"Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking"

"Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking"

Nigga, you were an emperor born into very good circumstances, educated by someone of the finest of your time, filthy rich through out life. The fuck you know about an unhappy live?

This is the underline problem with stoicism and the like, the people who preach it usually are well off to begin with, Aurelius' (obviously aimed at himself) is only applicable to upper class well off people who might get sad sometimes about stupid shit. You will get no help from his works unless you are well off and otherwise you are fooling yourself. He even talks about how to be patient with slaves.

What the fuck do you know about Marcus Aurelius?

He isn't wrong, but I think for many people they just can't do it. Part of me wants to agree fully with him and my own experience and say that happiness is a learned habit, but I think a lot of people are just naturally more inclined towards that habit than others, and it might not be as learned as it initially seems.

The guard were constantly his life and title, and he was very sick at the end of his life and hurt all the time. Just because he held a powerful office doesn't mean everything was just jolly for him.

he fucking gave commodus emperor. He was hardly a fucking unsentimental stoic. He talked shit and had good intentions but stoicism ignores fundamental feelings humans have for survival and healing which can not be override from sheer will

>the people who preach it usually are well off to begin with
Like epictetus, right?

>He isn't wrong, but I think for many people they just can't do it.
Then he's wrong. Those who say things like wealth can't bring you happiness have rarely ever had to deal with the stress of being a poorfag.

I don't mean can't do as in they have stress or something that prevents them, I mean can't do it in that they are not mentally wired for happiness. If you are inclined towards happiness in your nature it won't really matter what stress you have.

>sometimes about stupid shit
Ruling an empire isn't stupid shit, neither dealing with wars and a plague

Hey, don't post that. That goes against OP's narrative.

it's lonely at the top. being rich and educated doesn't make you immune to mental health issues. money and power have been proven to have no bearing on how happy a person is.

The most important Roman Stoic was Epictetus, who was born a slave, did you actually research or read something about stoicism beyond le meditations meme xdXD before making this thread?

What a hypocrite he was.

He notoriously had luxurious feasts worth today millions of dollars, he lived in opulence as the richest man in the world, and he wants to preach austerity?

What a lying sack of shit.

Daily reminder Aristotle preemptively BTFO the Stoic school of thought.

>Epictetus
he was greek you sack of salt

He gave rise to the Roman variety of stoicism, which is what the poster meant.

>Marcus Aurelius' life was easy
>good leadership of the Roman Empire was easy
>smallpox is easy
>barbarian invasions are easy
>shit-kicking the Parthians is easy
>losing 11 of your children is easy

Lmao

Thank god for pedants

He's right though. Fundamentally the achievement of happiness is within the mindset. If you do not shape up your mind, you will forever be a slave to material/external forces.

A rich and educated person can make claims about how to live a happy life without material goods. A poor and uneducated cannot say the same about how to be happy as rich/educated.

The false equivalence doesn't work because one side works on working sets of principles and the other side is without such.

You don't equally weight your accumulation of knowledge on a liar and an honest person.

Whether you subscribe to the philosophy or not, there are things to be learned from stoicism. Namely, that it is easier to control yourself than it is the outside world.

This. Excepting the things you cannot change and changing the things you can are at the basics of living a more fulfilled life. Often our reaction to a problem is more important than the problem itself.

Op do you know that many Stoics were not wealth or that this man out lived 11 of his children? Did you do any back ground reading other then Wikipedia and finding this quote?