3 Stoic Ways Of Letting Go
Life can be extremely stressful at times. And this is basically because we’re holding on to illusions of control and because our minds are overthinking and ruminating all the time. In most cases, holding on to things is a waste of energy, and overdoing it causes a lot of mental and even physical pain.
Now, Stoic philosophy has several ideas that help with letting go, so in this video, I’ll present you 3 Stoic ways of letting go. Let’s start with the first one:
(1) Becoming aware of indifferents. In Stoic ethics, we can find a system of virtue, vice, and so-called indifferents. Now, what most people seem to hold on to are preferred indifferents. So much so, that these have become the center of their pursuit. Indifferents are basically anything that isn’t virtue or vice, which means that they don’t necessarily lead to misery but not to happiness either. Hence, the indifference associated with these things.
Among preferred indifferents are wealth, reputation, material possessions; basically the same things that Epictetus points out as not in our control. Now, the thing is that these are not only beyond our control: they don’t lead to lasting satisfaction even though the mind thinks so. Also, not having them will not obstruct our ability to be happy.
In regards to the ancient Stoic texts, Seneca has some wise words to say about this. “Whoever has largely surrendered himself to the power of Fortune has made for himself a huge web of disquietude, from which he cannot get free; if one would win a way to safety, there is but one road – to despise externals and to be contented with that which is honourable. For those who regard anything as better than virtue, or believe that there is any good except virtue, are spreading their arms to gather in that which Fortune tosses abroad, and are anxiously awaiting her favours.”
End quote. Now, this quote is from a letter to his friend Lucilius. In the same letter, he emphasizes that the mere grasping for externals will never get you the things that you’ve imagined to get in the first place. The joy of externals is always temporary. Moreover: greedy hands often end up with nothing but frustration.
So, if we know that, at the end of the day, preferred indifferents are simply overrated and that we can still be happy without them (or with just the basic necessities), we might stop chasing them so much. Or at least: loosen the grip and know that not having these things is not the end of the world. Isn’t that a calming thought?
(2) Remember impermanence. The world is completely out of control. Life comes, life goes. Empires rise, empires fall. And it’s just a matter of time until planet Earth vanishes because the Sun swallows it. The house we live in, the money we have in the bank, the people we love: it’s all going down anyway.
From this perspective, we may see that it’s kind of crazy to spend our lives attaching ourselves, sometimes painfully, to the world around us. The preferred indifferents that I previously talked about not only fail to give us lasting satisfaction: they do not last themselves either. This is yet another reason why it’s better to let go of them.
Emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius observed that change and flux constantly create and recreate the world. I quote: “We find ourselves in a river. Which of the things around us should we value when none of them can offer a firm foothold? Like an attachment to a sparrow: we glimpse it and it’s gone. And life itself: like the decoction of blood, the drawing in of air. We expel the power of breathing we drew in at birth (just yesterday or the day before), breathing it out like the air we exhale at each moment.”
End quote. So, we could propose ourselves the following lesson in the form of a question: why hold on tightly to things that are in constant flux?
(3) Residing in the present moment. The third way refers to the human obsession with what’s in the past and what’s yet to come. It’s understandable because the past is a source of life lessons and the future is something we might want to plan for.