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The Four Stoic Virtues Simplified
Practical philosophy you can use every day
In today’s world, Stoicism is defined as the endurance of pain or hardship without displaying feelings or complaints. Tough times are inevitable together with painful realities that often drive us to lash out and be aggressive, cold and mean-spirited. But there is a way to handle these difficult situations, enabling us to curve that burst of emotion and utilise it for the greater good.
Stoicism, an ancient Greek school of philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium, is centred on living a life of virtue and reason to obtain true happiness. Stoics believed that everything that happens around us results from a cosmic relationship between cause and effect which they defined as Logos. They accepted that we do not have control over the events that affect us. However, we do have control over how we approach said events.
The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own . . .— Epictetus
The above quote is by far the core defining principle of Stoicism. It has…
