Life is unfair, hard and demanding. It will test you where you are the weakest and least prepared. There is no curriculum, no preparation, no subject by subject exam only uncertain, sudden and unsettling series of tests. Feeling stress under such pressure is natural but dealing with it is not. We need to prepare ourselves and arm ourselves against the enemy like stress.
We came to Earth with no experience certificate and no prior knowledge about how to live a perfect life. It means we need to learn on the go. It means we will make mistakes. It means we are imperfect. It means it is ok to feel clueless. That is what I was feeling few years ago when I completed my formal education. But God bless my teachers, mentors and coaches who tell me that there are better ways to deal with life’s challenges than stress. They told me “It’s ok to be clueless.” Take your time and figure out things.
I learned a lot about stress over the years but few years back I came across Stoicism. Again, Thanks to one of my mentors Ryan Holiday. His books like Obstacle is the Way and The Daily Stoic puts me on the path or philosophy and then I never see back. Stoicism was a school of philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early third century BC. Its name is derived from the Greek stoa, meaning porch, because that’s where Zeno first taught his students. Basically it is about using virtues like self-control, courage, justice and wisdom to master the art of living.
In today’s age, when even mere survival becomes a lifelong battle, daily stress becomes new normal. We are attacked by stresses and anxieties from every angle of our life. Financial issues to health challenges to relationship troubles, we spend our life like an exhausting warrior. But it shouldn’t be that way.
Here are 8 lessons I learned from Stoicism and using it as daily reminders to deal with stress and to implant peace and serenity in my life:
Strategy # 1: Surrender
“Keep this thought at the ready at daybreak, and through the day and night – there is only one path to happiness, and that is in giving up all outside of your sphere of choice, regarding nothing else as your possession, surrendering all else to God and Fortune.”
– Epictetus, Discourses, 4.4.39
Stress feels like a fight. It feels like a battle against the enemy we can’t even see. It really is tiring. It feels like walking uphill with lots of baggage on the shoulders.
Most of us make mistakes by dealing with stress through deciding to fight back against it. We keep on fighting battle after battle until we lose grip on our life exhausted, and lost. Fights against stress must not be planned this way. It should go in a totally opposite way.
Surrender will be the last word come to mind when it comes to think about dealing with stress. Surrender feels like a weakness. Surrender sounds like an insult. Surrender means like quitting.
But it is not. It feels like a weakness because of superficial image we are trying to maintain in our society. It sounds like an insult because our heads are messed up with ego. It means like quitting because of our lack of understanding about long-term success.
Surrender is peace. As Muslims, we should pick surrender as our first option against daily stress because that is what “Islam” is all about. It is about submission in front of Allah Almighty. Surrendering to Allah means only taking care of what we can control and try not to be in control of everything.
Stress begins when we start trying to figure out things we don’t have any idea about. We try to predict future, we try to take credit of our success, we try to understand others through their behavior and we try to portray our life on standards made by unknown authorities we even don’t know about.
Currently, if you are battling against daily stress then surrender. Just give control away for time being. Taking step back and letting things happen is not a weakness but a move in strategy. It means you need rest and perspective. It means you believe there is greater force than you. It means trusting that you can come back again after sometime with better preparation.
In morning, think about what choices you are going to make today. In afternoon, think about what is not in your control and stop trying to pursue it. In evening, spend time on meditating the fact that your Fortune is not totally depended on your actions but there is a larger plan working out. At night, lying on bed and surrendering to the fact that you make your best efforts today and you can start the cycle tomorrow once again.
Strategy # 2: Reflect
“I will keep constant watch over myself and – most usefully – will put each day up for review. For this is what makes us evil – that none of us looks back upon our own lives. We reflect upon only that which we are about to do. And yet our plans for the future descend from the past.” – Seneca, Moral Letters, 83.2
What to do when you surrender? Reflect. Just look at how things are unfolding. Find out patterns and hidden connections. Just keep constant watch, as said by Seneca, over yourself. Review your actions.
Why taking stress on what is going on when you can learn from it. Why becoming so anxious when you can learn the hidden wisdom by just realizing that it is a message, if properly decoded, can give you required insight to take yourself to next level of life.
“Pain + Reflection = Progress” as said by billionaire hedge fund manager Ray Dalio in his book “Principles”. You need to reflect on your pains to gain progress. You need to figure out the causes and you need to figure out the process and you need to figure out the pattern and you need to figure out the solution. You need to think about pain like a surgeon. You need to put your pain into deep observation where you test it from multiple angles and then dissect it with precision to reach to the root cause of problem and to solve it.
Isn’t it better and exciting work than taking immense daily stress?
Why you want to spend your days in stress when you can make things happen by first surrendering and then reflecting on what is in your control.
Keep your own journal. Figure out what contribute to your happiness. Reflect on lessons you learn over the years. Assess what is distracting you the most. Review what needs to be done and how you will going to approach it. Aren’t these better questions to think about than taking stress?
Strategy # 3: Cooperate
“When you first rise in the morning tell yourself: I Will encounter busybodies, ingrates, egomaniacs, liars, the jealous and cranks. They are all stricken with these afflictions because they don’t know the difference between good and evil. Because I have understood the beauty of good and the ugliness of evil, I know that these wrong-doers are still akin to me … and that none can do me harm, or implicate me in ugliness – nor can I be angry at my relatives or hate them. For we are made for cooperation.”
– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 2.1
Life is not a solo show on an island. It is an orchestra in front of packed stadium. There is no such thing as self-made man. We all are standing on the shoulders of giants. You cannot get what you want without being helping others what they want. You need to cooperate.
One key root cause of stress is try to figure out all by yourself and think that everybody else is evil. Instead, you need to remind yourself daily that yes, you will encounter selfish and jealous and greedy people everyday but you need all of them to secure your place in big leagues.
Why taking stress on harsh comment of a teacher or why spending whole day in misery because of insulting behavior of boss or why cursing yourself when your loved one don’t treat you as you was expecting to be treated or why feeling frustrated when nobody understand your point of view. Remember, stress is not a way out, cooperation is. Cooperate.
You need to work with them. You need all these people to reach your next level. You need to cooperate no matter how you are currently feeling. Stress will vanish once you understand this basic requirement of success that team work makes dream work.
Remember, nobody is perfect. Cooperation doesn’t means you gather fools around you. It means to gather as many different perspectives around you as you can. Stress happens when we find ourselves blocked into a single view of things. Stress vanish when we figure out so many views by seeing through other people’s lens. So many times our ego stop us to connect with others and put a seed in our mind that we can do anything alone. Yes you can do anything but not everything. As sixteenth century Florentine statesman Niccolo Machiavelli said, “The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.” To become a great leader you need to get rid of your ego and insecurity and start building a community around you.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”, well mentioned in an African Proverb. It is much easier option to follow what’s inside your head and thinking yourself as a man with billion dollars breakthrough ideas but is this a right approach? Building teams, managing day-to-day conflicts, creating communities, establishing solid cultures, sharing and remixing best ideas, looking for healthy criticism and competition is tough but remember, only the greats have courage to walk the tough paths to pursue greatness.
Start cooperating today.
Strategy # 4: Seize
“Let us therefore set out whole-heartedly, leaving aside our many distractions and exert ourselves in this single purpose, before we realize too late the swift and unstoppable flight of time and are left behind. As each day arises, welcome it as the very best day of all, and make it your own possession. We must seize what flees.”
– Seneca, Moral Letters, 108.27b – 28a
Our days on this beautiful planet is already numbered and time is running out fast. It is by no measure a wise way to live life by spending it on distractions and doing many things but accomplishing nothing. Spending our most precious resource – time – on something like stress is not a great way to honor this blessing given to us by God.
Seizing the day is one way to take your days to next level and control your stress. When you start honoring your time and you understand the fact that today is not just another day but the only day you will stop taking stress on petty things. Even big problems start making sense when you realize that it is in your control to make best of your time.
We all face phases in life when it seems that nothing is going our way. We face disease or financial loss or peer pressure. In these moments of harshness, life give us chance to grow. It is up to us that we use the chance or waste it by answering it just through taking stress.
Stress will never make your situation better. Stand up. Shake your body. Seize the day. Let’s forget the future for time being and try to make sure that you make your today great. Rest will take care of itself.
Do not let today slips from your fingers and become the past until you attend it and cherish it with best of your capacities.
Strategy # 5: Work
“On those mornings you struggle with getting up, keep this thought in mind – I am awakening to the work of a human being. Why then am I annoyed that I am going to do what I’m made for, the very things for which I was put into this world? Or was I made for this, to snuggle under the covers and keep warm? It’s so pleasurable. Were you then made for pleasure? In short, to be coddled or to exert yourself?” – Marcus Aurelius, Mediations, 5.1
There is no better way to handle the stress than doing the work required to do. I love the lines of Marcus Aurelius that “On those mornings you struggle with getting up” and “Was I made for this, to snuggle under the covers and keep warm?” Such beautiful lines portraying most of our mornings. We curse Mondays and we too, face similar scenarios where everything looks so dark that we do not want to face the day and want to stay under the covers with an illusion that everything will take care of itself.
Remember, everyone face the same phase even two thousands years ago the emperor of Rome felt the same way. It’s quite a comforting. But remember, you need to do the work to get out of this passiveness.
Stress will stay in your life. You need to figure out a way to live life with stress. How can you do that? By doing the work.
If you are a student and you have a stress about your studies. Stop being stressing about things you can’t control like exam dates or any other factors. Just wake up and do the work – study, read, write.
If you are a business person and you are going through tough patch. Stop being worried about economy or any other factors. Wake up. Start doing your work – building a great product and keep marketing it to the people.
If you are in a relationship and facing down time. Stop being imagining worst case scenarios. Wake up and start treating today as a “Day One”. Start rebuilding your relationship by doing simple tasks.
Thinking things through is definitely our super power as humans but it also make things worse than they are for us. We spend hundreds of hours taking stress and imagining worst case scenarios and planning. On contrary, every other creature on the planet wake up and start doing what they are meant to do.
Stop stressing about what will happen and start making things happen through the work assigned to you by God.
Strategy # 6: Train
“Here’s a lesson to test your mind’s mettle: take part of a week in which you have only the most meager and cheap food, dress scantily in shabby clothes, and ask yourself if this is really the worst that you feared. It is when times are good that you should gird yourself for tougher times ahead, for when Fortune is kind the soul can build defenses against her ravages. So it is that soldiers practice maneuvers in peacetime, erecting bunkers with no enemies in sight and exhausting themselves under no attack so that when it comes they won’t grow tired.” – Seneca, Moral Letters, 18.5 – 6
Training is much better than stress.
What are you feeling stress about? Worst case scenarios? Losses? Anticipation of what can go wrong? Fearful about tougher times ahead?
Now ask yourself, “Is taking stress will make anything better for me?”
It definitely will not.
So, start training yourself. Train yourself to use logic and critical thinking. Train yourself to be optimal in your health. Train yourself to stay calm. Train yourself to master your craft.
You need to train when sun is still shining. When you are facing good times. In the moments of luxury, we are most prone to become complacent and lazy. In those moments, we drift towards inaction and that makes us weak when tough times hits us.
Training is a kind of pre-stress strategy. If you train daily chances will be that when stress strike it will find you prepare. As Seneca reminds us: “It is precisely in times of immunity from care that the soul should toughen itself beforehand for occasions of greater stress… If you would not have a man flinch when the crisis comes, train him before it comes.”
Don’t leave any space on your calendar for stress. Instead, pack it with toughest possible training schedule.
Strategy # 7: Finish
“Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day … The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.” – Seneca, Moral Letters, 101.7b – 8a
Stress mostly happens when you feel lack of progress and lack of progress mostly happens because of lack of clarity about what’s need to be done and how will you know that you done it.
Having clear milestones to achieve and clarity about what rewards you will gain when you finish it is crucial to deal with stress.
From today, stop trying to do so many things at once. Stop setting lots of priorities. Stop being miserable by being busy all the time. Stop opening up too many tabs in your brain. Take every single day as a chance to create a masterpiece. Masterpiece is not a result of starting something well but finishing it well.
You need to transform yourself from being a “Starter” to “Finisher”.
You will feel less stress when you feel that today you finish something. It must be clear and precise. Results matter. When you realize that you are moving the ball on daily basis and getting results you will feel lack of pressure.
Ask everyday, “What am I going to finish today?”
Strategy # 8: Engage
“This is the mark of perfection of character – to spend each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, laziness, or any pretending.” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.69
Word “Engage” comes from French word means “To Pledge”. You need to commit.
This is seriously aggressive and attacking way to deal with stress.
Stress usually take roots in your brain when you feel lack of decisiveness and you feel stuck because you don’t know which way to go. Engaging yourself is the way to go in that particular scenario.
Engage yourself.
Feeling stress because of relationship? Engage. Make a commitment that you will figure out things no matter what or you just leave it because it is totally unnecessary in long run.
Feeling bad because of your work? Engage. Make a commitment about what will you going to do about it.
Every single day, commit to something. We do not feel stress when we have packed calendar. Evil of stress disturb us most when we have nothing to do.
Every single day, make it a habit that you set priority and pack your calendar. You do not give chance to laziness by engaging yourself in some kind of productive habit or activity.
Make this a measure of your days that today how many engagements you make and work on.
Conclusion
Spending your life in stress is not a way to honor the blessing given by God to us. You are in control of your life. Take charge. Take choices. Do the work. Make it happen.
Let’s Do it.
