Stoicism: How to Use Stoic Philosophy to Find Inner Peace and Happiness

by Jason Hemlock

Every day for a week, write in your journal in the evening. First, detail

what happened and then write it as if your best self had experienced that day. How would it have changed your day?

Stoicism is a practical philosophy. It is meant to be learned through living.

Even if you only take tiny steps, you will eventually reach your destination. This isn’t a race. The more you work towards a Stoic way of being, the easier it becomes and you won’t worry about whether you can get it all done. You’ll simply do it.

In Cicero’s words, “The man who has virtue is in need of nothing whatever for the purpose of living well.”

According to the Stoics, there were only four virtues that someone should be ruled by: wisdom, courage, justice and temperance.

Stoics defined wisdom as the ability to determine what is good, what is evil and what is neither, what things to avoid and what would make no difference to your life of virtue,

Epictetus’ Discourses, he describes life as being “like a military campaign.”

we should always be on our guard for symbolic enemies that could disrupt your life.

Cicero described justice in this text as the bond that holds society together and builds community.

Marcus Aurelius puts it, “what injures the hive injures the bee.”

temperance, to a Stoic, this is all about finding that balance between overindulgence and asceticism,

The only limit to wealth, according to Seneca, is “First, having what is essential, and second, having what is enough.”

If you take only one thing away from this book, let it be the knowledge that you cannot control what happens around you, but you have full mastery of your response, and that response should be born out of courage, temperance, justice and wisdom.