It isn’t the events themselves that disturb people but only their judgments about them
-Epictetus, Enchiridion, 5
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 8, Verse 47
I have not written in several weeks for two reasons. The first is, in its essence, an excuse. I have been relatively busy. Between Jiu Jitsu, almost every day, studying to take a GRE, and all the other facets of life, I have not really been able to make time to reflect on my journey in Stoicism. One could argue that it is this lack of reflecting, and of daily practice that has caused the second reason for my absence. The truth is, that over the last few weeks I have been a pretty rotten Stoic.
As I have said before, the object of Stoicism is not to excoriate oneself for failings. On the contrary, we should always learn from our mistakes but to attach negative emotions to those failing is diametrically opposed to the Stoic ideal. So my intention with the particular post is not to sound like I am upbraiding myself, but instead to use my mistakes to illuminate the path of the Sage.
The first example of precisely what a Stoic should not do came two weeks ago. I found out that I was going to be leading a program for a week. To be perfectly frank, I had no desire to do this. I knew, and still know, that it will be a lot of work. Furthermore, it requires me to work nights for a week, and the entire program will have an immense amount of visibility from all levels of my leadership. Speaking in as realistic of terms as I can, it was a situation with a high cost and little reward.
Even describing the situation here makes me realize one thing right away… it was not that bad. A pain in my ass, sure, but it was little more than that. However, had anyone been in my head as I received my tasking, it would not have seemed that way. My predilection for histrionics was already getting the better of me.
Had internal frustration been the end of it, I would not really have felt the need to write about it. True, the Sage is able to control her emotions to the point where negative ones like frustration and anger hardly register. The rest of us mere mortals, however, have to “act as if.” Act as if we are not angry, or hurt, or scared. Meanwhile, we do the best we can to reflect on our perceptions of the thing that made us feel this way and try to improve. But, while all of that may be an internal (or in my case, blog-based) dialogue, externally, our Stoic calm remains.
I did not do this. Though I did not lose my temper or get emotional, I complained. I did so with gusto and temerity. Looking back, once I started, it was like the flood-gates had opened, and it was all I could think to do. The interesting thing was that it made me feel better… for a short time. Like any drug, it made me feel good at the moment, and then left me feeling worse than I would have felt had I never imbibed in the tonic of the gripe.
The whole thing really hit home when one of the people to whom I was complaining said: “Dude, please stop complaining, Ryan.” This resonated with me for two reasons. First, there was no sarcasm or hyperbole in the statement. Second, and far more dramatic, in my entire military career, no one has ever said that to me. I had this idea in my head that my gripes were funny, and sarcastic, and could never be mistaken for real frustration. This was both arrogance and ignorance. They were not only obvious attempts to use humor to cover genuine aggravation, but they were annoying. At last, I shut the hell up and realized with embarrassment that I had failed as a Stoic.
Not only did my complaining alienate those around me, but it helped no one. Also, once I ceased my irrelevant protests and got on board, I realized it had redeeming qualities. Not only was it tolerable, but upon further investigation, it became clear that it was actually a pretty good idea. I violated my own Stoic calm, my tranquility, for something that was not that bad.
Which brings us back around to today’s quote. It was not this task about which I was complaining. Not the thing, but rather my PERCEPTION of the thing. It was not a difficult or bad thing that had happened to me. We have all faced far worse for far longer. For whatever reason, I warped my perception in such a way that I chose to whine like a child. As Marcus Aurelius says, it is not the thing, but our estimation of it.