A Stoic take on Mental Health:      The Blanket Covers 

Fall has arrived: Bringing with it chilly mornings and a beautiful barrage of true colors. It’s now time for hot chocolate, sweaters, movie nights, and relaxation. What is most interesting, I’ve found, is that as the weather shifts with the seasons – a spike in stress and mental health concerns in the world of academia for college students. This season, with the iconic contradiction of external beauty and internal struggle with motivation and life as a whole, has struck my life. As I have with each and every past passion blog, I ask myself what insight could ancient roman philosophy do to provide insight into these struggles in my life. 

Opening book (chapter) 5 of Marcus Aurelius’s book Meditations, I am met with a message that is so profound with its exigence. 

---

“1. At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself “I have to go to work – as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for – the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?”  

---

What do we gain from this statement from Marcus? We learn first and foremost, that through it being almost a self-reflective journal, he is demanding this from himself – not to others. Even as a highly powerful and respected Roman Emperor and philosopher, he struggled to get out of bed just as we do. 

As I’ve, coincidently, slept through the majority of my alarms this week, this brings into perspective putting meaning behind such a seemingly simple and non-consequential action of hitting snooze on the alarm. But what if meditations and stoic philosophy is proposing that even the smallest of actions can have major implications in our lives? 

But Marcus isn’t implying to be hyper-disciplined or gritty, but rather being intentional about what it means in our small actions with respect to our meanings in life. 

---

(1. continued) “But it’s nicer here (referring to the bed) … So you were born to feel “nice”?” 

---

In my life, as well as yours as a college student, sometimes it’s more effective to instead of finding motivation – looking for perspective and clarity can actually bring more enthusiasm than anything else would. 

All throughout stoic philosophy, we are called to respond, see, view, and act upon the events of our life in the 3rd person’s viewpoint rather than the first. To behave in a high-tension situation as you would advise your younger sibling to. To not overreact to a bad grade, acting as an older more understanding version of yourself. 

With that, maybe tomorrow morning consider your purpose and intention before pressing that snooze button – although it’s as tempting as ever. 

---

Written by Ethan McCarthy | Student at Penn State University | 10/26/23

A Stoic Lens on Mental Health: The Rock & Waves 

There’s no sugarcoating it: college is challenging. For all our individual reasons, it comes from various places of struggle and tribulation. As for me, the past couple of weeks of college have been a tornado of trucks, buses, and airplanes thrown at me through a tornado as I’m struggling to run forward. I’ve taken a short break back home this weekend to reflect on my struggles to make some sense out of them. Coincidently, my brother and I are both freshmen, him in high school, who is dealing with similar stressors. In my regular big-brother disposition, I advised him on what to do to work through his struggles. Yet, what I found myself telling him was in fact exactly the advice I needed to hear.

I told him that the internal and external adversity he is facing is an opportunity in disguise, that there’s objectively nothing we can do to change the circumstances but shifting perspective is all that matters. As I read book 4 of Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius, it’s even more imperative that this message is needed for me at this time. 

“So remember this principle when something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune” 

What is this “stoic” viewpoint on adversity? And how could this help us amidst the middle of the college semester? 

Most of what defines Marcus’s perspective on the negatives of life is taking a step back and looking at its relation to time. He explains “Our lifetime is so brief … Three days of life or three generations: what’s the difference” This may seem quite blunt of a statement, but it provides perspective on the issues we may be facing, providing us the opportunity to ask ourselves: does this stressor really matter?

Marcus was a man no less of high anxiety in his life. As emperor of Rome, he dealt with an arsenal of logistical complexities, politics of high power, and constant battles occurring. As I have advised my brother through his struggles, similarly, Marcus’s writings were not intended for others but rather for his own needs. This reminds us that even a notable philosopher and emperor delt with similar struggles mentally as we do today in college. 

So in that way, it’s truly about perspective. 

---

“Suppose that a god announced that you were going to die tomorrow “or the day after”. Unless you were a complete coward you wouldn’t kick up a fuss about which day it was – what difference could it make? Now recognize that the difference between years from now and tomorrow is just as small” 

---

But now, I ask Marcus this: This doesn’t change the fact of the matter of the unbearable weight of our stress, struggles, and problems of this world. It’s hard. Really hard at times, and sometimes feels hopeless. 

But what Book 4 leaves us with is a metaphorical statement that illustrates my follow-up question. 

“To be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over. It stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it.”

To be the rock; standing strong and optimistic admits all of the exterior struggles of our world. Why? Because that’s all we can do. Life is too finite to believe and act any other way. I know it’s hard, as I’ve told myself and my brother. But even if a more difficult perspective to take on, it’s honorable no matter the outcome of our struggles and pursuits. Then we realize, what is “hard” isn’t the waves of our life, but rather how tall we stand amidst them. 

---

Written by Ethan McCarthy | Penn State University

Stoic Take On Mental Health: Hurry!

When I told my friends and family I deleted all of my social media outlets this week, I received a wide variety of responses and reactions. In confusion and misunderstanding, some disregard my choice as inconsequential to success. Others are proud of the seemingly difficult feat of letting go of our Instagram updates and the latest TikTok trend. 

---

Although one of the main reasons for this was providing an opportunity for better use of time during midterms and completing case competitions, I’ve found the most worthy reason for this is providing an opportunity to clear head-space in an extremely stressful time. 

 

---

As I read In Carnuntum, I found some interesting similarities to my current struggle with social media. In book (chapter) 3 of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, he develops similar introspective observations of time and the relationship around us. 

1. Not just that every day more of our life is used up and less and less of it is left, but this too: if we live longer, can we be sure our mind will still be up to understanding the world … But getting the most out of ourselves, calculating where our duty lies analyzing what we hear and see, deciding whether it’s time to call it quits … So we need to hurry Not just because we move daily closer to death but also because our understanding – our grasp of the world – may be gone before we get there. 

As I read this, I realized how important the decision was to delete social media. Marcus, as he is reminding himself of this in writing, is affirming to us the scarcity of time we have. But more importantly, even in appreciation of that time, as I am attempting to optimize it is not always guaranteed to “grasp” the world. 

---

With that realization earlier this week, I began a consulting style “market sizing” of the time I am actually spending, typically, on social media. 

4 hours a day – 17% of each 24 hour day 

28 hours a week – equivalent to a part-time job 

120 hours a month – 5 entire days of the month 

1460 hours annually – equivalent to roughly 2 months of nonstop social media use 

Most staggeringly, if I continue this similar habit for the rest of my life assuming I live until I am 70 years old, I would spend 102,200 hours (11.5 years) entirely on social media. 

---

That statistic, as demoralizing as it is, is our modern depiction of the urgency Marcus and stoic philosophy present to us. We don’t have time for anything aside from what is moving us toward self-actualization and betterment. 

As many of my friends have reminded me, it’s hard to center our attention, say no to opportunities, delete, unfollow, and to focus on what really matters; but isn’t that exactly why we should? 

In a world full of mental health struggles, distractions, opinions, continual political polarization, and information saturation – Stoicism may provide an unconventional opportunity to improve our approach & lives through understanding the scarcity of time and energy.

To conclude, here is one of Marcus’s final quotes from book 3 within thought #4: 

… For we carry our fate with us – and it carries us. 

---

Written by Ethan McCarthy – Penn State University – 10/5/23