First, let me get one thing out of the way; everything that I am about to say is from my own opinion and experience. I confess that I fancy myself a student of philosophy, and if I’ve learned anything from it, it’s to accept both my own ignorance and to see things as they are, rather than how I would like them to be.
I credit Socrates, the father of philosophy himself, for these most profound of insights.
I put this disclaimer here at the beginning so that this article reads less like a preachy philosophy seminar and more as an attempt to sort through my own conclusions about the philosophy I’ve studied and its applicability to mental health.
With the holiday season in full swing, it often carries with it seasonal depression for many people, and I want to address that the best way I know how.
The Enchiridion by Epictetus is one of the most profound works that has ever influenced my worldview. Even though the work itself is rather short, I’ll outline it briefly. The main question it asks is: How best can we achieve happiness? True freedom is to focus on things that depend on our own actions and to let go of the things that do not concern us.
Our judgments of things determine our feelings, not the things themselves. Negative judgments of things make us unhappy. Self-awareness grants balance and a certain emotional “invincibility.” Epictetus codified these many insights into a short guide that has become the core text of the Stoic philosophy.
With the benefit of hindsight, I realize now that basically my entire life up to my year off had been lived for someone else to one degree or another. Most of the time, this feeling stemmed from the fundamentally benevolent attempts of my parents to ensure that I succeeded, yet I still felt like a passenger along for the ride for the majority of my childhood.
Despite achieving the things that I was told to accomplish, I felt a vague anxiety about what would happen when I would be forced to make my own decisions.
I would push down the feeling of impending doom that grew slowly but surely until it culminated in me being forced to take time off from school, initially against my will. My mental state felt like a house of cards that had finally fallen down, and college, in general, felt like a cliff that I was struggling not to fall off of.
While I never actually went insane, there were times when I felt uncomfortably close to it.
The Stoic approach helped me greatly in letting go of worry in general, and especially of things that were beyond my control. By focusing only on what I could do to fix my problems and not what other people might think, say, or do, I gained a clarity of vision that would otherwise have left me paralyzed with an obsession over negative possibilities. When I realized that all I could do was my best, I gained a small, yet vital sense of control over my own life that I had never had before.
During my year off, I began approaching problems from what I could do about them. At work, despite the tensions from the job itself and the at times toxic social dynamic, I persevered by focusing on my own job performance and being a friend to anyone who needed one.
When a second-year friend of mine died, I felt irrationally guilty about not being closer to him than I had the opportunity to. When a family friend died almost exactly one year later, I realized that letting go of guilt and treasuring the friendship that we DID have provided emotional serenity. When my parents got divorced, I thankfully was at a point where I didn’t blame myself for the failure of their marriage.
However, it still weighed heavy on my mind and affected my mood and job performance. As with all things, it took time before I accepted the way things were and stopped tormenting myself with might-have-beens.
Throughout all of this, I never actually considered suicide, although I did think about it in the abstract. Whenever dark thoughts were my main company, suicide never provided any answers or consolation, as I knew it would only bring more pain to those around me. It seemed like a permanent solution to problems that were only temporary, and one that couldn’t be taken back or learned from.
Above all, Stoicism has helped me cultivate a little of the emotional “invincibility” that characterized Socrates’ worldview. While I certainly wouldn’t consider myself emotionally invincible by any stretch, I do think of myself as more emotionally resilient than ever before.
Things like finals week, picking a major, applying for internships, and planning for the future can be particularly stressful. Even the daily grind can feel repetitive and psychologically detrimental. When the pressure starts tightening, I return to the resolution that I’m just doing the best I can. Stoicism gets me through the day.
One last thing; if you ever feel like life weighs you down too much, please ask for help. I can’t stress enough how important this is. I didn’t do any of the things I mentioned above without help, and no one should expect themselves to be capable of going through life without accepting help when necessary.
Recently, the death of K-Pop star Kim Jong-hyun shocked the world and many of my friends who appreciated his music feel his death particularly painfully.
Unfortunately, he represents a long line of artists who committed suicide rather than fight against the world any longer. While I don’t propose that Stoicism would have saved his life, perhaps it could prevent others from living in such a way that they feel they have to kill themselves rather than face their demons.
