as being fairly normal. Acknowledge the fact that these feelings exist, and adopt a very patient attitude toward change, letting them come and go freely without struggle.

Watch your anxious thoughts from a detached perspective. Observe yourself non-judgmentally, without strongly evaluating your thoughts or feelings as bad, or yourself as flawed for having them. Just imagine you’re observing your them from a distance, without placing too much importance on them. You are not your thoughts or your feelings; rather you’re the person watching them. Think of these internal experiences as transient things, like clouds passing across the sky, instead of becoming absorbed in them.

Act as normal despite your anxiety. Behave as if you’ve already overcome your fears, and act with courage and determination. Reverse your avoidance behaviour and gradually face your fears in steps and stages, dropping any unnecessary signs of anxiety such as gripping objects for safety or averting your gaze from people. Approach what you fear, where possible, rather than avoiding it, and patiently remain in the situation, until you get used to the feelings.

Repeat as much as possible. Keep getting back in the saddle. Keep accepting your anxiety, watching it from a detached perspective, and acting as if you’re better until it becomes second nature and your feelings change. Also, consider repeatedly reviewing mental imagery of upsetting events while distancing from thoughts and accepting feelings. Be persistent, don’t give up, and eventually your anxiety should abate naturally.

Expect realistic improvement. Be hopeful, confident, and optimistic but don’t rush things. Be realistic about the possibility of encountering setbacks but also see them as temporary and surmountable. Approach them as opportunities to improve your coping skills. Expect that anxiety may return, because it’s human nature. However, you can also expect to learn better ways of coping and experience more improvements as long as you keep persevering.

It takes a lot of fuel to get a locomotive steam engine going, I’m told, but a lot less fuel to keep it moving once it’s started rolling.

To begin with, adopting this mind-set might take some effort. You’ll need to keep reminding yourself to do it. However, it soon becomes easier and will evolve into a habit, something you’ll find yourself doing automatically. It takes a lot of fuel to get a locomotive steam engine going, I’m told, but a lot less fuel to keep it moving once it’s started rolling. It sometimes takes a lot of motivation to begin learning new thinking habits but it takes less and less effort with each attempt — the main thing is to take the first step and get the process started. So why don’t you begin right now and see what happens if you put the AWARE strategy into practice as often as possible over the next few days or weeks?

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Stoic Empathy – Compassion Without Burnout

In this episode, I chat with Shermin Kruse. Shermin is a globally recognized negotiation consultant, law professor at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, and TEDx producer. She is the author of the recently published book Stoic Empathy: The Road Map to a Life of Influence, Self-Leadership, and Integrity. We discuss empathy and how it can be combined with Stoic resilience to help us maintain our compassion while avoiding burnout

Stoicism: Philosophy as a Way of Life is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Highlights

How did you become interested in Stoicism?

What is Stoic Empathy – and how does it differ from unhelpful forms of empathy?

What are the most common misconceptions about empathy that you encounter?

What’s the relationship between empathy and anger in your view?

In your book, you discuss why traditional models of compassion might fall short.

From your perspective, what are the key limitations of these models, and what does neuroscience reveal about why a different approach might be necessary?

What tools do you recommend for people who want to maintain healthy empathy and compassion?

How can we face injustice and suffering in the world without shutting down or freaking out?

Links

Stoic Empathy on Amazon

Shermin Kruse’s Website

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Marcus Aurelius on Hadrian

What did the Stoic Emperor Think of his Adoptive Grandfather?

In book one of The Meditations, Marcus Aurelius lists the traits and virtues he most admired in sixteen of his tutors and family members. The person he has by far the most to say about is his adoptive father, Emperor Antoninus Pius, who served as his main role model as emperor. However, in striking contrast, Marcus has nothing to say about the virtues of his adoptive grandfather, the emperor Hadrian.

I talk in more detail about the ways in which Marcus apparently sought to be different from Hadrian, and more like Antoninus Pius, in my book How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius. Many of the things Marcus says he admires about Antoninus can be viewed as implicit criticisms of Hadrian, despite the fact he’s passing over him in silence.

Nevertheless, Marcus does mention Hadrian elsewhere in The Meditations, albeit mainly to illustrate the transience of all things including human life. Hadrian died over three decades before the time when The Meditations was presumably written.

Although Marcus knew Hadrian as a child, his name now sounds old-fashioned as if it refers to a bygone era. Everyday expressions from earlier times now sound archaic, he says, just like the names of men who were once highly acclaimed. Marcus names eight, including two famous Stoics of the Roman Republic, Scipio Africanus and Cato the Younger. He also includes the first emperor of Rome, Augustus, and even his own predecessor, Antoninus, the most recent emperor. However, this list also includes the name of Hadrian, which has already begun to sound to Marcus like something from the history books. Having noted this, he adds:

For all things are swift to fade and become mere matter for tales, and swiftly too complete oblivion covers their every trace. And here I am speaking of those who shone forth with a wonderful brightness; as for all the rest, the moment that they breathed their last, they were ‘out of sight, out of mind’. And what does it amount to, in any case, everlasting remembrance? Sheer vanity and nothing more. — Meditations, 4.33

Hadrian desperately wanted to be remembered as a great man but why, asks Marcus, should we consider this worth striving for? Rather, only a mind governed by justice and actions directed toward the common good, are worth pursuing, words that never lie, and an attitude welcoming all that happens as necessary, familiar, and flowing from the same source.

In another passage, Hadrian is used along with Augustus as an example of a man of great importance who is nevertheless now dead and gone.

First of all, be untroubled in your mind; for all things come about as universal nature would have them, and in a short while you will be no one and nowhere, as are Hadrian and Augustus. — Meditations, 8.5

Marcus tells himself that he should therefore keep his eyes fixed on the matter in hand and remember that it is his duty to be a good person, and do whatever reason and justice demands, to the best of his ability, without the slightest hesitation. He adds that we should do so with kindness and modesty, though, and, perhaps unlike Hadrian, without false pretences.

Elsewhere, Marcus meditates on the fact that his mother Domitia Lucilla buried his father, Annius Verus, and then it was Lucilla’s turn herself to be buried by another. Antoninus Pius buried his wife the Empress Faustina, and was in turn buried himself. And so it goes on, Marcus says, always the same.

Celer buried Hadrian, and Celer’s turn came next. […] All creatures of a day, and dead long ago; some not remembered even for a passing moment, others becoming the stuff of legend, and others again fading from legend at this very time. — Meditations, 8.25

Remember, therefore, Marcus adds, that whether our bodies are merely dispersed into their elements by nature, or we continue somewhere else, in an afterlife, either way our breath of life is extinguished and our mortal existence will inevitably come to an end.

Marcus also asks whether his dead brother, the co-emperor Lucius Verus’ lover, Panthea, is still mourning by the side of his coffin, several years after his death. Of course not, he says, that would be ridiculous. Likewise, he says it would be absurd to imagine two men, Chabrias and Diotimus, still mourning the death of Hadrian. (Roman tradition put a time limit on mourning.)

Pantheia or Pergamos, are they still sitting by the coffin of Verus? Or Chabrias or Diotimus by that of Hadrian? What an absurd thought. — Meditations, 8.37

Even if they were, Marcus says, the dead wouldn’t be aware of it. It makes no difference to them how much they are mourned once they’re gone. Even if they could be conscious of being mourned, how could that bring them any pleasure? Even if it did, their mourners will die eventually themselves. “So what would the dead do afterwards,” he asks, “when their mourners had passed away?” Men like Hadrian wanted to be celebrated by future generations but what good does it really do them, and how long can it continue anyway?

Finally, Marcus actually encourages himself to visualize the court of Hadrian and notice how the same things come about over and over again throughout history, albeit in different guises.

Constantly reflect on how all that comes about at present came about just the same in days gone by, and reflect that it will continue to do so in the future; and set before your eyes whole dramas and scenes ever alike in their nature which you have known from your own experience or the records of earlier ages, the whole court of Hadrian, say, or of Antoninus, the whole court of Philip, or Alexander, or Croesus; for in every case the play was the same, and only the actors were different. — Meditations, 10.27

It’s striking therefore, as we’ve seen, that Marcus heaps praise on the emperor Antoninus Pius, and lists his virtues in great detail, more than once, but has nothing positive to say about Hadrian. Hadrian is mentioned but only as a reminder of the transience of human life — a memento mori.

If anything, for Marcus, Hadrian serves as an example of a somewhat naive and self-centred ruler who failed to appreciate the limits of power and reputation when viewed from the perspective of eternity. In his letters to Marcus, the rhetorician Marcus Cornelius Fronto seems guarded about criticizing Hadrian — he says he admired him rather than loving him. At one point he tells Marcus that “Hadrian’s speech affects a spurious pretence of ancient eloquence”, i.e., that Hadrian was a pretentious speaker who affected an old-fashioned style of rhetoric. Marcus seems to think we should be less concerned about appearances and how others will remember us than Hadrian was. For Marcus, it’s more important to be concerned about trying to actually live in accord with reason and virtue.

Discount: How to Think Like Socrates

Did you want to snap up a bargain? Amazon will be offering a big discount on How to Think Like Socrates from July 8-11 for Prime Day. The hardback will be available for 50% off the list price. (This offer is limited to the first thousand copies sold.) This offer is for Amazon US but you may find other regions / retailers matching the offer, so shop around!

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"Robertson draws incisive links between modern psychotherapy and ancient philosophy, bringing Socratic dialogues to life through colorful narration and detail. It’s a creative look at the enduring relevance of an ancient thinker." ―Publishers Weekly

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Why do you place your mental well-being in the hands of others?

If someone handed over your body to any person who met you, you would be vexed; but that you hand over your mind to any person that comes along, so that, if he reviles you, it is disturbed and troubled – are you not ashamed of that?

Commentary

When we’re overly-concerned about insults, our reputation, or what others think of us in general, Epictetus says we’re handing over our minds to them. For the Stoics, this is a form of slavery to our own passions and to externals. Others have power over us, ultimately, if we care too much about our property or reputation, because these are never entirely under our control, and they are often, at least in part, under the control of other people — meaning that others always have “leverage” over someone who invests unconditional value in external goods.

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How to Spot the Difference Between Worrying and Problem-Solving

And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. — Shakespeare, Hamlet

Worrying is a common problem. Worrying (and it’s more past-oriented cousin, rumination) can often be understood as a failed attempt at problem-solving. In many cases, people find it much easier to manage their worrying if they’re able to distinguish more clearly between helpful and unhelpful, good and bad, or healthy and unhealthy ways of thinking about problems. I sometimes call this the difference between good and bad forms of worrying or you could say it’s the difference between worrying and rational problem-solving — it amounts to the same thing.

In this article, I’ve made some rough notes on the many differences that researchers, clinicians, and clients, have highlighted between worrying and rational problem-solving. If you want to tell apart good and bad forms of worrying, you will need to reflect on this question for yourself. The effort to notice the difference, in the real world, is crucial. You won’t get much benefit from simply being told the answers, unless you use the list of typical differences below, for instance, as a guide for self-observation. However, in some cases, it may be sufficient simply to spot one key difference that helps you to distinguish helpful from unhelpful ways of thinking. I typically ask clients to draw two columns or make two lists, and note down the key characteristics of good versus bad ways of thinking about problems, which they can observe in their own thinking. Here are some of the most common things that people tend to mention…

Photo by Toru Wa on Unsplash

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Quick Guide

Here’s a cheat sheet with a summary of a few key points.

Emotional State: Anxious versus normal

Self-Talk: Frantic versus calm and relaxed

Attention: Future worst-case scenario versus grounded in here and now

Cognitive Biases: Catastrophic “What if?” thinking versus decatastrophizing “So what if?” thinking

Process: Circular and vague versus more linear and specific

Social: Isolated thinking and interpersonal venting versus constructive social problem-solving and collaborative solution implementation

The article goes into these in much more detail below, and also adds many other observations.

Physiology

One of the most obvious differences, which people tend to notice first, is that morbid worrying is typically accompanied by anxiety whereas rational problem-solving is not. Nervous arousal may be associated with various cognitive biases mentioned below. You can think of the difference in terms of two distinct “modes”, as they’re called in cognitive therapy — the normal mode versus the “threat mode” or “anxiety mode”. These are as different as being drunk versus being sober. When your brain is in the “threat mode”, associated with the fight-or-flight response, it functions differently. Problem-solving is naturally impaired and your judgment is clouded by a battery of cognitive biases, most notably catastrophizing, as we shall see below. Worrying, paradoxically, does not always trigger the usual physiological markers of anxiety, such as significantly increased heart rate and blood pressure, or these may be present but somewhat muted compared, for example, to phobic anxiety. People report high levels of subject anxiety but, surprisingly, their heart rate and other physiological symptoms of nervous arousal may not reflect this. One notable exception is muscular tension, which is often pronounced during episodes of worrying, especially frowning and tension in the neck and shoulders, but also sometimes in other parts of the body. The nervous arousal and muscular tension may be associated with changes in breathing, such as more rapid and shallow breathing with fewer pauses. Changes in breathing, in turn, usually lead to changes in the sound of your voice. That is, if you were to speak, you might sound worried to other people.

Paralinguistics

Almost as if they’re experiencing an internal (“covert”) version of the increased muscular tension and change in speech, worried people tend to report that their inner dialogue sounds more frantic. Their internal conversations may be more rushed. The tone of voice in their heads may be higher pitch or otherwise sound more anxious. That may go hand-in-hand with more dramatic (“histrionic”) use of language. We focus on the worst-case scenario. We might curse and use other forms of strongly emotive language, which are normally designed to provoke an emotional response from others but have a similar effect internally — when we think using anxious language we make ourselves feel more emotion. Non-anxious thinking, such as rational problem-solving, may be associated with a calmer more relaxed internal voice, slightly slower rate of speech, and less evocative, more neutral and objective use of language.

Linguistics (Rhetoric)

Worrying can be viewed as a form of rhetoric. Rhetoric, or the art of persuasion, has evolved over thousands of years as a means of using language to influence other people, often by evoking emotions such as fear and anger. Politicians and advertisers use rhetoric every day to manipulate their audiences. However, you also use rhetoric internally, in your own thoughts, in a way that evokes your own emotions. Most of the time we don’t think about our own use of language in this way but we’re continually exploiting language, unintentionally, to influence our own emotions. Swearing, exaggerating (hyperbole), generalization, selective thinking, and other features of language can contaminate our inner monologue when we’re worrying, and bias our thinking. Worrying tends to be characterized by certain verbal patterns. For instance, it often consists of a higher ratio of questions than rational problem-solving. These are often vague and lead to circular thinking, e.g., “What if this happens, what if that happens, how will I cope?” Rational problem-solving tends to use more specific questions and to proceed to try out different answers (solutions) in a more linear fashion, rather than going around in circles.

Look out for other linguistic markers of anxiety and worry. For instance, expressions of shock, surprise, and confusion are typical in anxiety but less common in rational problem-solving. You may say “WTF? I can’t believe this, how is this possible, why would anyone do this, how am I supposed to cope?” Notice that these phrases, which are often (but not always) framed as questions, tend to imply a sense of helplessness, and an inability to cope. When you sound surprised, it’s as though you’re telling yourself you have no idea how to respond, and so problem-solving tends to be derailed. When you’re thinking rationally, though, you’ll tend to view even severe problems in a more matter-of-fact way, with less surprise, and more confidence in your ability to arrive at a solution, or a way of coping.

Verbal Fusion

Arguably the most important factor. Worrying is typically associated with very high levels of verbal fusion (aka “cognitive fusion”). That means that we become more immersed in the content of our thoughts, as if we’re lost in thought, as if reading a novel or watching a movie, and totally engrossed in the content. Fusion and belief are closely-related but not identical. We can become highly immersed in thoughts that we know are not true or, conversely, remain detached from ones that we believe to be true. I like to compare verbal fusion to self-hypnosis. Worrying can be understood as resembling a sort of morbid or negative self-hypnosis. Our anxious thoughts dominate our mind and temporarily exclude other competing perspectives. We develop a sort of “tunnel vision” for the worst-case scenario and our catastrophic thinking. By contrast, rational problem-solving is often associated with verbal defusion (low levels of fusion) in which we retain more awareness of our thinking processes and are to observe them with greater objectivity and detachment. Rational problem-solving involves more “metacognitive awareness”, the term psychologists use to refer to our ability to think about our thinking — as if we’re watching ourselves as we think through the problem. For instance, that allows us to change the direction of our thinking of we’re not arriving at a solution, or to suspend it completely and “come back to it later” if we observe that our thinking is becoming circular and unproductive. When people are highly fused with their thoughts they lose that ability to manage the process. Their worried thoughts control them, rather than the other way around.

Focus of Attention

Worrying tends to be preoccupied with threat appraisal, or “what could go wrong”, whereas rational problem-solving is more oriented toward finding solutions. That often means that worrying is excessively (or even exclusively) future-oriented whereas rational-problem solving keeps at least one foot, as it were, in the present moment, where we have control and can take action. People who worry often seem distracted or lost in thought, right? That’s a sign that their attention is focused elsewhere. They’re not grounded in the present moment, nor are they mindful of their own actions. Instead, their attention has become narrowed in scope and rigidly absorbed in the content of their thoughts, they particularly tend to focus their attention more than normal on the worst-case scenario. By contrast, in rational problem-solving you will often retain more self-awareness, and may continue to be aware of the present moment and your surroundings.

Worry, like anxious thought in general, tends to be focused on the future, such as thoughts about something bad happening. You could say worry is preoccupied with the realm of hypothetical future problems, or the imminent consequences of real problems. It’s not grounded in the present moment, although that’s where your thinking takes place. Shifting attention back to the present moment has long been observed to be antagonistic to worrying. Grounding your attention in the here and now can snap you out of the trance of worry, as it were. Of course, you may still have real problems to solve but doing so with at least partial attention to the here and now, dividing your attention somewhat between the present and the future, can prevent you from becoming too lost in thought, and allows you to retain more control over your thought processes. It also tends to mean that you’re remain more aware of the passage of time, whereas, as we’ll see, losing track of time is often a key marker for worrying.

Cognitive Biases

When your brain is in “threat mode”, your body is tense, and your fight-or-flight response is activated, various cognitive “schemas”, or deep-seated beliefs and attitudes, will tend to be activated. Your thinking will be profoundly biased in this state of mind, on several different levels. This is obvious when you observe other people who are highly worried — they’re clearly not thinking straight, right? When you worry, though, you’re probably less able to notice how biased your thinking has become. We all tend to have a pronounced blind-spot for our own cognitive biases, especially during episodes of intense worrying.

Catastrophizing is the most obvious cognitive bias in worrying, and, indeed, in most anxiety. Catastrophic thoughts tend to exaggerate the probability and severity of a perceived threat, and also to underestimate your coping ability. It’s as though you’re repeatedly thinking: “Something awful is about to happen and I have no idea how I’m going to handle it!” You can also describe this as the activation of schemas associated with vulnerability and helplessness — deep feelings of being overwhelmed unable to cope are triggered. Rational problem-solving judges threats more objectively, which usually means appraising their probability and/or severity in more realistic terms, and your coping ability in more positive terms. A simple way of putting this is that rational problem-solvers often view problems more as challenges or opportunities than as threats. Arnold Lazarus, one of the pioneers of behavior therapy, used to say that decatastrophizing is about turning “What if?” thinking into “So what if?” thinking.

We can also understand catastrophizing as a tendency to focus excessively on the worst-case scenario. By contrast, rational problem-solving may acknowledge the worst-case scenario, and attempt to manage severe risks, even if they’re unlikely to happen, but then it will usually shift focus on to preparing for the most likely scenario, rather than remaining stuck on the worst that could happen. Once you begin to focus on the worst-case scenario, because it typically activates the threat mode, it can capture your attention and prevent you from being able to focus more realistically on the most-likely outcome, if you’re not careful. So it takes a certain degree of self-awareness (metacognitive awareness) to prevent thoughts about severe threats from turning into morbid worrying.

Many other cognitive biases tend to be associated with worrying. For instance, there’s often pronounced selective thinking, which focuses on signs of danger, and ignores or dismisses potential evidence of safety, or your ability to cope. As we’ll see, selective thinking can also be used to explain the typical pattern of mental imagery found in worrying. When we worry, we’re not telling ourselves the whole story. We also tend to to make unfounded assumptions when worrying, such as jumping to conclusions prematurely about what will happen in the future (“fortune telling”) or what other people may think or feel (“mind reading”). Worrying is also characterized by overgeneralization, such as thinking that bad things “always” happen or that things “never” work out in a good way. Rational problem-solving, of course, tends to exhibit fewer of these errors. It’s not necessarily that these errors are completely absent, when we’re thinking more clearly, but rather that we notice them and realize that they’re distortions — we are able to see through them.

Mental Imagery

Worrying tends to be highly verbal and cognitive compared to other forms of anxiety. It’s often therefore more vague and abstract, which may be partly why it is circular. We ask vague questions and fail to come up with answers: What if this happens, what if that happens, how will I cope? Rational problem-solving tends to be more specific — actually it moves more systematically between abstract and concrete levels of thinking. Because it is more specific, rational problem-solving is often more visually oriented. In our mind’s eye, when problem-solving, we picture specific problems, in specific situations, and imagine specific ways of coping, and their likely consequences. Mental imagery in worrying tends to focus specifically on the most anxiety-provoking aspect of a problem, such as the worst moments of the worst-case scenario. We get stuck on repeat, going over and over that clip from different perspectives. You may also notice that threats are perceived as escalating very quickly when you worry about them, which contributes to the feeling of being overwhelmed. By contrast, when thinking rationally, we may picture threats escalating more slowly, which gives us more opportunity to imagine taking preventative action. We may also move past the worst moments and picture the aftermath, and how we would cope with the consequences, recover, and move on. Imagine asking yourself: “So what if the worst happens? What would probably happen next? And then what would probably happen? And then what?” If necessary, focus specifically on how you would cope if you were acting wisely, or in accord with your core values, even if the worst did happen.

Worrying is like a horror movie about our own lives where we constantly replay a “jump scare” moment, rather than allowing the movie to continue to a conclusion where the threat is eventually resolved. Think of the visual aspect of worrying as if it is a movie that you are editing. Why would you choose to visualise the problem in the least helpful and most anxiety-provoking way possible? Edit your inner movie, instead, in a way that allows you to see the lead-up to the problem, the peak, and then how you would cope, and move forward in life. In fact, many people find that simply reminding themselves to keep moving the mental imagery forward is sufficient to derail worries and turn them into rational problem-solving instead.

Avoidance

Worrying is invariably contaminated with avoidance. Most obviously, it often leads to procrastination, delays, and avoidance of tackling problems, by implementing solutions, or sometimes even attempts to avoid thinking about certain problems. People who worry often vacillate between two extremes, either dwelling too much on problems, by worrying about them unproductively for hours, or trying to avoid thinking about them altogether, because they have come to feel overwhelming and unbearable. Tom Borkovec, one of the leading researchers on the psychology of worry, introduced the influential “cognitive avoidance” theory of worry. Based on various scientific findings, this maintains that, paradoxically, worrying about a problem, although it feels like a way of confronting it, actually functions as a subtle form of avoidance. When we worry, we often dupe ourselves into thinking that we are facing our fears, and problem-solving, when, in fact, we’re skirting around the issues, skipping from one aspect to another haphazardly, and sneakily distracting ourselves from the real work of solving the problem. It’s fake problem-solving, in a sense, whereby we create the appearance, in our minds, that we’re doing something constructive, when, in reality, we’re just procrastinating internally, by thinking about things in a vague and unhelpful way, that maintains chronic anxiety without ever resolving the issues causing it.

Rational-problem solving, on the other hand, does not avoid problems or procrastinate about them. It tackles them systematically and in a timely manner, without dwelling on them excessively. It focuses on the true cause of our problem, in a pragmatic way, and thinks through potential solutions, testing them out in our mind, and planning how to put them into practice and evaluate them. Rational-problem solving, therefore, does not get stuck at the “analysis” stage but proceeds to actually implement solutions. Anxiety causes us to revert to dichotomous “all-or-nothing” thinking, which leads to perfectionism — we must get the perfect solution before we can do anything. That invariably leads to paralysis. True problem-solving usually involves an experimental attitude, and a willingness to engage in trial-and-error learning. Rational problem-solving typically arrives at “good enough” solutions, and then tests them out in practice, adapting them, and improving them, until the problem is solved. Worrying is scared to do that, and goes round in circles, stuck in “pen and paper” thinking, chasing after a perfect solution, which it never finds. It gets stuck in a rut, and goes round in circles, because excessive focus on the worst-case scenario has made us too afraid to test out “good enough” solutions in practice, and that fear inevitably leads to ongoing avoidance and procrastination.

Perfectionism, and fear of failure, are related to “intolerance of uncertainty”, another trait that researchers have linked with worry and procrastination. Learning to accept a degree of uncertainty, and take manageable risks, is essential for rational problem-solving. We can’t usually wait for absolute certainty before taking action. That means we must learn to tolerate uncertainty and ambiguity, within reason.

Duration

Healthy problem-solving tends to take less time, partly because it’s less circular and you’re more able to pause, set it aside, if you observe that you’re not arriving at a conclusion. Unhealthy worrying can go on for hours. You might find yourself still awake at 3 or 4am lying in bed worrying about some problem. One of the most striking markers of unhealthy worrying is that we tend to lose track of time. When thinking about things rationally we tend to remain more aware of the passage of time, because we’re less fused with the content of our thoughts.

Conclusion

Finally, I would add that worrying tends to be overly-preoccupied with external outcomes, which are by their nature located in the future, and are not entirely under our control. Placing too much emphasis on that sort of outcome orientation naturally fuels our anxiety. Rational problem-solving, by contrast, often pays more attention to our core values, particularly insofar as they relate to character traits, such as wisdom, integrity, fairness, compassion, endurance, self-discipline, and so on. Those qualities exist in the present moment, and naturally orient our awareness more toward mindfulness grounded in the here and now, bringing many of the benefits already mentioned above. Ask yourself, for instance, whether worrying about your problems is that’s aligned with your core values and the type of person you want to be. How would you approach solving your problems, then, if you were acting in accord with your core values?

For an added bonus, you may also notice that there are pronounced interpersonal differences between worrying and problem-solving. Worrying tends to be primarily a solitary pursuit, although when overwhelmed we may seek to reduce anxiety by venting or seeking reassurance from others — both subtle avoidance strategies. By contrast, rational problem-solving, although it can be solitary, is more likely to engage in healthy interpersonal behaviour, such as consulting experts, eliciting practical support from other people, brainstorming ideas together, and so on. Two heads are better than one, as the saying goes, so good problem-solvers tend to be adept at making use of social support and appropriate input from other people.

These are just some of the most obvious differences between bad worrying and good worrying, or, if you prefer, between worrying and rational problem-solving. It’s important that you observe your own behaviour and try to clearly differentiate between the signs of unhealthy and healthy thinking about problems in your own case. You may spot some of these stereotypical differences but perhaps not all of them apply to you. You may well notice other signs, closely related to these, or perhaps completely unique to your own thinking and behaviour.

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How can we Support Philosophy and Democracy?

We regularly organize virtual events, free of charge, aimed at the general public, through our nonprofit organization . (Which you can follow on Substack.) In recent decades, there’s no doubt that an increasing number of people have become concerned that changes, such as the influence of social media, have led to breakdown in civil discourse about politics. It’s no coincidence that philosophy originated in ancient Greece, alongside the birth of democracy. Ancient philosophers saw countering the negative influence of political rhetoric as one of their greatest challenges, and most important duties. Philosophy can still help us today!

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That’s why we chose to call our next virtual event Democracy and Tyranny. It’s a chance to explore the role of philosophy in defending democracy and challenging tyranny, by encouraging critical thinking and civil discourse about the big issues that affect our society. You can show your support for the Plato’s Academy Centre and our speakers by registering for this free event, or sharing the link with your friends.

Program

Prof. James Romm, Bard College, NY, author of Plato and the Tyrant: The Fall of Greece's Greatest Dynasty and the Making of a Philosophic Masterpiece

Skippy Mesirow, the Elected Leaders Collective, host of Healing our Politics podcast

Robert Rosenkrantz, founder of Open to Debate Foundation, author of The Stoic Capitalist: Advice for the Exceptionally Ambitious

Dr. Roslyn Fuller, the Solonian Democracy Institute, author of Beasts and Gods: How Democracy Changed its Meaning and Lost its Purpose

Prof. Angie Hobbs, University of Sheffield, author of Why Plato Matters Now

Additional speakers to be confirmed.

NB: The final program may be subject to change without prior notification.

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