vocateur

We make the most of life's challenges by owning our mindset and our choices.

Today, many things feel out of people's control. The Covid-19 epidemic has been largely checked in many wealthy countries, limiting the loss of life. But doing so has meant social restrictions that have destroyed businesses and livelihoods. In many developing countries, the virus continues to spread and will eventually take a heavy toll. For some people, the prospect of sickness or death brings them anxiety; for others, the chance of losing a parent or loved one; and others face the challenge of being suddenly jobless during an emerging economic crisis.

What can we make of all of this, as individuals?

We often find it uncomfortable to talk about reality openly. To accept that we will each one day die, as will our loved ones. That if death does not separate us, circumstances will. That many aspects of life we rely on are uncertain. All our projects and goals are like a house of cards, relying on shifting foundations that can change at any time. But these things can be great teachers for us, great motivators to use the time we have carefully and well.

No matter our circumstances, we each have things that are in our control. We can control our mindset, and choose how we frame the world and the events that are in front of us. For example, if we lose a loved one, we can frame it as a terrible injustice; then we will rage and agonise over our loss, and find someone to blame. Or we can frame ourselves as fortunate to have had that much time with them, and feel ourselves filled with gratitude instead. Both frames work off the same set of objective facts about the world, but lead to a massive difference in outcome.

Likewise, no matter our circumstances, we have options and choices available to us, limited though they may be. If have lost our job, we can lean in to try to find alternatives. If we are stuck at home, we can do our best to take care of our loved ones. If we cannot visit the people we love, we can call or contact them in other ways. By focusing on these options, we can make the most of whatever situation has emerged, and do the best we can for ourselves and for our fellow humans.

Doing the best we can for the common good given our limited situation is in fact the good life, a life any of us can be proud of.

“Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: ‘Is this the condition that I feared?'” — Seneca

Facing discomfort

How can we reduce our fears? How can we learn to love life, and not be disturbed by minor challenges along our way?

We covered one approach in our previous post, to take each challenge and try to view it from a different angle, one where we see opportunity instead. But another approach is to actively go and do things that, whilst still aligned with our values, make us quite uncomfortable.

Going without

In the Christian tradition, we're currently in Lent, a time of year when people voluntarily give up things that they love for 40 days, ending at Easter. But going without is actually common to many religious traditions across the world, and it's common in the Stoic tradition too. But why sacrifice something you enjoy, even for a short time? Won't that just mean you waste part of your life having a “less great” experience?

The missing piece to the puzzle is called hedonic adaption. It's our ability to get used to anything, even people we dearly love, so that eventually we take them for granted. Ancestrally, this adaption is a healthy drive to get us to explore, discover and grow. However, in modern times it can lead to endless consumerism and waste, alongside great dissatisfaction despite our higher standard of living.

By routinely giving things we care about up, we get a chance to miss them again, breaking the cycle of adaption and helping us to want the things we have. But it also helps prepare ourselves for possible setbacks, by loosening our attachments. That way, if we no longer have the person or item in our lives, we are more ready to cope with it.

Facing fears

That's one half of the story, but the other half is about reducing our fears, by facing our discomfort head on.

In the earlier quote, Seneca describes eating the simplest of foods and cheapest of clothes; in other texts, he describes sleeping on the ground from time to time instead of in his bed. Why would a wealthy Roman take such actions?

Seneca took these steps, which made him uncomfortable in the short term, in order to improve his long-term wellbeing, by reducing his fear of poverty. By experiencing it, he proved to himself that he could thrive even in meagre conditions. In fact this was tested, when he was exiled to Corsica for some years of his life, and many of his best writings are from that time.

Today, most of us do not fear exile, but instead social phobias and anxieties are extremely common. How can we face those fears and lessen them? One modern technique is rejection therapy, a game which gives you an uncomfortable social challenges each day (“talk to someone at the bus stop”), thus gradually reducing your fear of social rejection.

Becoming resilient

What each of us desires is in some way to be free to pursue the life that we find most meaningful. But our fears and the limits of our comfort zone hem us in, eating at our freedom and putting up artificial walls and barriers. By working to reduce our fears, and expanding our comfort zone, these barriers fall down. We find ourselves simply capable of doing more in our lives, an outcome welcome to Stoics and non-Stoics alike.

Part three in a series on Stoic ideas and techniques. If you are arriving fresh, start at the beginning.

”...when you experience a setback, you are faced with not one challenge but two, and the second — preventing a flood of negative emotions — is usually more critical than the first.”
— Irvine, The Stoic Challenge (2019)

“Under no circumstances say, 'I have lost something,' only, 'I returned it.'”
— Epictetus, The Enchiridion, Ch 11 (125 CE)

Handling setbacks in life

Much of life is simply outside our control, and this means life can surprise us in ways that we can't anticipate. A setback is an unexpected reversal in life, big or small, and these setbacks can trigger a range of emotions in us, including fear, sadness or anger.

The lowercase word “stoic” is often used to mean someone who can endure pain or hardship without complaining, however, the Stoic philosophers had a better approach. Instead of merely quietly enduring the emotional pain of a setback, they had ways to ensure they did not experience that emotional pain at all. They did this by recognising that our pain is rooted in our beliefs, which are ultimately in our control. Change your beliefs, and you change your emotional experience.

Today, we call our beliefs about a situation our “mental frame”, and we call choosing these beliefs “framing”.

Framing well

You're in your car, and someone cuts you off suddenly. You swear and honk your horn, and your gut belief is that you've been harmed. Keep the belief, and you'll be irritated all morning. But there are other frames. Feel pity for them: they don't realise they won't get there any faster by driving that way. Feel empathy for them: perhaps they're stressed about something else in their life. Feel grateful: you were lucky to avoid an accident.

Each of these different frames leads to a different emotion, and many of these emotional responses are far more rewarding than the anger you originally felt.

Whilst our beliefs are in our control, our initial reactions are not. In a lot of situations, we see something in the world, and a set of emotions and beliefs are triggered instantly. But the Stoics believe there is a moment, just after this, when we can choose to interpret events differently. Irvine calls it the “five second rule”: when faced with a new setback, if you can notice your reaction and choose differently within the first five seconds, you will have eliminated nearly all its sting.

Life has common patterns for us all, so let's talk about some common frames that we can use and reuse across situations.

Common frames

For everyday setbacks

It's totally natural. When faced with a situation we think is unfair, even reflecting later on the passing of a loved one, we can take the sting out by reflecting that this is a normal and natural part of life.

This will make a good story. We can imagine our life as a story, and see the setback as a dramatic turning point from which we turn things around and emerge the hero.

This might be for the best. Life is so complex, that sometimes something that seems bad now is actually the trigger for something great to follow. Maybe this relationship's end is how you end up meeting someone you're even better suited to.

This is an opportunity. An obstacle you face might be turned to your advantage, or at minimum, you could use it to learn more about yourself and what's important to you in your life.

It's part of the game. Perhaps someone behaves in a way you think is inappropriate, but actually in this area it's simply “how the game is played”. You don't get upset by losing a game of tennis, so why get upset here?

For people and relationships

They are on loan. Everything is temporary, even our most cherished relationships. If we remember that they are borrowed, it is easier to enjoy them whilst we have them, and easier to let them go when fate requires it.

They are ignorant. When someone's actions sets us back, if you frame it as done through ignorance rather malice, your anger will not be triggered.

The last time. If we want to be very present with people, we can imagine that we are doing something with them for the last time, and thus soak in the moment more fully.

For the past

It was meant to be. The Stoics took a fatalistic view of the past, which helped them to avoid ruminating over and over on what could have been. On the other hand, they were not fatalistic about the future, which they believed they could do their best to influence for the better.

Long-term setbacks

In our Stoic meetup, we discussed how sometimes you can choose a frame that sounds good, but in your heart it's harder to believe it. Perhaps we have to care for a sick loved one every day, or live with an illness or disability ourselves.

Stoics would remind us that our beliefs are in our control; perhaps we can't always change them immediately, but we can work on them gradually. Each day, we can choose again how we would like to see ourselves and our lives, and each day shift our beliefs closer to those we'd like to hold.

To conclude

Choosing beliefs well is a core part of phronesis (“pratical wisdom”), the most important of the Stoic virtues, the one that helps us navigate life and make the best choices we can in any situation we face. Since we share similar minds, we can benefit from similar frames. Try out some of the frames above yourself in different situations, and notice the difference in how it makes you feel.

In our Stockholm Stoic Meetup, we discussed the Stoic view that we are all “citizens of the world”, that thrive best together.

Compared to past topics like anger, parts of this felt more abstract and less personal to talk about, but we found a few interesting areas to dive into. Here's what we concluded.

Caring for ourselves and others

The Stoics believed that personal virtue was the greatest good, including justice as one of those virtues. However, being “too giving” could make you helpless. In fact, each of us need to put on our own safety mask before helping others.

In addition, we should use our reason to determine how we can best make a difference. For someone in poverty, material basics can be helpful, but for others material things are only a “preferred indifferent” — in many cases a new perspective or framing of their situation would help them more.

Labelling others

Our minds use a lot of mental heuristics to make it possible to navigate the world. One heuristic is labels, mental shorthands for other people. A label typically refers to one dimension of reality. For a person or group, it could be based on their gender, nationality, religion, race, job, or something else.

Each of these labels can be used to divide the world into “us” and “them”, if we're not careful. Often a label is roughly accurate, but also only reflects one narrow dimension of the truth, when the real person is a complex composite of many aspects. We might need a hundred labels to describe someone clearly.

We can avoid labels sometimes and use less specific words to refer to people when the label isn't necessary. When we need to use a label, we can be mindful that it's only a part of the full picture.

On compassion for animals

Today, people have extended our “circle of concern” from ourselves and our family, through to animals, that we now recognise are capable of suffering.

Whereas Buddhists and Epicureans did not eat meat, and extended empathy to animals, traditional Stoics did not include them in their circle of concern, since animals were not considered capable of reason. Perhaps Stoics would include aliens and artificial intelligences in their circle of concern, if they were capable of reason.

Overall, we didn't come to a clear position together about animal welfare in our discussion.

Developing compassion for others

Remember that the other person has in them a “seed of virtue”, a capacity to become their best self from wherever they are now. When someone behaves badly towards you, frame them not as “evil” but as misinformed about what's good and bad. At the same time, use reason to handle their behaviour as best you can.

Thanks to all who came and participated!

Part two in a sequence on Stoic ideas and techniques. If you are arriving fresh, start from the beginning.

“What fortune has made yours is not your own.” — Seneca, Letters from a Stoic, Letter IX (c. 62 CE)

Stoic techniques for flourishing

The Stoics were a group of philosophers from 350 BCE-200 CE that held human flourishing (eudaimonia) to be life's end goal, and developed a series of beliefs and practices to cultivate it. This sequence of blog posts introduces core Stoic techniques for finding joy and purpose in life.

Our last post looked at what's in our control, and the benefits we get from focusing on that. Today we'll look at a complementary technique called “negative visualisation”, or imagining the worst. It's heavily influenced by Chapter 4 of Irvine's “Guide to the Good Life”. Let's dive in.

Taking things for granted

When we are children, everything is new, and we can find great joy in discovering the world. But quickly we become used to things, and they bring us less joy than before.

The good side of this is human resilience, the way many people rebound from great trauma or loss and continue to find ways to thrive. The bad side of this is the great dissatisfaction many people find with modern life, and the unfulfilling endless stream of new things we try to inject into life to avoid this dissatisfaction.

Today we know of this phenomena as hedonic adaption, but it's a part of human nature that was as common in Ancient Greece as it is today.

Wanting what we have

The human desire for novelty leads us naturally to acquire new things: new belongings, a new car, new house, new relationship. However, these things only temporarily satisfy us, and they leave new problems in their wake, in the form of wasted money, lost opportunities and broken relationships.

The Stoics had a different approach: try to re-learn to want what we already have, by reminding ourselves how temporary life is.

For example, if you are in a relationship, one day you and your partner will be separated, either because you no long wish to be together, or because of illness and death. Similarly, you will not always live where you do, enjoy the friendships that you have now, or even have what health you have today.

The Stoics did not waste energy worrying about these things, but they did reflect on them regularly; doing this leads to a greater sense of gratitude for what we have, and leads us to experience a heightened significance and intensity to everyday events, bringing joy to our experiences.

Accepting what comes

Contemplating the loss of things will improve our wellbeing today, because we will appreciate our current circumstances more. But it will also bring benefits when, inevitably, we do lose things that are precious to us. We then find ourselves better off because we are less surprised, and because we have less regret.

Imagine a close friend dies suddenly of an unexpected illness. You will be shocked and grieve. But if you have imagined the possibility of losing them, you will have been more present with them, enjoyed them more fully, and have been aware: this may be the last time I see them. This will reduce the extent of your grief, and you will not experience regret — you already made the best of the time you had with them.

For this reason, the Stoics asked us to imagine the loss of our job, our home, our friends and our family, and to imagine how we might yet find it in us to cope and manage in each of these situations.

Driving change

One might ask, if Stoicism asks us to accept and appreciate everything as it is, will it then prevent us from noticing problems and improving the world? Could it even be harmful? In fact, this is a substantial critique of mindfulness, that it causes us to accept injustice and seek only to improve our own feelings about the world.

In fact, the Stoics were remarkably civic-minded, and believed that reason would lead us to conclude that we are social creatures that best thrive together. Contemplating loss didn't make them accept injustice; instead, it helped them to find the the courage to make great stands against tyranny, by looking at the potential consequences and making their peace with them.

By practicing these techniques, the Stoics were able to find joy in everyday life, whilst finding the courage to strive to make a difference.

Continue on to part three, on setbacks and framing.

Learning more

• “A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy” (2008) by William Irvine; see Chapter 4 “Negative visualisation”
• “The Other Side of Sadness” (2009) by George Bonnano, on human resilience to trauma
• Wikipedia: “Hedonic Treadmill”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill

If you desire something outside your control, you are bound to be disappointed.
— Epictetus (125 CE), Enchiridion, Chapter 2
If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change.
— Ghandi (1913 CE), The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Volume XII, April 1913 to December 1914

The Stoic school of philosophy

The Stoics were a school of philosophers originating in Ancient Greece, stretching from their founder Zeno of Citium (c. 332-262 BCE) to the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (121-180 CE). Whilst the Stoics didn't agree on everything, the philosophy and way of living they developed contains insights into human life and psychology that is just as relevant now as then.

In modern times, Stoicism inspired Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), an evidence-based approach for fixing distortions in how we think. It's also seen a resurgence in the last decade, perhaps as a way of helping people to navigate our modern times, when many aspects of life remain outside our control. This concept of what is and isn't in our control is core to Stoic practice, so let's dive in.

The dichotomy of control

The Stoics believed in dividing the things we might worry about into two categories: things that are in our control, and things that are not.

Outside our control

Let's begin with the things we can't control. Some things that are random or chaotic are clearly outside our control. For example, whether it will rain in Vancouver tomorrow, whether a terrorist attack will occur in Japan, or whether the global economy will take a downturn next year.

If someone is worried about these things, we can comfort them by reminding them that such events are outside their control. Since we cannot influence such events, we can save a lot of energy by accepting them, even if they have outcomes that we wouldn't prefer. Most people see this, and agree.

Less obviously, the past is also outside our control — it's already happened. This is true of the immediate present too — we are here. Despite this, people often worry about or ruminate on the past rather than accepting it, wasting a lot of their energy.

For things that are outside our control, the Stoics believe that we should spend no energy on them, not even to wish that they were (or will be) different. Any such energy we spend would be wasted, when we could instead spend it on things inside our control.

Inside our control

When we consider things inside our control, we might first think of our actions. For example, surely I can control what I do, what I eat, where I go, who I talk to and what I say. But actually, these things are less in our control than we often realise. You might decide to go see a movie, but your bus does not come; decide to eat healthy, but end up eating junk; decide to give a speech, but end up stuttering.

In fact, the Stoics believe that the only things truly in our control are our perspective, what we call good and bad, and our intent, what we plan to do. Mastering this attitude is really hard, but focusing our energy here where we can make a difference pays off far better than worrying about things we cannot change.

Inside our influence

Most people will follow this reasoning, and roughly agree with this perspective, but they will get stuck on the broad category of things that are under our influence, but not in our direct control.

Irvine uses the example of playing tennis. All manner of things might happen on the court; whether or not we win the game depends on many factors which are outside our control. But winning does require effort; if we make no effort, we will lose. So winning is neither totally in our control, nor totally outside it; it is under our influence.

Take a bigger example, that of man made climate change. Whether or not the global climate changes and becomes warmer is not under our personal control. But if every person made no effort, and demanded no change, the evidence suggests the climate will warm dramatically, leading to poor outcomes. So somehow, our actions do have an influence on the global climate.

In situations where we have influence but not control, we can focus on something that is in our control: our intent. We can choose to do our best to win the tennis match, just as we can choose to do our best to make climate-friendly choices. If we have done our best, by definition we need not worry that we didn't do more.

Developing practical wisdom

By focusing on what is and isn't in our control, the Stoics aimed to develop practical wisdom (phronêsis). Since Stoicism is a lived philosophy, rather than a theory, we can ask: how can we shift our perspective so that we focus more and more on things that are inside our control?

Stoics offer two approaches, evening reflection and inspirational sayings. Firstly, each evening, you can spend a little time reflecting on the significant moments on your day, how you reacted to them, and how you could act or react better in future. Secondly, although we consider inspirational quotes to be cheesy, you can use such quotes during your day to be reminded of the perspective you would like to take. Buddhism also uses this approach of short slogans to summarise teachings and bring them to mind quickly.

By taking these approaches, we can gradually focus our energy more and more on things that are in our control, and thus things that we can actually change.

Learning more

This post is the first in a sequence on Stoic philosophy, including practical techniques. Part 2 looks at negative visualisation, another Stoic technique for keeping perspective and finding joy in life.

If you want to learn more about the dichotomy of control, I recommend some further reading:

• “A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy” by William Irvine (2008); see Chapter 5 ““The Dichotomy of Control: On Becoming Invincible”
• “A Handbook for New Stoics by Massimo Pigliucci and Gregory Lopez (2019); see Weeks 1 & 2

Today I'm beginning the Vocateur blog. Vocateur is a concept from Ada Palmer's “Too Like the Lightning”: someone who is intensely devoted to their work. In this case, it refers to the work of trying to understand and contribute to the world.

This blog is intended to be a scratch space to discuss applied philosophy, economics and psychology; a place to talk about the good life, and the struggle to apply reason to overcome our own mental barriers to make a positive difference in the world.

Reason invites critique, so this is also a way of exposing my understanding to critique, so that they can be better. I hope that as a side effect, it provides some challenging ideas to others too.

If you have feedback on any post, or topics you'd like to discuss, feel free to send an email at vocateur.blog@gmail.com.