The Postulate of Happiness : an Advice from Ancient Greek-Roman
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts” — Marcus Aurelius
About 300 B.C, a rich trader from Cyprus (an island in the south of Turkey) called Zeno doing a trip from Phoenicia to Piraeus with a ship across the Mediterranean Sea. Zeno brought distinctive commodities from Phoenicia, such as textile dye that had a purple colour and it was very expensive. This dye was made up from an extract of sea snails and the process of crafting it was so tiring. That’s the main reason why those commodities were so expensive that day.
Sadly, the ship that boarded Zeno sank. Not only did Zeno lose all his pricey commodities, but he also had to be stranded in Athens. This is certainly a great ordeal, not only losing his commodities but also being a stranger who gets lost in a foreign city.
At that time in Athens, Zeno went to a bookstore and found a philosophical book that made him interested. He asked the bookseller where he met such philosophers in the book. It just so happened that Crates, a Cynic philosopher, passed in front of him and the bookseller directly pointed to him. After that, Zeno went to Crates to learn philosophy from him.
As time went on, Zeno then learned from a particular of different philosophers and then he began teaching the basis of his own philosophy. He was happy to teach in the terrace that had some pillars around it (in the Greek language called stoic). Since then, the followers of this philosophy are often called “a stoic”. Famous philosophers like Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius come from this base. Based on the previous story, this paper points out the postulate of happiness by a stoic. How they have a principle, mindset, method and view about happiness itself.
The ultimate goal of a stoic is to live with virtue — or how we live as well as we should be human beings. The main stoic principle is that we must accordance with Nature. What does that mean? According to nature, being stoic does not just mean that we have to take good care of nature like don’t littering, polluting the environment or loving and protecting animals. In stoicism, “Nature” (with capital letters) has a broader meaning from “the environment”, it covers the entire universe and all its inhabitants. In the context of human nature, stoicism emphasizes the only thing that “man” has to distinguish it from “animal”. It is reason, common sense, ratio and ability to use it for a life of virtues. Humans who live in harmony with nature are those who live according to their design, namely reasoned beings.
In correlation of the previous paragraph, hence people who live with virtues are those who used their reason and ratio instead of their lust — because that’s the essence, the fundamental nature of being 100% human. Accordance with Nature for humans means that we must use our reason and ratio. When we are not using those things, the gift that God gave to us, practically we are not any different from the animals. In order to give you an easy view, try to rethink your daily activity, especially when you are losing your reason, ratio and mind despite it’s temporary. Here’s the example case : the wife smells another woman’s perfume on her husband’s shirt and without a second thought she floats a pot to the husband’s cheek. From the example above, the wife is not using her reason / ratio and only following her lust. Will this action bring positive results? This is what stoicism means, that we must live “accordance with Nature”. We don’t lose our sense and act like animals that ultimately lead to disobedience.
When we have managed to get used to using our reason and ratios, then one stoic method for us to live happier is to understand the dichotomy of control.
“Some things are up to us, some things are not” — Epictetus
The things under our control are independent, unbound, unattached; But things that are not under our control are weak, like slaves, bound and belong to others. Therefore remember, if you consider things like slaves free and things that belong to others as your own then you will weep and you will always blame the gods and man. Here are the things that are not under our control : people’s act, your grandma’s opinion, your crush’s feelings, weather, your lectures ideology, the condition when we were born, everything outside our mind and act, earthquake and so on. Thus are the things under our control : our judgment, opinion and perception, our desire, our goal, our response, everything that comes up from our mind and act.
Stoicism teaches that true happiness can only come from “things under our control”. In other words, true happiness can only come from within. On the contrary, we cannot rely our true happiness and peace on things that we can’t control. For a stoic philosopher, relying happiness on things we can’t control such as the treatment of others, our grandmother’s opinions, the way others drive a car and our crush feelings are irrational. When we are irrational, we have exceeded the main principle of stoic philosophy (according with nature). You can’t control someone else’s mouth, but you can control your response to it. Basically all emotions within us are triggered by our judgments, opinions and perceptions. The two are related. If there are negative emotions, then what must be questioned is our own reason / ratio.
Thus, I think that nowadays most of the happiness that we have believed in comes from the outside (new car, new girlfriend, new gadget, confession, etc). But stoics eventually teach us that true happiness comes from within. The mind shapes the reality, so we can change the reality by changing our minds.
“If you live according to what others think, you will never be rich.” — Seneca
