The Little Book of Stoicism: Timeless Wisdom to Gain Resilience, Confidence, and Calmness

by Jonas Salzgeber

“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.” – Epictetus

“If you didn’t learn these things in order to demonstrate them in practice, what did you learn them for?”

True philosophy is a matter of little theory and a lot of practice, like wrestling in the ancient and surfing in the modern world. Remember, in surfing, we get to practice in the water after a quick theory part on the beach. Heavy waves are better teachers than heavy school books.

You flourish at living well, and only as a consequence you’ll feel happy.

Philosophy trains us to be able to take on every obstacle in life with the right mindset so that life keeps on going smoothly.

“So, what should each of us say to every trial we face? This is what I’ve trained for, this is my discipline!” Hey, a boxer who gets punched in the face won’t leave the ring, it’s what he prepared for, it’s his discipline. And the same is true for philosophers; just because life slaps, kicks, spits, and knocks us out doesn’t mean we should give up and leave, it means we should get back up and keep on getting better. Such is life—it’s like our boxing ring, punches and kicks are what we’ve signed up for, this is our discipline.

“The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.” We need to be prepared for sudden attacks. Nobody will ever tackle a dancer. The dancer will never get choked by adversity like a wrestler. So, as warrior-philosophers, we know that life will be challenging. Actually, we should even be rubbing our hands together and be looking forward to take some punches, knowing they will make us stronger and grow our skin thicker.

This is why we should want to engage and train in this fight they call life. Because we want to be strong, we want to live happy and smoothly flowing lives. We want to handle ourselves and our actions when life gets tough. We want to be a tower of strength, unshakable even at the peak of a rage attack. When others panic, we want to stay cool, well-considered, and be able to be the best we can be.

The Stoics identified strong emotions as our ultimate weakness; especially when we let them dictate our behavior. They’re toxic to eudaimonia and they’re at the root of all human suffering. Unfortunately, according to the Stoics, most of us are enslaved to passions—strong negative emotions such as irrational fear, grief, or anger.

If we want to be able to act like our ideal self, say the Stoics, we need to keep our emotions in check, we need to tame them so they won’t get in the way of the good life. No, thank you, I can’t afford to panic right now.

They realized, for example, that what makes insults hurtful isn’t their content, but our interpretation of those insults.

Stoicism has nothing to do with suppressing or hiding one’s emotions or being emotionless. Rather, it’s about acknowledging our emotions, reflecting on what causes them, and learning to redirect them for our own good. In other words, it’s more about unslaving ourselves from negative emotions, more like taming rather than getting rid of them.

Imagine strong emotions to be like your inner wolf—immensely powerful when let loose and able to pull you wherever it wants to. Emotions activate an action tendency—when you feel angry, for example, you have the tendency to clench your fists, shout, and throw stuff. Basically, when the inner wolf is angry, we let it take over, and then we blindly follow the action tendency and act out. What the Stoics found, however, is that we don’t need to follow that tendency. We can train ourselves to act calmly despite feeling angry, act courageously despite feeling anxious, and going east despite the wolf pulling west. Fortunately, we don’t need to pretend the wolf isn’t there, or even kill it (which isn’t even possible). The Stoics want us to tame and learn to understand that wolf. Instead of letting it dictate our actions when it’s angry, anxious, or hungry, we act calmly despite the anger. It can snarl and howl as much as it wants, we don’t fear it and act as we choose to. The wolf doesn’t have a say in our decisions any longer despite feeling the action tendency. The goal isn’t to eliminate all emotions, the goal is to not get overwhelmed by them despite their immense power. We feel the emotional wolf, but we keep on our path despite it pulling in another direction. “Okay, the wolf wants to freak out, but what would it help?” we say to ourselves. We rise above our emotions, we can hear it snarl, but we know we neither need to listen nor follow along.

“A brave man isn’t someone who doesn’t experience any trace of fear whatsoever but someone who acts courageously despite feeling anxiety.”

And if you’re enslaved to your emotional wolf, then you panic and follow your action tendencies that are way beneath of what you’re capable of. That’s why the Stoics want us to minimize the effects that strong emotions have on our lives, they want us to tame that wolf so that we can stay at the steering wheel at all times instead of letting the wolf take over whenever it wants to. Only then can we express our highest version and lastly live a happy and smoothly flowing life.

Stoicism will give you many anchors to hold yourself onto, so you can find your path and walk it assured. This will cause you to gain an inner tranquility, a calm confidence at all times, even when life gets tough and shows its meanest kicks and punches. Because you know why you do what you do. You have this inner security that you’re doing the right thing and, come what may, you’re steadfast like that tower of strength, and nothing can root you out.

They argued that people should enjoy the good things in life without clinging to

them.

“It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.” – Marcus Aurelius

This is really about being your best version in the here and now.

It’s about using reason in our actions and living in harmony with deep values. This is obviously easier said than done, what supports this ambitious goal is to separate good from bad and focus on what we control.

This is the most prominent principle in Stoicism. At all times, we need to focus on the things we control, and take the rest as it happens. What already is has to be accepted because it’s beyond our power to undo it. What’s beyond our power is ultimately not important for our flourishing. What’s important for our flourishing is what we choose to do with the given external circumstances. So no matter the situatio...

Take Responsibility: Good and bad come solely from yourself. This follows the first two corners that say external things don’t matter for the good life, so living with areté, which is within your control, is enough to flourish in life. Also, you’re responsible for your life because every external event you don’t control offers an area you can control, namely how you choose to respond to this event. This is crucial in Stoicism, it’s not events that make us happy or miserable, but our interpretation ...