The ancient Stoics are known as the ‘school of hardcore philosophy. Virtue’s that included courage, moderation, justice, and wisdom. It’s no wonder the roman empire thrived for over 1,000 years, demonstrating solid judgement, robustness, and warrior-like mentality.
I came across Three timeless principles provided by the stoics for handling the emotions better in everyday life. They include:
- Control what you can and leave the rest: The philosopher Epictetus used this concept to help his students manage stress, anxiety, and everyday temptations. You then assess your own emotions so that you respond better with a cooler head. This results in making better decisions, shrug off rejection and put the emotions at ease.
What you can control: your own; judgments, emotions, beliefs, happiness, peace of mind, creativity, attitude, perspective, expectations, desire, decision, determination, and your choices.
What you can’t control: outside events, other people’s; beliefs, emotions, judgements, opinions, approval, acceptance, natural disasters, Life’s coming events/challenges, society, likability.
- Take out the personal judgement – over 2,000 years ago, people used to take things personally in everyday life. We haven’t changed psychologically, and today we still take small matters personally with ourselves and other people. Example why has my boss stopped praising my efforts? Why does this always happen to me? Why did Salley ignore me all day? We are the centre of our universe, and there is a problem. Nature gave us an irrational mind. If not managed well makes us go ape shit crazy.
The solution, take out the personal narrative in the situation, and you will see things clearly. Being objective allows you to see things from a bird’s eye view to understand that the problem isn’t all that bad in the grand scheme of things.
- Value time – The book ‘On the Shortness of Life’ written by Seneca, states that society wastes a lot of time preoccupied with frivolous activity. Indulging in constant pleasure, seeking early retirement, and acquiring riches to make them happy. This only leads to boredom, stagnation and keeping the mind at continuous unease. Stoics believed that time was the most precious commodity as we never get it back. Time is the greatest asset. Therefore, time should be cherished and directed in places you love. From the people, you actually want to spend time with to the work you do, love it.
Emotional intellect is developed to understand the emotions better through awareness. Many methods such as CBT, hypnosis, and meditation help identify and manage emotions better.
Emotions are only manageable when you find solutions to everyday problems. What works for one person doesn’t work for everyone else. We all have different preferences, likes and dislikes.
So, find what works best for you.
Relationships
In relationships, neediness is the number one cause for an unstable emotional mind. This causes two types of people. Firstly, narcissistic behaviour makes one become self-absorbed and only care for their own needs.
The second, you are trying to become the fixer. You try to change the other person and solve their problems. They are referred to as the Florence Nightingale effect. That’s why some women like bad boys because there’s a mentality to try and fix them.
Good relationships are developed when each individual controls their own emotions, but support and encourages each other. Good values and metrics should be agreed to have harmony with healthy boundaries to support long term growth.
The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote decisions are balanced when combined with logical and emotional intuition. Decisions solely focused on logic would prevent us from being vulnerable, compassionate, empathic. However, following the emotions wholeheartedly with no reason makes us fall into an endless trap of pleasures, temptations, and mercurial.
Emotional intellect is perhaps the most fundamental skill required for social interaction, managing your own emotions and peace of mind. The emotions give us a tendency to feel like cloud nine when elated or drift on the other spectrum, by feeling like complete shit. If the Buddha were still alive today, he would encourage emotional intellect with the core ideology of moderation and compassion.