The Scipionic Circle 84: Overcoming Worry and Anxiety, Navigating Conflicts, and The Incremental Path to Virtue
The Scipionic Circle 84: Overcoming Worry and Anxiety, Navigating Conflicts, and The Incremental Path to Virtue
"It's beautiful to be alone. To be alone does not mean to be lonely. It means the mind is not influenced and contaminated by society."
Hello, friend.
Welcome to another issue of The Scipionic Circle — I hope you find something of value.
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Food for Thought
I. Stoicism in Daily Practice: The Incremental Path to Virtue
"Roman Stoicism is a kind of path that focuses on making small, incremental amounts of progress each day, one step at a time. No one is perfect, and that’s why Stoicism, at least in part, is a practice: and it’s not just a practice that you undertake, but something that you practice at—in the same way a musician or an athlete practices—to get better at what you do.
"Every day new situations arise that test our characters in small or significant ways, giving us ongoing opportunities to be mindful, virtuous, and to make the best (or wisest) judgments possible.
"The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius highlights the fact that Stoicism is a daily, incremental practice. Over the course of many days, Marcus reflected in his private journal on how to live a better life. By writing these notes to himself, he rehearsed his Stoic beliefs and reflected on how he could apply them in his life. That’s also one of the reasons Seneca wrote his philosophy in letters. Each day brings a new opportunity for self-reflection and progress, and a series of letters is itself ‘a work in progress’—just as developing one’s character is a work in progress, too.
"Other Stoic exercises show progress to be incremental, like the daily review of one’s activities before bedtime, which was practiced by Seneca and other philosophers. In this exercise, Stoics would examine the mistakes they made during the day and consider how to act better in the future. As Seneca explains, after his wife has fallen asleep, 'I carefully examine my entire day and review my deeds and words. I don’t hide anything from myself, and overlook nothing. For why should I fear anything from my errors, when I’m able to say: ‘Make sure you don’t do that any longer, and now I forgive you.’?'
“In the various forms of this simple practice, one asked several questions:
“Where did I go wrong?
What did I do right?
What did I leave undone?
What could I do better in the future?" — From Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living by David Fideler.
II. Embracing the Third Story: Navigating Conflict Through Objective Empathy
"In any conflict between two people, there are two sides of the story. Then there is the third story, the story that a third, impartial observer would recount. Forcing yourself to think as an impartial observer can help you in any conflict situation, including difficult business negotiations and personal disagreements.
"The third story helps you see the situation for what it really is. But how do you open yourself up to it? Imagine a complete recording of the situation, and then try to think about what an outside audience would say was happening if they watched or listened to the recording. What story would they tell? How much would they agree with your story? Authors Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen explore this model in detail in their book Difficult Conversations: 'The key is learning to describe the gap—or difference—between your story and the other person’s story. Whatever else you may think and feel, you can at least agree that you and the other person see things differently.'
"If you can coherently articulate other points of view, even those directly in conflict with your own, then you will be less likely to make biased or incorrect judgments. You will dramatically increase your empathy—your understanding of other people’s frames of reference—whether or not you agree. Additionally, if you acknowledge the perspective of the third story within difficult conversations, it can have a disarming effect, causing others involved to act less defensively. That’s because you are signaling your willingness and ability to consider an objective point of view. Doing so encourages others involved to do the same." — From Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models by Gabriel Weinberg and Lauren McCann.
III. Mastering the Mind: How to Overcome Worry and Anxiety
"For Seneca, being able to plan for the future is one of the most amazing gifts that human beings possess. The ability to plan ahead, and to create many things of value, depends upon foresight, which is our inner way of imagining the future.
"But while Seneca likens foresight to 'a divine gift,' there is nothing worse than worrying about the future (or what could happen), which, for most people, is the leading cause of psychological anxiety. And when people worry like this, it’s because they have taken 'foresight, the blessing of the human race,' and turned it into a source of anxiety.
"Throughout his writings, Seneca explores precisely how worry and anxiety arise, and how to eliminate these kinds of worries, or at least how to address them and reduce them significantly. He even describes specific exercises his readers can use to overcome their worries, fears, and anxiety.
"Seneca explains that two major fears everyone needs to work on overcoming are the fear of death and the fear of poverty (or the desire for wealth).
"The first teaching of Stoicism is pure common sense: some things are 'up to us' or fully within our control, while other things are beyond our control. So far, no one could possibly argue with that. The way the Stoics extend this idea, though, takes more effort to explain.
"The next step, according to the Stoics, is to understand that all of the external things beyond our control that happen to us are not truly 'bad,' because all such things are just indifferent facts of nature. But they become 'bad' based on the mental judgments we make about them, which then create emotional reactions. In fact, nearly all negative emotions originate from judgments or opinions. Today, psychologists call this the cognitive theory of emotion, which the ancient Stoics originated.
"This is one belief that every single Stoic philosopher shared, and Marcus Aurelius expressed it this way: 'Get rid of the judgment, ‘I’ve been harmed,’ and the feeling of being harmed vanishes. Get rid of the ‘I’ve been harmed,’ and you’re free of the harm itself.'
"Another way of stating this central idea is that while we don’t have control over the external things that happen to us, we do have control over how we respond to them. For example, you can probably remember some rainy day when you were walking down a busy road and a passing car roared through a deep puddle and splashed you. While the splash was unavoidable, how you responded to it mentally was your choice. On the one hand, you could have simply thought, 'Oh, I just got splashed.' On the other hand, you could have screamed out, 'You ruined my entire day!' Of course, that outburst would have been followed by feelings of rage and fantasies about how you could seek revenge on the driver.
"For the Stoics, the first thought, 'I just got splashed,' is an objective mental observation about something beyond our control. But the second thought, 'You ruined my entire day,' is a judgment or belief that creates anger and emotional suffering.
"When we feel upset, we usually think that we are reacting to outer things in the world, but we are actually reacting to things in ourselves: our inner judgments, beliefs, or opinions. And we react emotionally because of the internal judgments we are constantly making. For Seneca and the other Stoics, rather than being irritated by things in the outer world that might be perfectly normal and expected—like getting splashed, or the bad behaviors of other people—it’s better to look at the inner judgments that cause us to feel so upset. In that way, we can learn to live a more tranquil life." — From Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living by David Fideler.
Quotes to Ponder
I. Søren Kierkegaard on the struggle of self-recognition:
“The most common form of despair is not being who you are.”
II. Jiddu Krishnamurti on finding solace in solitude:
"It's beautiful to be alone. To be alone does not mean to be lonely. It means the mind is not influenced and contaminated by society."
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Thank you for reading,
Matthew Vere