Stoicism in Two Words

If I had to describe stoicism in two words, I would say control and moderation. These words I think best describe it because stoicism is all about having control over your emotion, which is done by having moderation of the emotions. An example of what a stoic would say of even an emotion like love, that you should not love something or someone too much because then that emotion will start to take control over you instead of you having control over it. I like to think of things by situation and not as much universally because I think nothing is the same for everyone but the idea of moderation seems to be able to answer every question that arises about different situations and even the extreme ones.

An extreme example would be having control over your anger and grief if someone had just killed your son, which is something that you could not necessarily control but your thoughts are something you can control. You naturally just love your family but a stoic would say not to have a great passionate love for your family because that then becomes excessive, thus making your anger and grief uncontrollable and might make you do something crazy if something like this were to happen. Seems a bit insensitive and not human like to have great love for your family huh? I would say so but there is some sense to be made through this.

Again the idea of moderation comes into play, yes you should be angry and yes you should mourn for the loss of a child but you shouldn’t let that take over your life and start controlling your thought. This is why I think living like a stoic is one of the hardest most simple things to do because the idea of it is just so simple. All you have to do is change your opinion on a matter because that is what you have control over, simple right? Not exactly, this idea is definitely one of those things that are easier said than done. Again what if someone commits a bad act on you, whatever it may be the typical response to that would be to get mad or frustrated with that person. So a lot of people think that a stoic would just say you should not get mad at all and completely suppress your emotions, which was my understanding a few months ago. This is where moderation and control comes in again. It would be fine to become somewhat angry you just can’t let that take control over you and makes you make a bad decision because as soon as you do you have lost control over your emotions. The idea of stoicism I came to realize it wasn’t exactly just about completely suppressing your emotions. It is about controlling what you have control over, finding what makes you have negative emotions, and changing your opinion on the situations to help keep your emotions in check.