Understanding life with Stoicism.

A new question that is emerging in millennials minds is how to live the current life, especially during this pandemic. The quest to finding the meaning of life introduced me to a philosophy known as Stoicism.

What is Stoicism you may ask and on with a simple Google search one can find an answer to it, which is:
an ancient Greek school of philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium. The school taught that virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge; the wise live in harmony with the divine Reason (also identified with Fate and Providence) that governs nature and are indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and pleasure and pain.

I'll be discussing the five quotes given in Stoicism and the fundamentals relation with it.

The very first one is: "Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle that is some things are within our control, and some things are not". - Epictetus
This is the fundamental idea of stoicism and everything else revolves around this notion and the following other 4 quotes are evolved from this one.
We often worry about things that are not in our control and get anxious about them, ignoring the things as they are. For instance, we can not control the traffic but we can control our anger or that rage we get when we are pissed of after looking at the traffic.

Coming to the second one: "It is not events that disturb people it is their judgement concerning them" - Epictetus
We often feel that our surrounding is causing these negative emotions in ourselves but in reality, it is the story which we are telling ourselves based on the interpretation of our surroundings. People often take failure as an end to something but in reality, the failure tells you about a way in which a thing is not going to work and another way has to be implemented to reach the desired result. In other words, learn to interpret things differently in order to understand them differently.  

Now the third one: "We suffer more in imagination than in reality" -Seneca.
This one might sound so simple and it is, this is one of the best quotes to which I can personally relate. We as a person tends to overvalue negative things or emotions in such a way that it causes depression, anxiety, anger etc but in reality things are way different.
Try to remember that time when you were scared in asking a question because you thought that your question might be a stupid one and others will laugh at you, but in reality, no one will notice it and you never know your question might impress the teacher and other students in the class. Go ask that girl out what can happen she is gonna say no, right? but what if she finds you cute and gives you her number. If we are not going to put ourselves in a difficult situation then how we are going to grow, chase adversity.

Second last (4th): "if you would not have a man flinch when the crisis comes, train him before it comes"-Seneca
This is kinda same as the last one but more towards getting yourself ready for the worst. It is like training yourself before entering into a fight or clearing a flight simulator test before even actually flying an Aeroplane and risking the life of passengers on it.
As stoics, we should premeditate or prepare ourselves for the worst-case scenarios. For example, in this philosophy a line always remains with me is that 'when you're kissing your wife or daughter goodnight, remind yourself that they might die overnight', harsh words to read but this is the truth of life. This is more towards making yourself strong mentally rather than putting yourself in the adversity, it is for getting ready for the turns in life which you have least expected and not flinching when the situation demands you to be strong.

Last and final one: "When you’re alone you should call this condition tranquillity and freedom, and think of yourself like the gods; and when you are with many, you shouldn't call it a crowd, or trouble, or uneasiness, but festival and company, and contentedly accept it" -Epictetus
Accept what happens, do not fight the things which are happening around you they are going to happen even if you try to stop them with all your might. You can not accept a life without challenges or there is not going to be any time when you are not alone, learn to accept everything which life throws at you, learn how to catch it.

A thing that fascinates me about Stoicism is its applicability, this philosophy still applies to the current scenario though it was written two thousand years ago and it is still a bedrock of modern days productivity and life advice. In conclusion, anyone can find solutions to their problems if they start reading and understanding Stoicism.