Today in my ethics class we started to talk about Stoicism. It brought to mind two questions for me:
1) What matters most to me?
2) When I achieve these few things, am I then content, joyful, happy, what-have-you?
My thought process is this: shouldn't I be in a state of happiness when I have or am working towards all things that really matter to me? And shouldn't everything else be insubstantial when considered alongside those greater achievements? For example, I care about God, family, love, virtue, and making the world better. So if I am cooking and I burn the food or cut my finger none of those things are affected, so shouldn't I therefore go on being happy. It seems like this should be the case, but how does life really work??
I think that parts of this philosophy are very very strange, but the broad idea of not allowing my days to be ruined by things that I'm honestly not concerned about in the long run is a good idea.
Ooooo i like how you think. So long as that which we truly desire is left unharmed, no harm done right? Ah-ha! I love how these things seem so simple, yet we've never really thought about them --or how much they truly dictate our daily disposition for that matter. How about we make a pact to keep ourselves in check whenever we start dwelling on the insignificant yaw? Agreed.
ReplyDeleteAgreed Casey. Definitely agreeed.
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