Philosophy Can Change a Life

I'm so thrilled at every email from a reader, even those who are determined to convince me I'm wrong about something. But every now and then I get one that says, "You changed my life." With the permission of the writer, I want to share one of those that came to me this week, with exactly that title. I hope this powerful message will nudge you to read some in the Stoic philosophers, whether through my book or someone else’s. The book referred to by my correspondent here, by the way, could be my least known general audience book, and yet I was gratified just today to see a philosopher I greatly respect and admire say that it should have been a top bestseller when it appeared. And there’s an interesting story about that. I always do my best to write books worth reading. I do hope I succeed! Now the email:

Dear Tom,

I read your book, The Stoic Art of Living, back in 2016. My life until that point had been pretty miserable. I suffered from terrible anxiety, depression, 24/7, obtrusive negative thoughts, anger, uncontrollable emotions, and a belief that I was destined to be unhappy.

I was introduced to Stoicism in a philosophy class a few years earlier, but I struggled to sift through the dense philosophical texts. Your book helped me take Stoic wisdom and actually apply it to my life. I remember reading it over and over, finding it so fascinating how each time I read it, a new gem of your wisdom popped out of me which was completely applicable to my current situation.

Over the years, I continued practicing Stoicism and finally overcame each of my struggles. Today, I experience a near-constant sense of happiness and freedom from negative thoughts (really, I have a clear mind free from such thoughts for ~95% of the day). I transformed from a complete pessimist to an eternal optimist. I know how to immediately practice neutrality toward adversity or turn challenges into something to be grateful for. I truly feel like a Stoic.

And now I help other people do the same. I developed an 8-week program where I teach people logic and principles from Stoicism that help them create happiness and change the way they respond to challenges. The methods that I use and have developed make the wisdom stick so it becomes second-nature. The results have been fantastic so far.

I just wanted to reach out and say thank you for changing my life and for the work you do to keep philosophy alive in the modern-day. I think with all of our technological progress, we’ve forgotten some of these basic laws of nature that allow us to create happiness regardless of our genetics, what we learned from the people who raised us, and the difficult experiences we’ve had.Your book had quite the ripple effect, not just on me, but everyone I've worked with who has benefited from the treasures of this ancient philosophy.I would love to hear what you’re up to. Thank you again!

Best Regards,

Kayla Trautwein

www.kaylatrautwein.com

For the book, click HERE.

Bouncing Back

A few years ago, I wrote a book called The Stoic Art of Living, which had the subtitle "Inner Resilience and Outer Results." The more I had read the ancient Roman stoic philosophers on the ups and downs of life, they more I had come to appreciate the quality of resilience as crucial to success in an uncertain world.

In a book called, Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back, author Andrew Zolli defines this quality as “the ability of people, communities, and systems to maintain their core purpose and integrity among unforeseen shocks and surprises.” I see it as a psychological tendency to bounce back from challenges, difficulties, and obstacles. The resilient person absorbs "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," as Hamlet put it, and bounces back with a positive attitude and renewed action toward his or her goals. 

We can cultivate resilience in our lives in many ways. The stoics had mental techniques a couple of thousand years ago that work today as well as they did then. One friend says that when big trees of misfortune fall across his path and block the way forward, he says to himself, "It's time to get out the chainsaw!" A Roman would have thought of his ax. A simple go-to image can make a difference, and turn around your emotions.

One particular ancient image can be helpful here. The debris of difficulty will at times fall like mounds of trash into almost any life. Many will feel smothered and give up. But if your spirit burns brightly enough with the fire of enthusiastic commitment, that debris is just more fuel for the fire. The amount of garbage that could smother a small flame will be consumed by a great one, which will then grow bigger. Difficulty can actually feed your determination. It's most often up to you.

The inertia of resistance typically pushes back against great new things, and creative people. A resilient individual lets this become a badge of honor, and uses it to fuel even greater efforts. So burn brightly, and enjoy the benefits of resilience that can result!

There's hardly anything in this world as satisfying as bouncing back from difficulty, challenge, and adversity, and attaining a level and form of success that can surprise and delight you.

Joy

Joy. It's a big concept bottled up in a little word. It's a big thing available to each of us.

One of the major surprises I had when I was studying the stoic philosophers, Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius, years ago, in preparation for my book The Stoic Art of Living, was that they were so different from what 'stoic' and 'stoicism' has come to mean in the popular mind. Most people think that being stoic is all about not feeling anything - that it's almost like philosophical anesthesia. But it's not.

The stoics wanted to help us to keep from being disturbed by fleeting emotions so that our natural joy could rise to the surface and be experienced and lived. Negative emotions like resentment, and bitterness, and anger can obviously prevent an experience of joy. But the additional insight of the stoics was that unreasonably strong positive emotions could, too, like that "irrational exuberance" that can come from hearing what we think is great good news. When we get too worried, or too excited, we can become unhinged from reality and our own inner poise and healthiness. The stoics seemed to think that if we could avoid such unsettling emotions, negative or positive, we could become peaceful enough in our surface consciousness as to allow a deep joy that is our birthright to bubble up into our souls and truly bless us.

Joy is not the same thing as happiness. It's not giddiness. It's not mere pleasantness. It's deeper and higher and more abiding. Most of us have felt it, at some time, if only in a momentarily taste or touch of it. But some seem to live it enduringly. Do you have it in your life right now? If not, why not? What's getting in the way? What obstacle to your joy could be removed or eliminated?

At its best, therapy removes obstacles to joy. At its best, self examination prepares the soil for joy.

What gives you joy? Can you integrate more of that into your life this week? Or even today?

It's meant to be yours. And it can enhance everything else you feel, and do.