Nobody wants to work themselves into burnout or lonely corners from years of neglecting loved ones for the sake of success. Reasonable people would agree there is no height of success that justifies self-sacrifice. Yet we can be pulled to stray from the middle path, heading instead toward an imbalanced penchant for ambition. There are extremely powerful machines in play—rampant commercialism fueled by your personal data, the sense of inferiority that comes from social media’s false reality—that push us to work harder on increasingly complex tasks. Conversely, nobody wants to be passive and powerless against life’s challenges. We know from experience that doing difficult or scary things ultimately provides the most lasting sense of satisfaction. We do not want to disengage with work and become lazy and stagnant. I believe that finding this balance between ambition and passivity is a challenge we all know. Stoicism and mindfulness can help.
This article aims to help us realize subtle distinctions between Stoicism and mindfulness and their importance. It’s also an examination of the fundamental pursuit of this blog: finding balance. If you’ve read the blog before, you know that Stoicism and mindfulness are integral elements of the content. I don’t just want to write about these two practices to share with the readers what they are. Rather, I want to explore and promote their practicality for the sole purpose of helping people strike that crucial balance between action and rest.
Stoicism and mindfulness: the framework and the tools
Stoicism as a practical philosophy is widely applicable in nearly all areas of life. But what does it lack? Except for the quiet and stillness that the Stoics prescribed, many of Stoicism’s lessons intend to help us respond correctly to our environment. Stoicism is designed to help us make intelligent choices, even amid chaos, and act in accordance with our virtues. But it doesn’t offer much technical advice on how to do this.
The writings of the Stoics like Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius sometimes have a trial-by-fire implication. Let’s take professional fighting as an analogy. The way in which Stoicism prepares us to respond to our environment is like a fighter preparing for a fight by only sparring and reflecting upon how it went afterwards. But we know that professional fighters have other technical, fundamental ways in which they train. They must increase their cardiovascular capacity by strengthening the heart through running or cycling. They drill certain movements slowly and repeatedly to build the muscle memory and neural connections to automate their responses.
Mindfulness meditation as a training device
So how do we train ourselves to respond effectively to our ever-changing and unpredictable environment? This is where mindfulness and meditation come into play. These two practices are like the running shoes or the bicycle for the fighter. They are tools that help us build a specific capability. In this case, the capability that mindfulness and meditation allow us to build is the ability to observe our thoughts before they turn into raw emotion or reaction. Mindfulness meditation, in particular, trains us to observe thoughts or surroundings non-judgmentally. With repetition, a space opens up following a thought or a stimulus in which we have a choice. The choice is how we react.
The Stoics teach about reacting to insults with indifference or even sympathy for the person slinging the insult. Remaining silent or responding with grace to insult or criticism requires us to identify what’s happening and to slow things down. Meditation and mindfulness are the training tools that allow us to practice this anytime, anywhere. What good is it to know, theoretically or philosophically, how we want to react to challenging and chaotic situations if we do not have well-trained minds and nervous systems?
Rest and action are everything
We can broadly categorize life into two buckets: rest and action. At all times, either we are doing something with a desired outcome in mind or we are simply resting or doing something for the sheer enjoyment of it. Both are indispensable and require different approaches.
Stoicism is fantastic for teaching us how to act courageously in action. Amor fati (the love of fate), memento mori (remember your mortality), and premeditatio malorum (the premeditation of evils) are epithets of Stoicism—all of which promote the idea of acting effectively in the face of fear. The Four Stoic Virtues are an excellent mechanism with which we can stay continuously oriented by what is truly important in life. These are all amazing ideas which, when practiced, can help us work and act with precision and efficiency.
Mindfulness and meditation, on the other hand, with their underlying focus on the present moment and appreciation of its beauty, are excellent for extracting the most from life. These two practices help us slow down, focus on our breath to relieve stress, and experience life outside of a realm that is almost defined by capitalistic pursuits. As discussed above, meditation is a training device with which we can improve the observation of thoughts and stimuli to process them before they become regretful reactions.
Stoicism and mindfulness for balance
Pondering this idea—that life is always either in motion or at rest—allows us to recognize when one or the other is happening, so that we can engage with the appropriate toolkit. We need a different mentality when it comes to business meetings than we do for picnics with our significant other. You can derive real gains and value from this awareness.
Imbalance comes when we allow one of these two areas of life to become excessive. Nobody wants deathbed regrets. Grinding yourself to a fine dust in the name of material success is a probable deathbed regret. Constantly shying away from discomfort and challenge and ultimately failing to realize your inner potential is another. This is a tricky balance to strike, at least for me, which is a driving motivation for me to write this blog (because I’m still figuring it out). This is why the combination of Stoicism and mindfulness is so powerful to me personally. I will continue to explore topics like these and try to distill them into practical and digestible formats that (I hope) can help people live a balanced life.
It’s difficult to argue against the fact that Stoicism (along with other philosophies and religions) is ripe with sound instruction on how to live our lives. When we read Eastern philosophy, people like Thich Nhat Hanh or The Dalai Lama, concepts such as non-doing and gratitude become glaring reminders that we need to slow down and see the miracle that is finite life. Furthermore, meditation and mindfulness actually allow us to build the skills needed to implement our philosophy in challenging and unpredictable circumstances.