Live like a stoic day four- Thursday(virtues)
The stoics firmly believed that virtues were a fundamental aspect to live the stoic life or the perfect life. But this is quite hard to put into practise as certain situations can interrupt the “practise” of good virtues. Some things that can help us live the stoic life are rational understanding, proper treatment of others, management of emotions and desires. Following these “guidelines” will further enhance our chances of living the stoic life, according to the stoics themselves. Examples of these guidelines were demonstrated by myself today, mainly in French class. Rational understanding was the main topic here. French is a subject that I don’t really pay much attention to as I have no intentions of every coming near the language mainly because I lack the interest to learn French. But if I were to think rationally about this situation, I would come to the conclusion that: I have got to do French for the remainder of the year and there is no escaping that. I have slacked of the entire year and with exams coming up in term 4 I should take French more seriously, because I need to pass the subject and study the rate I’m going I honestly don’t think I can do that. By thinking rationally about this situation, one I had never thought about before, I in a way matured my thinking and benefitted myself. Another guideline was the management of emotions and desires. By this I think the stoics mean that you should not let any emotion or desire control you. It is quite natural to have emotions and desires, but what’s not natural is to let those emotions and desires control you. I personally am not an emotional person nor do I desire many things so it was quite easy for me to successfully apply this “guideline” in my day. An example of this would missing my bus, I was really tired at the end of the day, I’d had a long and uneventful day and I was really looking forward to going home. But I missed my bus and had to wait an extra 15 minutes. I could have easily been frustrated and have let my emotions control me or get to me, but I didn’t let that happen. Mainly because firstly I didn’t really care and thought the situation was quite ironic, because the one day I want to get home early and relax I couldn’t due to an event that I couldn’t control. These are the examples of virtues being put into practise in my day today. I found this topic the most useful as it made me “more stoic.” I was in control of myself today as the task involved controlling yourself and not controlling the environment. I found it easy to control my emotions and my actions.