How I got into Stoicism

I hope y’all are having a great start to the new year. For 2023, I intend to dive more into Stoicism. How did I get into Stoicism in the first place? Let me just say that out of the seven deadly sins, my biggest one was wrath. Anger is the one emotion I have allowed to easily take hold of me. By allowing my anger to fester, I had hurt others that I love the most, even almost physically.

Compared to a few years ago when I actually did lose people because of my anger, I had gotten better on controlling it. But I was still not as good as I had hoped and it came out in front of people close to me just a few months ago. As a result, I beat myself up over my unacceptable actions and behavior and thought to myself that there is something really wrong with me. This is even after a year being in therapy!

I opened up to a close family member what had happened and am very thankful to this day for them for listening. They asked me if I had ever looked into Stoicism. I said no and thought of it as a last ditch effort if I had no other options of making myself feel better and improve. Turns out that was the case. I looked up a video on YouTube just to see what it was about and came across Ryan Holiday’s channel DailyStoic. He had multiple videos on how to control your anger and from there I went down a deep rabbit hole. A couple of key lessons I learned were: 1)The consequences of anger are worse than it’s cause. 2) You only have yourself. The anger comes from you. The world does not have anger. Like how you create anger within yourself, you can create joy.

Few months later, Stoicism has done a lot more for me than therapy ever could. I’m also known for road rage and had not even honked out of anger once upon discovering the philosophy. I feel more at peace with myself and will also add that my relationships feel stronger. So I’m excited to see what 2023 has in store and feel more mentally prepared to tackle challenges. One more key piece: Memento Mori. May this help you determine what you do, say, and think this year as well 🦁⚖️🦉🧋