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