Climate is fucked, animals continue to go extinct even more, our money will be worth nothing the coming years… What motivation do I even have to care to keep going? The world is ran and basically owned by corrupt rich people, there’s poverty, war, etc. It makes me sick to my stomach the way to world is. So I ask, why bother anymore?
/r/FoundTheStoic
Sorry, old habits from Reddit. I agree with you. This is one great thing I learnt from stoicism and is a great approach in life. It doesn’t mean to become an ignorant about global issues or don’t care at all, it means to focus on what you can do in your life to help or to have a good life:
Can you fix global warming? Not alone. Then, don’t worry about it in your day life. But, what can you do to help? Can you reduce or stop using plastic bags? Then do it. Have you the money to buy an electric car? Then do it. If not, don’t worry about it until you can.
Stoicism for me is also a great tool to reduce a big problem I can’t solve into smaller actionable problems I may be able to solve and helps me focus on them. It truly helps you to reduce stress about big problems.
I seem to hear more and more about stoicism lately. I might check it out sometime.
I went down the rabbit hole of stoicism 15 years ago when I had a lot of existential anxiety and while it didn’t miraculously help, it really did nudge me into a new path over time.
Small things like not focussing on happiness as a goal, having a momento mori around and taking the time to stop and think about its meaning when I’m overthinking. Doing the negative visualizations on rough days.
It’s more than a philosophy. It’s a good self help tool to have in your tool belt.