The Last Word

By Tony Tang | Posted: Tuesday October 10, 2023

Stress is everywhere.

I see that on people’s faces before internals or mocks, when mates talk about how they struggle to support themselves financially, the examples are unlimited. You get the point.

But is there a way to reduce stress? Let me introduce you to stoicism. It is an ancient Greek philosophy that advocates discipline to minimise emotions and, therefore, create relatively objective thinkers. Once you remove the subjective bias around an event, stress will likely be gone, because we create stress amongst ourselves.

To do so, we must achieve inner peace because it is essential to acknowledge that emotions are choices from within. A great way to start would be to “accept what you cannot control and channel the energy towards what you can.” Some of you might argue, “oh, but one can choose to think if they have control over something”. While that is correct, dwelling on it would create unnecessary overthinking, so let’s put a time limit on it and say, “right, do I have control of this, right at this moment?”. If not, it goes into the “save for later” list. Don’t worry, it does not label you as a coward but shows that you are a wise man who allocates your energy efficiently.

Many of you would already have this skill since this is a familiar concept. That’s great! The next step is to consider whether you would rather be slaves of your emotions or use your logical self to fight against them. One of the reasons that makes us different from animals in nature is that we use logic to problem solve and accelerate our evolution from biology alone. However, emotions often create inconsistencies in our actions and drag us behind. So, it is up to you guys to choose which path you wish to take.

Be calm in chaos, flow with ease, just like water. Good luck with your externals.