stoicism.

Today, whilst listening to a new favourite podcast of mine, Maybe We'll Learn Something? (itunes; soundcloud), I discovered Stoicism. If you, like me, are new to this, Stoicism is a Hellenistic philosophy about accepting that the worst things in life will happen to you and learning to lie with that. It sounds incredibly grim and perhaps it is but it's not altogether depressing because Stoicism teaches that bad shit will happen but you'll be okay. You could go to prison and it would be bad, but you'd still get through it, as others have before you. 

Stoicism is an extremely practical practice, too. Stoics often face what they dread head on, such as leaving the comfort of a home and good food to see that what they fear really isn't that bad. I often find that the anticipation of pain is far worse than the pain itself.

For some time, I've had the motto "adapt or die" as I've gone through personal hardship, but this mindset doesn't have the confidence that Stoicism offers. Honestly, I don't know how much I like it. It has some elements from Daoism which I've come to appreciate (to stop trying to enforce your control on forces greater than you; exempting political issues of course) but I like the spiritual side of Daoism and I find Stoicism somewhat nihilistic. That being said, I have had experiences where changing my perspective from one of fear to one of determination has been tremendously powerful. So perhaps this will be complimentary to my study of Daoism.


Side note: I had some gift cards that were to expire this month so I used them to order a copy of The Tao of Pooh to get me started and my current favourite translation of the Dao De Jing (Stephen Mitchell's) along with some make up brushes and some calligraphy pens. I can't wait for them to arrive!