Mindful Moments — The Essence of Stoicism

Aatik Chopra
Nov 4 · 2 min read

Written about two years ago.

It continues to become a constant theme that life’s most important moments come in the least suspecting of settings. Yesterday was no different.

I was talking to a classmate of mine during a break as we were passing one another in the hall. You know, the casual “hey, how are you?” “I’m good, you?” “Good…” But then vulnerability came through — a key ingredient for valuable insight or quality conversation. She opened up as she was walking away and said “I’m really worried about the test later today.”


Worry: noun. a state of anxiety and uncertainty over actual or potential problems.

I see two parts to this classic source of stress:

  1. Things you can control.
  2. Things you can’t control.

Things you can control.

Broadly speaking, this boils down to two things: your effort and your health, both mentally and physically.

If you’ve honestly hustled as much as you can, then that’s really all you can do. Sometimes all we need is a reality check of where we’re allocating our energy during the day/week to realize that we’re lounging too much or focusing on things we don’t care about relative to the issue causing you worry.

The only other thing you can do to help your situation out is to make sure you’re as strong as can be. Physically by stretching, working out (preferably aerobic-focused), sports, and eating wholesome, natural foods.

Mentally cleanse yourself by taking time for yourself in the morning for a few minutes at the least to meditate and maybe journal or listen to music with your eyes closed at night to reflect on your day.

Things you can’t control.

Beyond what was mentioned above, everything else is out of your hands, SO STOP WORRYING! Worrying that the weather won’t be nice on your special day is too silly…you cannot control the weather. You can control creating a backup plan if it ends up raining, but you can’t control if the day will be sunny or not.


Majority of the time, our worry stems from either not doing what we can to avoid negative consequences, or not realizing that we have no control over the situation. If you worry, you’re actually hindering yourself from being your best self, thereby inadvertently increasing the chances of undesirable outcome(s)…Do what you can; life will take care of the rest.

Aatik Chopra

Written by

a compulsive thinker putting in a whole-hearted effort to make every day a mindful one. using Medium to share those thoughts, mostly philosophical in nature.

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