Stoic philosophy and its relationship with ie

Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times

The pursuit of serenity and emotional mastery is not an invention of modern psychology.

More than two millennia ago, in the turbulent world of ancient Greece and Rome, a philosophical school called Stoicism offered a robust and practical system for navigating life’s vicissitudes with wisdom and fortitude.

Its teachings, far from being obsolete, bear a striking relevance and parallels to the principles of contemporary emotional intelligence.

Focus on the Circle of Control

Stoicism is often misinterpreted as a philosophy of emotional repression, an invitation to coldness and apathy.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Stoics, such as Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, did not deny the existence or intensity of emotions.

Their brilliant contribution was to shift the focus.

They argued that most human suffering comes not from events themselves, but from our judgments about those events.

The key to Stoic wisdom lies in clearly distinguishing between what we can control and what we cannot.

We cannot control the weather, the economy, or the actions of others, but we can control our own responses, our interpretations, and our choices.

Temperance and the Conscious Response

One of the four pillars of Stoic virtue is temperance, which we can understand as the art of self-control and emotional discipline.

For a Stoic, feeling an impulse of anger in the face of an offense is not a moral failing. The mistake would be to identify with that anger and blindly act from it.

Stoic practice involves observing that initial impulse, pausing, and asking yourself, "Is this reaction in line with the person I want to be? Does it help me live a virtuous life?"

This principle is at the heart of modern emotional intelligence. It's not about not feeling, but about cultivating the ability to choose our response.

It's about interposing a space of awareness between stimulus and reaction—a space where our power and freedom reside to respond to the world with wisdom and purpose, rather than as mere puppets of our momentary passions.