心靈雞湯: 斯多噶學派的哲學要我們如何融世?

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https://www.bbc.com/future/artic ... out-uncertain-times

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This idea is one of the pillars of the philosophical school known as Stoicism, founded by the philosopher Zeno in Athens during the upheaval, crises and violence of 4th Century BC. It's also one of many teachings from the school that we can still learn from – which may be why we see its echoes in so much psychology, self-help literature and even religion today.

Whether it's war or a pandemic, our health or finances, no matter how challenging our lives might feel, the Stoics tell us, we still can thrive. They should know: Stoicism was a school that was "built for hard times", writes Kare Anderson, seeking to give people a guide to the good life even when the world around them was unpredictable and troubled. Here are some of the main takeaways the Stoics can offer for uncertain times:

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Plan for the future, yes, but don't get stuck there. Be confident in your own ability to meet any circumstance thrown at you – the same way you always have. "Do not let the future trouble you. You will come to it, if that is what you must, possessed of the same reason that you apply now to the present," wrote Marcus Aurelius.

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According to the Stoics, these kinds of blinkers set us up for huge disappointment. By running through the worst potential outcomes, we feel more emotionally prepared to meet them when they arrive. Of course, we're likely to then prepare practically, too – likely to make things a little easier if disaster does indeed occur. An exercise still adopted in board offices and government buildings around the world today, it's often called a "premortem".

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And yet many people refuse to think about, or plan for, such outcomes. "A great number of people plan a sea voyage with no thought of a storm," he wrote. "It is too late for the mind to equip itself to endure dangers once they are already there. 'I didn't think it would happen' and 'Would you ever have believed it would turn out so?' Why ever not? Know, then, that every condition can change, and whatever happens to anyone can happen to you too."

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Then there's the unpredictability of how everything may turn out: we need to remember that even the worst circumstances, Seneca and other Stoics believed, may somehow be good for us in the end.

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Such challenges also allow us to better understand life in general. "To be lucky all the time and to go through life without mental distress is to remain ignorant of half of the natural world," Seneca wrote.

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Not only is it possible to remain calm in the face of a dire situation, but those challenges are exactly how we learn to be calm, so much so that they should be welcomed – an idea that lives on in the modern-day aphorism "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger".

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In particular, the Stoics recommended meeting every challenge with justice, self-control, and reason. While they understood that these were natural human emotions that were likely to arise, they had little time for "passions" like anger or grief, seeing these as signs of getting too attached to an outcome out of your control.

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And yet Epictetus had everything he needed. After all, he said – according, at least, to a student who painstakingly wrote down his teachings – that "it is not events that disturb people, it is their judgments concerning them".