How do the Stoics find happiness?

Stoicism teaches a lot of things about happiness. In fact, the most common reason why people try Stoicism is to be happier. However, how can an ancient philosophy made 2,000 years ago be applicable in our modern world? So how do Stoics find happiness?

The Stoics find happiness by making them enjoy and be grateful for the things they have. This means living in the present moment, which reduces stress and empowers people to make them feel in control of their lives. Thus, Stoicism allows a person to change their source of happiness to the things they can control.

In this blog post, I am going to list the benefits of Stoicism in regards to happiness. Then, we will be talking about its key points that can help make us live a joyful life.

1. The Stoics Reduce their Sources of Stress

One of the key things you are going to learn about Stoicism is the dichotomy of control.

The dichotomy of control means that there are things you can’t and can control.

Stoicism teaches us that we should not mind things that are outside our control.

How this relates to stress is that the majority of our sources of stress are outside our control.

For example, our regrets in the past are outside our control. No matter what we do, we can’t change what has already happened.

Thus, because of the simple dichotomy of control, we can begin to only mind the things we have control over.

This also means we don’t need to be stressed about other people’s comments about us, especially on social media.

What people think of us is also outside our control. They have independent thinking, which is hard or close to impossible for us to change.

Because of this, Stoicism dramatically reduces our stress levels.

By following the dichotomy of control, we can start focusing on what matters.

We can take matters into our hands since we can now see which are the sources of happiness that we can influence.

Note: Some people think that Stoics aren’t happy because they look like people who repress emotions. However, this is far from the truth. I have another blog post talking about why Stoics tend to be happy despite their looks. You can find the blog post here: Can Stoics be Happy?

2. Stoicism Gives a New Perspective on Emotions

One thing Stoicism also teaches us is that emotions aren’t inherently bad.

Instead, what makes emotions good or bad is our perception.

Stoicism grants us the need to handle things from a logical perspective.

The Stoics believe that there is no such thing as a good or bad emotion. Instead, it is how we perceive it that makes it bad.

An example is feeling fear. You can see fear as a signal to run away since you felt fear.

However, running away from fear all the time can cause us not to achieve anything. This will ultimately lead to regrets.

Stoicism helps us understand that fear can be seen as a sign that we should prepare for something.

Fear could also mean that we lack the necessary skill to be successful. But that’s why we need to do our best.

By having a different perspective, we can start living freely. Instead of running away from our fears, we can now face them with courage.

Stoicism offers a lot of explanations for these emotions. However, feeling sad doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s bad.

Feeling sad can offer us some perspective on our current situation and what we can do to fix the problem.

3. Stoics Become More Resilient to Sadness

Resilience is our ability to cope up. It is staying strong despite the things life throws at us.

What I like about Stoicism is its focus on making us resilient.

Instead of blaming the things we can’t control, we start to not care for what we have no power over.

This makes us feel free, feel less stressed, and feel empowered.

The dichotomy of control is being used for resilience. Instead of stressing over the things we can’t change, Stoicism helps us accept reality.

Furthermore, life is unpredictable. No matter how careful we are, we make mistakes.

Often, these mistakes lead to regrets.

Stoicism, on the other hand, accepts the unpredictability of life. So instead of stressing and questioning why things happen to us, we can accept the hard truth and be grateful for the things we have.

4. Stoicism Helps Us Live in the Present Moment

We always hear about living in the present moment, but most don’t see how it helps in happiness.

Living in the present moment prevents us from living according to past regrets and not enjoying what we currently have.

What I mean by not enjoying what we currently have is that living only in the future causes us not to see the good things we have.

There should be a balance. While we should also look into the past and the future, we shouldn’t focus on them when it comes to happiness.

Stoicism gives us that balance. It helps us live in the present while also thinking of our past and future.

To Stoics, we should think of our past to learn from them. This is especially true on dealing with regrets. We should learn from our past mistakes to prevent making the same mistakes in the future.

In the future, we need to make sure that our present actions and inlined with our future dreams.

Stoicism gives this balance. Putting more emphasis on the past or the future can harm our happiness, while focusing too much on the present can cause us to achieve nothing.

Stoicism also helps us stay in the present with the help of journaling. Most Stoics do journaling to clear their heads and to appreciate what they currently have.

With journaling, a Stoic can start seeing things they take for granted, such as a loving family, having enough money to get their needs, a healthy body, and many more.

Appreciating these little things causes us to be grateful and satisfied with our lives.

5. Stoicism Helps Us Understand Ourselves Even More

Stoicism helps us understand ourselves even more. We can do this through journaling.

Stoicism talks a lot about journaling your life and how it can help us understand ourselves better.

In fact, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, which scholars use to learn about ancient Stoicism, is not a book about Stoicism.

Instead, it is a journal. It is Marcus Aurelius’ diary talking about his deep thoughts.

What’s written in the book is his insights about life, combined with his view of Stoicism.

My point here is that journaling has been a part of Stoicism since old times, and it isn’t a wonder why since it can provide a better sense of wellbeing.

By journaling, we can understand ourselves better.

We can start writing about the things we should be grateful for, what we need to do to reach our goals, and writing our deep thoughts.

By doing so, we can start to live according to our source of happiness. Whether it is music, writing, sports, or whatever it is, we can start finding these out with journaling.

By knowing your real goals, you can start living according to the life you want.

You can start waking up every day with a light in your eyes since it is another day to take some steps to reach your goals.

If you’re interested in how I do journaling, you can see my other blog post teaching how to do it. Furthermore, I have a video guide in case you need it. I would also like to note that you don’t have to be a Stoic to try journaling. Here is the link: How to reflect on your day

6. Stoicism Helps Us Accept The Reality of Life

No matter what it is, Stoicism teaches us that life can throw random events at us. Some of which can be prevented, while others aren’t.

Life is unpredictable. No matter what we do, there will always be things we don’t expect to happen.

That’s why a Stoic, following the dichotomy of control, learns how to accept reality no matter how hard it is.

Doing this makes us resilient and strong.

By becoming strong, we can become happy despite the inconsistencies of life.

Sometimes, all we need to do is to accept the reality no matter how hard it is. That way, we can feel free and enjoy life no matter our situation.

7. Stoicism Helps Us Live According to Our Virtues

Stoicism helps us live according to our virtues.

Living according to our virtues causes us to live with our clean conscience, which makes us happier.

It is hard to battle with our conscience. Our conscience tells us if we did good or bad.

If we did good, we felt good. If we did something terrible, then we feel bad.

According to the Stoics, living happily is about doing good, which makes us feel happy because of our conscience.

By making conscience our source of happiness, we can have control over our happiness.

8. Stoicism Changes Our Source of Happiness

Stoicism changes our source of happiness.

As I’ve said earlier, Stoicism helps us reduce our stress by focusing on what matters.

This is true about social media where we can’t control what people would say to us.

This made Stoicism timely. In fact, Stoicism became famous because it is very timely to our generation where we can read comments from random people.

You see, we can’t satisfy everyone. However, this is what social media does to us. We tend to do whatever it takes to get those likes.

That’s why some people see getting likes as their source of happiness which makes things even worse.

This comes to the point where they try to make themselves look good, faking trips, buying expensive clothes, and many more.

In the end, it can harm them since it can become an endless spiral where they’re all searching for ways to get more likes.

How many people have broken their finances because of trying to keep their clothes on-trend? How many people broke their faces because of putting in too many products?

Here, I gave an example of how focusing on the things we can’t control can become an unending spiral.

That’s why Stoicism is very relevant to us. The truth is it is a philosophy that became famous because of the internet and its timeliness.

Stoicism started with a mere 800 members in 2012 and it now has half a million online followers.

If you want to see the growth of Stoicism, you may see my research on the topic here: Why did Stoicism become so popular?

The timeliness of Stoicism and how it helped us cope up with our fast-changing environment made people happier.

Generally speaking, Stoicism makes us more satisfied by changing our source of happiness back to what it should be.

Instead of relying on material objects to make us happy, Stoicism makes us put our source of happiness back to our morality and virtues which are things we have control over.

9. Stoicism Helps Us Focus on the Important Things

Stoicism helps us focus on the important things in life.

Rather than focusing on the results of our work which we can’t control, we focus on the process in which we should do our best.

Please take note that the results of our work can change based on what happens around us. So, what we can only do is to do our best.

If we do our best, doing our best makes us satisfied. I can’t remember how many times I’ve been happy when in the zone.

Refocusing on the things we can control makes us happier with Stoicism.

Another example is rather than focusing on others’ comments on us, we focus on living our lives without thinking of other people’s comments.

It is impossible to satisfy everyone around us. No matter what we do, there will be comments on our degree, job, and looks.

In fact, when it comes to looks, we can see how people are being stressed out by social media where they compare their lives to others.

Also, we can see that random people can comment on our posts.

Stoicism helps us refocus on the things we can control. Instead of relying on other people for our joy, we rely on ourselves which makes us feel empowered.

Instead of focusing on focusing on what our loved ones will give us, we give love unconditionally without expecting some returns.

The combination of simplicity and new perspective in life which is given in this blog post makes a person who tries Stoicism find happiness.

What’s next? If you’re interested in Stoicism and happiness, how about knowing about how Stoics deal with regret? You can find my other blog post talking about the topic here: How do Stoics deal with regret?

Frequently Asked Questions

Do Stoics experience joy? The Stoics experience joy and happiness because Stoicism is a philosophy that helps reduce our sources of strength and refocus our attention to the things that give us satisfaction. Furthermore, the Stoics are good at accepting reality as it is making them see more things to be grateful for than others.

How do Stoics deal with emotions? The Stoics deal with emotions by following a three-step process which is accepting, examining, and doing. They first accept emotions as they’re a part of life. Next, they examine these emotions if it’s within their control or not. Lastly, they react to these emotions according to the Stoic virtues.

For more information regarding Stoicism and emotions, you may visit this blog post: Do Stoics Feel Emotion?

Do Stoics feel love? Stoics feel love because love is a feeling that is universal. Everyone feels love and Stoics accept love as an emotion. In fact, Stoics are taught to always give love to others, especially in the present moment because of the impermanence of things.

For more information on Stoicism and Love, feel free to visit this blog post: Do Stoics Feel Love?

Do Stoics repress emotion? The Stoics don’t repress emotions. In fact, they are taught to accept emotions as it is. What makes Stoics different is that they know how to react appropriately to these emotions making them more resilient and logical when it comes to handling these emotions.