How I Discovered Stoicism
By: Ted Millar
Tags: Stoicism, Homeownership, Philosophy, Personal Development

Image: Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism, in the Farnese collection, Naples – Photo by Paolo Monti, 1969 (via Wikipedia)

This afternoon, the time I was enjoying outside in the snow with my ten-year-old son was interrupted when I looked up and noticed icicles protruding from the house’s soffit vents.

“Uh oh,” I thought. “That’s not good.”

But that was my only reaction.

I didn’t launch into a tirade of profanity and curse the gods for raining down such misfortune upon me.

I didn’t rush in for my phone for a quick YouTube search about what was going on that would have inevitably made me feel even worse.

I didn’t immediately call everyone I know with any construction expertise for emergency advice about the crisis that had to be addressed at that very moment.

After we finished trudging through the snowy woods behind our house, my son and I came in, changed our clothes, and I proceeded to the attic with a flashlight to get to the bottom of it.

Yup.

The plywood was wet.

Ice — probably from snow packed into the gutters —backed up into the soffit gap.

There was a time when that would have been it for me.

I would have obsessed over homeownership’s tribulations, cursed its indefatigable penchant for frustration and personal expense.

Instead I mused once again on the stoic tenet that has become a mantra for me the past year: “You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”

That line from Roman Emperor/stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations has been my north star since seriously beginning my study of stoic philosophy earlier this year, around the time the COVID-19 pandemic came to re-prioritize our existences.

At its core, stoicism promotes four basic pillars: wisdom, justice, temperance, and courage.

It’s an ancient belief in dealing with reality through personal action so we can achieve the most enlightened, benevolent, circumspect aspects of our personalities.

No matter how harsh, unpredictable, or seemingly unfair something is, a stoic always reminds him or herself the only thing we can control is how we respond to events, not the events themselves.

We must embrace outcomes — “amor fati” —if we are to see them for what they are.

In March, just as everything was shutting down due to the pandemic’s spread, I found myself overwhelmed with waves of depression.

I felt guilty because I assumed I was simply being selfish.

I hadn’t lost my job as a high school teacher, even though my instruction had been relegated to Google Meet and Classroom.

I felt I had no right to despair because my wife and kids were healthy, as were my parents, my brother, and I.

As millions were suddenly forced to confront unemployment, evictions, illness and bankruptcy, nothing in my life fundamentally changed.

Yet the emergency’s uncertainty triggered anxiety with which I always battled.

I worried — as I always do — about society in general.

I am not a selfish person by nature, and I wanted to rescue everyone.

Yet I was powerless.

Then I stumbled upon some podcasts and websites about these ancient Roman philosophers Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and, my favorite, Seneca.

I tore through Seneca’s Letters to a Stoic.

Ditto Epictetus’ Enchiridion.

And, of course, Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations.

The “big three”.

Something happened almost immediately.

The anxiety, the looming depression I referred to as “the switch”, melted away.

I couldn’t control the pandemic and its devastation, but I could do some things to help assuage its destruction.

I heard about a local man partnering with a county initiative to help feed shut-ins.

I contacted him.

The local food panty at which I volunteered the past five years needed drivers to distribute food to those unable to travel to the site, which was exploding with patrons.

I stepped up.

There is not a single day that passes I fail to remind myself of how it is within my power to act on events utterly out of my control.

Epictetus, a crippled former slave, advised, “Do not seek for things to happen the way you want them to; rather, wish that what happens happen the way it happens: then you will be happy.”

He also said, “It is not things that worry us, but our judgements about things.”

Those icicles dripping down from my soffit?

Yeah, they’re a problem.

But I didn’t create them, and I won’t allow them to “harm me”, as Marcus Aurelius wrote.

I just left a message for a contractor friend of mine and calmly explained the problem.

He hasn’t gotten back to me yet.

But he will.

In the meantime, I can control the time with my son and 12-year-old daughter and some of the other things around this old claptrap needing attention.

Being a stoic is just a matter of recognizing our priorities.

And not letting any externalities distract us from the bigger picture.