The most important thing is to know what your true goods are, mainly, your virtues, and what your true bads are, mainly, your vices, and know that everything else is indifferent, or at least should be to you.
This is easier said than done. I know I am confusing my goods, bads, and indifferents, whenever I get stressed at my job or with life in general and begin to make petty choices, such as working lazily or desperately trying to avoid my responsibilities, responsibilities that aren’t going away unless I face them.
I often find myself thinking “If only this or that was different, I would finally be able to achieve some peace of mind”. But the peace of mind will never come this way, it will never come by trying to change what is not under your control. This is why the Stoics claim that we are mad and irrational, by constantly trying to force the impossible to happen.
Death, job, money, relationships, and everything in between should be indifferent to us. We prefer to have money, not die just now, and to have a good job with good pay, of course, but nevertheless, they should remain indifferents to us. Anything can happen, and you can lose them, therefore, they are not under your complete control, influenceable, yes, but not complete.
What is under your control are your virtues (your goods). You can always choose to be great. If you have a boring job to do, you can practice endurance and perseverance in it, while at the same time searching for more exciting opportunities within that job or another one.
If your relationships are not working, why do you put all the blame on the relationship? Are you a rock perhaps? Incapable of providing what the relationship needs? Or finishing it if it needs to be finished?
I’ve noticed that I can always ask myself the question “Is this thing I’m dealing with unbearable? But then why am I here, bearing it?”. You realize then that pain is objective, but that suffering comes by choice and is very subjective.
The Spartan kids preferred to die by the whip than to show tears running down their cheeks. We treat pain according to our beliefs about it, be it physical, spiritual, or mental.
The good and the bad, are not outside, but inside of us, in our choices. When you decide to work with laziness, you are sinning, against yourself, because you had the choice to work with steadfastness, but did not.
When you work in a hurry, you are again sinning, because although it feels that the world is on your shoulders to be fast, there is only so much you can do. “Eigenzeit” is the word that the Germans use to describe “the time it takes to do anything”, it would be better if you decide to work with poise and control.
And so it goes, do not look outside for the good and the bad, the devil isn’t out there, he is always with you, lurking within to make the weak choice, the petty choice, you make your own evils.
Know this, and you’ll finally begin to practice Stoicism.
Thanks for reading,
Ricardo Guaderrama