If you belong to my centavo-sized circle of friends, chances are you know or are at least familiar to my character; I am not the most tethered person out there. Rambunctious, weird, sometimes a pain-in-the-ass, but most often anxious. These traits have long since defined me, but lately, I’ve been having a slow-paced metanoia birthed from past deeds I now deem uncharacteristic. It all stemmed from my third encounter with stoicism, a philosophy I failed to live up to. Currently on my third and most successful run, this philosophy has helped me unlock certain traits I once thought were impossible for me to possess. The journey in becoming the person I aspire to be is still long, but allow me to share the richest fruit I picked from the tree of this ancient philosophy: tranquility.
Identify your anxiety.
The Daily Stoic beautifully portrays what anxiety is:
Terrifying as it may sound, anxiety almost always has a trigger. It could be anything like the obnoxious chewing sound your workmate omits while eating, a fork scratching a glass plate, or your love interest not replying to your message despite being online. Identifying the trigger is key to overcoming your anxieties, which sheds light on what remedy is useful for you. You need to know where the wound is to place a bandage.
Hobbies.
Is there something you’re good at? Practice it. Is there something you’ve been wanting to do but are too anxious to start? Do it. The only remedy to this anxiety is to act. Develop and perfect your hobbies because not only will these occupy your mind, leaving no room for anxiety, doing them grants us a sense of accomplishment that is oh so fulfilling. This article you currently read is the fruit of a hobby, one that helps give purpose to my life. Practicing a hobby may not be as world-changing as I make it seem, it will nevertheless fulfill you in one way or another. To each, his own.
Socialize.
Johnn Donne’s universally known prose “No Man Is an Island” still holds water today as it did during the 1600s, although with slight changes in context. Viewing it in the frame of tranquility, the phrase may offer us a remedy through socializing. Get out of the house. Hangout with friends. Catch up with old ones. Reignite an old flame. Go on a date with your lover. Spend time with your family. It is through socializing that we gain one of the most indispensable treasures in the world: friendship. Aristotle, the philosopher himself, recognized the value of friendship and whom I quote:
“In poverty as well as in other misfortunes, people suppose that friends are their only refuge. And friendship is a help to the young, in saving them from error, just as it is also to the old, with a view to the care they require and their diminished capacity for action stemming from their weakness; it is a help also to those in their prime in performing noble actions, for ‘two going together’ are better able to think and to act.”
The more we tend to the seeds of friendship we’ve sown and have been sown on by our friends, the greater will they bloom in time. And it is through socializing that we tend such seeds.
Similar to hobbies, socializing frees us from anxiety by occupying not just our minds this time, but with our entire being. We get to live beyondourselves.
Indifference.
It’s all right if the word gives off a negative vibe but indifference is a powerful tool ancient stoics such as Seneca the Younger, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius advocated and practiced. Being indifferent doesn’t mean being uncaring, rather, it emphasizes caring for people or things that truly matter like health, work, family, life, etc., and to pay no mind to trivial ones like fads, the newest gadgets, the latest celebrity divorcees, and the list goes on.
We become indifferent by understanding two things: what is in our control and what isn’t. Those outside our control make up most things like the people you ride with in the train, your workmates, the entire world, and even the universe itself. What remains in our grasp is our attitude or our way of approaching things and judging their worth in respect to ourselves. By understanding the value of indifference, we learn to worry less about the things we can’t control and cultivate those that are.
Amor Fati.
In a recent piece, I mentioned Amor Fati, or the love of fate, as a way of dealing with anxiety. And now I mention it again but this time as a way to attain a tranquil mind. Whether or not you agree with the idea of an almighty Deity Who weaves our fates, our attitude towards everything that happens in our lives remains the same: to treat such as opportunities for growth. And while it all may sound like lofty words coming from a place of privilege, wherever and whatever circumstances you face, in the end we face one truth alone: we must pay no mind, waste any time hoping (and later on, anguishing) we be spared from misfortunes that we forget the rain falls on everyone.
“A setback has often cleared the way for greater prosperity. Many things have fallen only to rise to more exalted heights.”
– Seneca, Letters from a Stoic
Jake's Little Void 