I’ve been asked a few times why I named this blog The Mindful Stoic. When I first started the blog, my answer to this question was not well formulated. Back then, I knew that mindfulness was a life-changing practice because practicing it had changed my life. I attribute mindfulness as the sole reason I was able to lift myself up from some fairly debilitating anxiety issues I experienced in my early twenties.
Then, after a few years of making mindfulness a constant practice, I transitioned from my career as a teacher to one in marketing at a Big Tech company. I had no formal business training or experience, yet I entered willfully and quite naively into an incredibly fast-paced and high-pressure corporate environment. Initially, I doubted myself. It took a very long time for me to feel like I belonged there. It was during this struggle that I turned to Stoicism, because I had a preconception of it being about strength and courage (which is not false).
Mindfulness helped me find baseline calm, stillness, and provided me with some sovereignty over my nervous system. It helped me control my anxiety. But it did more than that. It also provided me with the precious capacity to view the present moment as a wonderful gift, thereby renewing my appreciation for life itself.
Stoicism, on the other hand, provided me with the mental fortitude I needed to not only cope, but eventually thrive in a world where there is always some degree of interpersonal struggle and constant judgment.
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Finding balance between striving and passivity
Today, my answer to the question ‘why The Mindful Stoic?’ is that I’m fascinated by the agility and balance that mindfulness and Stoicism combined have allowed me to achieve. Why both and not just one or the other? Although the two practices overlap on many moral teachings, I believe that there are unique advantages to each.
Mindfulness and the Buddhist teachings with which it is fundamentally intertwined offer a wealth of technical instruction in meditation. Although Stoicism, too, urges us to find stillness, it is not as rich in practical meditation instruction with which one can train the mind to be present and concentrated. The present moment is the fruit of mindfulness practice, and the present moment is where life truly happens. Being present is useful in both rest and action—being and doing. For me personally, though, I tend to lean on my mindfulness practice more in moments when there is no defined, desired outcome, which is how I broadly describe ‘rest’. This is basically any time I’m not working to achieve something.
Finding balance between rest and action
Stoicism’s advantage is that it more directly acknowledges the chaotic nature of the world, including interpersonal struggle. It has much to teach us about being socially courageous and how to deal with difficult or dangerous people. Its concepts like the dichotomy of control are incredibly useful in outcome-based situations. It teaches us to do everything that is within our control but gracefully acknowledge that the random nature of the universe is indifferent to us and things can and will go wrong.
Stoicism teaches us to embrace the unexpected. It prepares us tactically and mentally for any eventuality. It’s not all about grit and sweat, as it has profound offerings on compassion, greater good, and stillness, but it is certainly a practical philosophy of immense utility when it comes to planning and executing outcome-based efforts.
To the person who espouses only Stoicism and does not take time to practice mindfulness meditation, I ask how you will apply your Wisdom or Justice in the heat of an interpersonal conflict if you cannot first identify your emotions as they bubble up? In the heat of the moment, if you cannot literally pause for a split second and say to yourself ‘this is anger’ rather than feel and react viscerally with ‘I’m angry’, then you will not be able to apply the valuable lessons that Stoicism has taught you.
Finding balance between doing and being
To the person who only meditates and has never studied Stoicism, I ask how will you remain on the middle path when the harshness of the competitive world for which you have not prepared slaps you in the face?
I am no master of either practice. I continue to struggle with life’s complexities and uncertainties like anyone else. I’m a regular guy who lives a normal life. I am ambitious because I’m curious about my own potential. Yet, I don’t want my ambition to lead to the detriment of my health or tarnish time spent just enjoying the simple beauty of life. I don’t want to live monastically, and I don’t want to race blindly up the corporate ladder. I want to attempt to strike a perfect balance between these two ways of living: doing and being—action and rest. To date, I’ve yet to find a better way of finding balance than by practicing mindfulness and Stoicism, hence The Mindful Stoic.