Keira McTernan – Associate Agony Aunt
After finding out the theme for the magazine; a timeless issue, I was twiddling my thumbs as to what to write. Usually, topics come to mind relatively swiftly but this one left me a little stumped. As a philosophy and sociology student, much of my writing comes from my experience and interest in this doctrine. Therefore, when thinking about a timeless, repeating topic within my studies, philosophy peered through, as it usually does. Philosophy being one of the oldest teachings should be a great line of discussion for this issue – hurray I finally stumbled across my theme for this article. But then there’s another problem: philosophy is a huge topic! How on earth am I supposed to pick one small, tiny aspect to discuss in the limited space I have? After a mental block, it became clear, of course, that the discussion should be on the one and only Stoic teachings! Stoicism has been an underlying topic in both my personal and academic life. Therefore, it seems a perfect fit to align the timeless issue with a timeless teaching.
The beauty, I find, with Stoicism is the adaptability to modern life despite its ancient origin, the teachings appear so simple as they have been integrated into a plethora of life and wellness teachings. For example, a core theme and backbone of Stoicism is the reminder that you are in control of very little in life, things that we think we can control we simply cannot. The parameters of our control often only stretch to our perceptions and reactions, this may come as an obvious thing to many people but this is because it came from the Stoics. I am sure you have heard countless times that you cannot control the weather, trains being cancelled or an angry customer, you can only control your reaction to the event. Of course, some of our reactions we cannot help such as stubbing your toe, it would be silly of me to preach that you should react in a calm manner after your toe has an unexpected hit, obviously, a primary reaction would be an *ouch* and some other phrases which I probably should not write down. However, after the initial, primary reaction has happened which usually lasts only a few seconds we can control how we view this situation. We can go around the whole day with a sad put-on limp and tell everyone the tragic story of the battle our toe experienced, or we can expect that it hurt for a few seconds or minutes and then get on with our day because in hindsight it really was not that bad. Admittedly the Stoics did not use stubbing your toe as an example as they frequently experienced much worse things in life however I am sure we have all experienced a toe subbing, maybe some more than others (if you are clumsy like myself). Nevertheless, it demonstrates what we can control, basically not a lot.
As I mentioned previously much of Stoic teachings is reiterated in motivational and self-help guides in modern society. Another key element in Stoicism in the reminder to stay present, again this may sound familiar. Many self-help guides to manage anxiety or depression or even sleep guides, frequently get you to focus on your surroundings and your breathing, encouraging you to only focus on the present. Much anxiety comes from the overthinking of the past or future, but the Stoics remind you that the only thing that you should concern yourself with is right now. These are only very few of the teachings of the Stoics and their examples are much better than my own, it is a vast topic and has help many people alter their outlook on life. Maybe you could try being a Stoic.
Image credit: Roman Empire Times via Unsplash