In letters from a stoic 21, Lucilius seems to be wanting to depart his job. It’s known that Lucilius was a procurator in Rome. What was not clear is that if he was departing his job for retirement, which Seneca advised him on letter 19, or if he was trying to get another job. Seneca told Lucilius that if he was trying to find an “ideal state of calm”…
Stoicism (capital S) refers to the ancient school of philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens, Greece. The philosophy provides a framework of thoughts that gives practicing stoics resiliency during challenging situations. On the other hand, stoicism (small s) as defined by Oxford English Dictionary refers to the endurance of pain or hardships without the display of feeling and without complaint. In other words, the former refers to…
[View Handbook]Rationality simply means to base everything – judgment, perception, action, etc. – on reason. The Stoics believe that the “logos” exist in our reason and therefore regard it as some divine power. It’s the only thing we can control and if we put our energy into it rather than things that outside ourselves, we will live a much better life. They constantly remind us to see things and events for what they truly are…
The dichotomy of control which is probably the most popular practice among the stoics stems from a deep belief that “logos” operates in sort of two categories: individuals and cosmos (universe). In individuals, it exists in our faculty of reason. “Logos” is responsible for the order and coherence with which it operates and stoics teachings said that if we use reason, our rationality, we will conduct ourselves in harmony in such that in a way…
[View Handbook] For the Stoics, the only thing that we have complete control over is our thoughts. It’s normal that we are constantly bombarded with perceptions because our brain is designed by nature to scan everything that we sense in the external world. This so-called “flight-or-fight” response is the same instinct we share with other animals that Mother Nature designed for our own survival. For example, if somebody tries to say something that would endanger…