Stoic Calm

"Life itself is unhappy", this is what I heard in the middle of a lecture while my mind wandered in the outside world, searching for stillness. 

For a moment, I felt someone consoling me, telling me that it is okay to be lost, to be sad about something that happened days ago, but life is really an unhappy one and we are constantly consoling ourselves with the lie of how beautiful it is. 

I then woke up from the arms of the Morpheus, this time concentrating on what my lecturer had to say [she knew that I was depressed, she knew that something was bothering me, and I know this because she questioned me about what was disturbing me so much]. 

Sometimes all we need is someone to randomly ask us about our state of mind and she did that. Her question soothed me; she cared. 

And it was then that I got to know about what she was teaching. 

                                                                                   Riya Jain ©

'Acceptance of the fact that life is unhappy resulting in ones indifference towards joy and dejection.'

It was called the Stoic philosophy. Where "the Stoics taught that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgement, and that a sage, or a person of "moral and intellectual perfection", would not suffer such emotions... that the best indication of an individual's philosophy was not what a person said but how that person behaved." 

And then I realized that how important it was for me to be a Stoic. Life would be so much better when you stare at the moon and it makes you feel nothing. When you walk on the road and don't feel the need of having someone to walk with. When you could just be detached, disinterested and neutral. 

And when it seems hard to forget something, it is these little philosophies that reincarnate you into a better self, a stronger self. 

“Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.” 

-  Markus Zusak