Stoicism: a practical introduction to an ancient philosophy

The school was founded in Athens around 300 BCE by Zeno of Citium, a merchant from Cyprus, who taught under a painted colonnade called the Stoa Poikile, which gave the school its name. It spread to Rome, where three writers in particular left works that are still read. Seneca, a statesman and tutor to the emperor Nero, wrote letters and essays on how to live. Epictetus, born a slave and later freed, taught in Rome and then in Greece, and his talks were written down by a student. Marcus Aurelius, emperor from 161 to 180 CE, kept a private notebook of reminders to himself, which we know as the Meditations.

The best known Stoic idea, sometimes called the dichotomy of control, is a division. Some things are up to us: our opinions, our desires, our choices and what we do. Other things are not: our bodies, our reputation, other people's actions, the weather, and what happens in the end. Peace of mind comes, Epictetus taught, from putting our effort into the first group and accepting the second group calmly.

This is not a counsel to give up. A student cannot control the result of an exam, but can control how well they prepare for it. The Stoic aim is to do the work as well as possible and to be at peace with what follows.

For the Stoics, the only thing that is truly good is a good character, and its four main parts are wisdom, justice, courage and temperance. Wealth, health, fame and comfort are preferable to their opposites, but they are not necessary for a good life, and they can be used badly. A person who has lost everything but keeps their integrity has lost nothing that matters most.

Stoics held that distressing emotions come not directly from events but from the judgements we form about them. Epictetus wrote that people are disturbed not by things but by their views about things. This does not mean feeling nothing. The Stoics distinguished between harmful passions, such as rage and panic, and the healthy feelings of a wise person, such as joy and goodwill. They aimed at the second kind, not at being a block of stone.

Stoicism comes with methods that anyone can try:

• Negative visualisation, which the Romans called premeditation of evils: picture what could go wrong, so that setbacks do not come as a shock and you value what you have.
• The view from above: imagine your problem as it would look from a great height, or a thousand years from now.
• The evening review: Seneca asked himself each night what he had done well, what badly, and what he could do better tomorrow.
• Pausing before reacting, to ask whether a first impression is accurate and whether the matter is up to you.

Critics say that Stoicism can encourage passivity in the face of injustice, or a cold attitude to feelings. Stoics replied that justice is a virtue and that serving others is a duty: Marcus Aurelius governed an empire. Another misunderstanding is to treat it as a technique for success. The Stoics cared about character first, and any success was incidental.

Its ideas found their way into modern psychology. The founders of cognitive behavioural therapy, Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck, both acknowledged the Stoics as an influence, and the practice of examining one's own judgements is central to the therapy. Many readers also notice similarities with the teaching on equanimity and action without attachment to results in Indian traditions such as the Bhagavad Gita, although the two have different roots and aims.

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