One of the defining features of Stoicism is its practicality. The ancient Stoics would even devise clever phrases and mnemonic devices to help their students carry with them reminders of how to act in accordance with the fundamental ideas and virtues of their philosophy. ‘Act according to nature’ was one such reminder leveraged by the earliest Stoics to help them choose the right action when faced with any dilemma or situation. For the Stoics, to live according to nature did not mean retreating into the wilderness; instead, it meant that humans are naturally capable of reason, and this profound gift distinguishes us from other animals and allows us to make virtuous decisions. The focus of this article is the ‘act’ part of this phrase. We will describe and explore the 4 Stoic virtues and identify several practical ways we can implement them.
The 4 Stoic Virtues – Wisdom
For the Stoics, the virtue of wisdom was achieved along two converging paths. The first is the study of philosophy. In a practical and modern sense, this is simply reading philosophy and non-fiction. It was as simple in ancient times as it is today: read, study, and challenge your own beliefs regularly. The second and most crucial path to wisdom is the implementation of this philosophy. We can read powerful and transformational ideas until we’re blue in the face but they mean nothing until we venture out and put them into practice. Here are our practical tips for harnessing the Stoic virtue of wisdom in your own life.
- Read voraciously, but read outside your comfort zone. Read genres you don’t normally read; read fiction, history, science and biographies. Here’s an interesting reading experiment to broaden your horizons: try reading a book that’s predominantly marketed to the opposite sex. Said differently, if you’re a man, read a book that’s generally targeted to a female audience. If you’re a woman, read a book that’s generally targeted to a male audience. Here are two suggestions, 12 Rules For Life by Jordan Peterson and The Moment Of Lift by Melinda Gates.
- Take notes while you read, but not only of the ideas that interest you but also write down action items with a date by which you will do them.
Reading best practices
- Read less. This may seem counter to our message, but sometimes, when you read a truly transformational set of ideas, it’s best to walk around for a few weeks carrying these ideas without introducing new ones to confound and distract from your ability to turn the ideas into behaviors.
- Read to your weaknesses. I used to have a serious problem with public speaking. Now, I sometimes speak in front of thousands. Do I still struggle? Of course. But instead of curling up and quitting, I made it my mission to get better. One of the actions I took was to read several books on public speaking. I used what was useful and discarded the rest along my path to improvement.
The 4 Stoic Virtues – Courage
We often think of courage as a single act embedded in a particular moment in time. The imagery of courage that comes to mind is that of a firefighter entering a burning building to save others or a soldier running headlong into battle. Indeed, this is courage, but the Stoics would often speak of a more ordinary and sustained type of courage.
“Two words should be committed to memory and obeyed: persist and resist.” — Epictetus
Persistence is the idea I want to remain on for a moment. It takes courage to work a draining, unfulfilling job for 30 years to support one’s family. It takes courage to raise children with love and devotion. Furthermore, it takes courage to strive constantly to improve oneself and avoid slipping into the lazy mediocrity that is mass-marketed to us on a daily basis. This persistence and resistance, over a long and uninterrupted path, is the embodiment of courage that the Stoics emphasized.
It’s relevant because it’s pervasive
This kind of courage is more relevant for us to ponder and exercise than the kind required to enter a burning building to save another person because the former is required each and every day. The Stoic virtue of courage, in the modern sense, is showing up every day to do your best whether you feel like it or not. Courage is resisting the idea of comfort and happiness that is constantly marketed to us through ‘convenient’ technological innovations. It is also the ability to stand apart from the masses, even if it causes you to be misunderstood socially, in the pursuit of your values and virtues.
Here are some practical exercises in the Stoic virtue of courage:
- Resist the urge to rest when it first appears. It is true that we need days off and leisure time to simply be. However, the urge to take a rest day sometimes arises before it is truly necessary. Delay the gratification of taking a day off by just one day. Often, you’ll find that the following day you will feel better despite having done the work. If, however, you still feel exhausted despite having delayed gratification by one day, then by all means take some time for yourself to rest and recover.
Take risks
- Let your dissenting voice be heard. If you find yourself in a situation that feels wrong to you, be the first person to say something about it. Do this with care and compassion for the others involved in the situation, but don’t allow harmful situations to endure around you without providing constructive criticism first, even if it means taking a social risk.
- Voluntarily expose yourself to your fears. In clinical psychology, there is overwhelming evidence demonstrating that exposure and therefore habituation to fear is the primary means to overcoming it:
The experience of anxiety involves nervous system arousal. If your nervous system is not aroused, you cannot experience anxiety. Understandably, but unfortunately, most people attempt to cope with feelings of anxiety by avoiding situations or objects that elicit the feelings. Avoidance, however, prevents your nervous system from habituating. Therefore, avoidance guarantees that the feared object or situation will remain novel, and hence arousing, and hence anxiety provoking. Moreover, avoidance tends to generalize over time. If you avoid the elevator at work, you will soon begin to avoid all elevators, and then all buildings that house elevators, etcetera. Soon enough, you’ll be living in a prison of avoidance.
– Noam Shpancer Ph.D., Overcoming Fear: The Only Way Out is Through, Psychology Today
The 4 Stoic Virtues – Temperance
In simple terms, the Stoic virtue of temperance is the resistance against desire. However, it is a nuanced concept that requires some further exploration. Ryan Holiday succinctly and eloquently summarizes the virtue of temperance: “Temperance is guarded against extremes, not relying on the fleetingness of pleasure for happiness nor allowing the fleetingness of pain to destroy it”. Viewed from this lens, we see that temperance resides within the moderate center between pleasure and pain. Temperance is balance.
Pursuing temperance, by nature, is precarious and difficult to master. Achieving balance between doing and being is perhaps the core pursuit of this blog. This challenging balance requires us to be relentless in evaluation and corrective action of what is excessive in our lives. Here are some quick practical tips to consider in the pursuit of balance:
- Practice some degree of minimalism, or at least some resistance against marketing.
- If you sit all day for work, stand at night. I mean this as a practical tip—if you’re forced to sit in a chair all day for work, make sure you stand at night when you’re reading or watching television. This is also an analogy for balance in general. Find something that is excessive in your life, and work to counterbalance it.
- Wait ten minutes on your desires. When the desire arises to say, eat junk food, smoke, or drink, simply wait for ten minutes and usually the desire will subside.
The 4 Stoic Virtues – Justice
The Stoic virtue of justice is often misunderstood. At first glance, people tend to interpret it along the lines of the criminal justice system of today. Criminal acts would certainly fall outside the scope of justice in the Stoic sense, but it extends much deeper than this. In Stoicism, justice means acting for the greater good of the community, even to the extent where self-sacrifice is required.
This idea of justice would have certainly trickled down to the Stoics from their Greek predecessors, where we see stories of ultimate self-sacrifice in the name of civic duty. The story of Socrates’ demise is a compelling example of this. Socrates was accused of impiety (worshipping gods not recognized by the state in Athens at the time) by political rivals who were motivated to put forth this likely unfounded charge. Socrates argued his case in public but was ultimately sentenced to death. Friends of Socrates arranged for his escape by bribing the prison guards. Socrates refused to flee in exile, opting instead to respect the law even though he knew his sentence was unjust, and accept his sentence to death.
Find the opportunities to practice
This is an extreme example and a moral dilemma that none of us is likely to face. However, we are presented with countless opportunities to practice the Stoic virtue of justice in daily life. We can be compassionate, present, and make moral decisions that should ripple outward from ourselves first, then to our family, community, and further still (but always in that order).
Here are a few practical ways to expand your capacity for the Stoic virtue of justice:
- Focus your influence locally. Don’t be the person who’s obsessed with and engaged in online activism about things happening far away. First, be the person who supports and strengthens their community.
- Holding a door for someone is a low bar for compassion. Don’t confuse common courtesy with compassion. Your time and energy spent to help (or at the very least listen to) others is a good measure of your capacity for compassion.
- An interruption is a golden opportunity for compassion. If someone interrupts you, it is almost always because they are in need. An interruption also implies that you will have to subvert your own needs or desires for a moment, and is therefore a great chance to practice virtue.
- Pick up litter when you see it. This is only partly an analogy for exerting some effort for the betterment of the community.
Make life interesting
Stoicism has endured over millennia as a philosophy for life because of its emphasis on practicality. There is nothing more satisfying than reading powerful thoughts that resonate with you (like the 4 Stoic Virtues outlined in this article) and then seeing yourself acting in accordance with them. Finding ways to act in accordance with your own highest values leads to a better present and future. This should be viewed as a process and even as a fun and experimental journey. Let’s not view the pursuit of virtue as a teeth-grinding heavy lift, but more as a journey flowing with the requisite vicissitudes that make life interesting. The moment you settle for mediocrity is the moment life becomes boring. Enjoy the process, be honest with your progress, success and failure, but also have a light heart and compassionate eye for yourself.
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