How To Use Stoicism To Overcome Anything

Daily Publish Post #14

Garrett Petticrew
Sep 1, 2018 · 6 min read

What do Ryan Holiday, Tim Ferriss, Neil Strauss, and JK Rowling have in common? Aside from being wildly successful authors, they are all modern day stoics.

Every single one of them overcame their own inner demons to find success. Every one of them turned their darkness into light that could shine for others.

We all have our issues, and stoicism is a powerful tool to not only combat those issues but to turn them into fuel.

Everyone Can Benefit

A Stoic is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

You experience fear, you experience pain, and you sure as hell make mistakes.

It’s part of the human process. Our modern society for all its technological accomplishments has done a terrible job at understanding and providing tools for coping with the stressors of life.

Our world is far different from the one our bodies and minds evolved to cope with. Social Media and Traditional Media both play at our fight or flight responses, triggering dopamine and serotonin responses, creating stressors we don’t need.

Our employers are focused on the bottom line, creating an environment where they pay you just enough so you won’t easily quit.

The ease and availability of food have erased our appreciation and connection with where that food comes from, causing overindulgence and gluttony, in many cases without the awareness of the person doing it.

This leads to malnutrition and screwed up hormone levels in the body, which of course leads to mental instability.

No wonder life feels so chaotic and difficult, despite living in the most advanced age in history.

So what are we to do? We need a mental toolset to reframe our lives and create a better perspective. One that has a positive outlook.

Enter stoicism.


First Encounter — I missed it completely

I’d love to tell you a story about how I discovered stoicism early in life, but that’s just not how I operate.

A theme in my life has been to know a tool long before understanding how to use it, and then stubbornly suffering for years before finally implementing the one thing that would have made life so much easier.

This is the case with stoicism. I learned about it in 2012 when I studied abroad in Japan. On a non-related note, I also learned about Bitcoin at this same time, when it was around $10 a coin. Ouch.

When I lived in Japan I ran out of money and food right at the same time as 100% of my friends were on winter break traveling around Japan. Alone, hungry and without money, I secluded myself to my room.

I exercised, slept, and scoured the internet for ways to make money online. Since I had no money, I resorted to using torrenting to get ahold of books to read. Looking back I am ashamed of this, but at the time it was not illegal in Japan, and the books I downloaded took my mind off of the gnawing discomfort growing in my stomach.

The “fast” as I now call it lasted three to four days. I honestly can’t remember the specifics now, but I do remember grabbing Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

I might have read maybe five pages that first go around. My naive 22-year-old brain couldn’t understand the value.

So I suffered needlessly.


Megan Finally Woke Me Up — Of Course

For the record, Megan is my fiancé. She had a catastrophic brain injury on October 18, 2017, leading to a brainstem stroke. She has made a miraculous recovery and has a strong prognosis for a full to semi-full recovery. I have yet to tell this whole story, but I intend to soon as she and I work out the details of the last 10 months.

She is my motivation, my inspiration, and inspires me to write and publish every single day.

In her story is the story of how Stoicism shielded my mind from devastation.

A few months before the fated October 18th day I started reading The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan Holiday.

It’s a fantastic book and was so well written that its lessons punctured the stubbornness of my mind to the point where I was able to actually internalize a single insight.

That single insight is that control is mostly an illusion. Most of what life throws at you is out of your control. The pitfall we so commonly fall into is trying to take control of things we cannot control. Focus splinters and nothing is accomplished. We are left feeling anxious and overwhelmed.

The trick then is to only focus on what you have direct control over. If you focus only on what you can control, then no matter how shitty life gets it can still be manageable. Focusing on what you can control allows you to take action. It allows you to see clearly through the fog to see what needs to be done.

You get to stop giving a fck about 95% of the noise. That is massive.

If it was not for this one little insight, I would’ve likely been crushed when Megan was hospitalized.


Be The Light When All Other Lights Go Out

Megan was in a coma for two months. During that time there was nothing I could directly do for her to help her recover. So I stopped worrying about that.

What I could control was how I presented myself to Megan’s family. They were on the verge of breaking, and I got the impression that if I broke, they would break. So I remained irritatingly optimistic.

I found a way to find the positive in all news. At times being willfully in denial when Megan’s status worsened.

I created a GoFundMe account because that was under my control. I wrote Megan’s story so that others could understand for themselves what was going on. I created that avenue for others to provide help should they want to.

This allowed loved ones the world over to feel helpful in some way.

These donations turned out to be a massive game changer for us as we were able to cover insurance deductibles and max out of pocket expenses for a full year.

My mantra during this time was simply “Don’t mourn her until she’s gone.”

Don’t mourn her until she’s gone.

I shared this with her friends and family and urged them to repeat it to themselves.

“May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.” — Lady Galadriel in The Fellowship Of The Ring

When your world starts to fall apart, use Stoic principles to turn yourself into a light that can shine when all other lights go out.

Megan Continues Recovery Using Stoicism

When Megan became conscious of her injury she was devastated. She couldn’t move her body. At all.

I told her how I had let go of what I couldn’t control and only focused on what I could, and how if she could do the same, much of her pain would go.

She listened.
Then she focused.
Then she worked.

Now she can move everything and is even recovering fine motor control in her fingers, allowing her to use smart devices to text with speed and precision.

Megan did not let the overwhelming weight of her situation detract her from her goals. She focused only on her therapy to the point of exhaustion.

10-months later she is well on her way to being able to walk, talk, and eat. She is not there yet, but she knows what mindset will get her there.

Resources

If you read the books listed below and really focus on learning what they teach, you can overcome anything.

What I discussed in this article is only a small part of what stoicism teaches.

Books Referenced in this article:

Other fantastic Stoic reads:


The Daily Publish Project is an attempt to get more comfortable with publishing my writing. These posts will be largely unpolished ideas. The idea is that over time this writing will dramatically improve the more I publish.

You can find a few of the previous posts in this series below.

Wise Healthy Wealthy

We find the balance between Health, Wealth, and Wisdom, then write about it

Garrett Petticrew

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I write for myself and everyone like me. The screw-ups tired of screwing up. Emails that help you thrive → http://bit.ly/whw-newsletter

Wise Healthy Wealthy

We find the balance between Health, Wealth, and Wisdom, then write about it

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