and pretend that bad things don’t happen but rather to embrace it and even to use it
as a tool. Hope, according to the stoics, is the enemy, precisely because it means
we’re unprepared for things going wrong and we’re likely to be disappointed.
Instead, stoicism advocates the notion of gritty realism – of recognizing the negative
aspects of life and accepting that a lot of what happens is out of our control and is
probably not going to be very pleasant!
Using Stoicism in Your Own Life
This might not sound like a particularly
helpful stance to take on things, but then
that’s because most of us are highly trained
into only accepting positive viewpoints. This
is the general conceit of countless self-help
books and even Hollywood films. Dream big
and you can get what you want! In fact, it’s
pretty much the driving force behind
capitalism.
But the Stoics take the opposite approach.
They prepare for the storm. They learn to
enjoy life even when things aren’t going
their way and they recognize hardship as
challenge and an opportunity for growth.
When you go through life feeling entitled to everything going your way, how can you
expected to be happy? And how can you be expected to face challenges that are
genuinely difficult?
So how does rejecting this incessant positivity help? How do you practically apply
stoicism in your own life?
Negative Visualization