A Stoic Take On Mental Health: Relationship Aftermath
In the midst of midterms and heightened academic pressures and closing into Thanksgiving break, my friends and I always seem to find time to give eachother advice. With that, on one particular evening, a friend struggled with closure after a long-winded relationship. I gave her some advice regarding the situation from a podcast I had recently listened to. The idea behind the quote was that by reacting to individuals’ actions, in any given emotion or situation, you’re giving them power and control over you. Even if it’s justified, or absolutely deserving to hear your wrath and frustration, you giving them the power over the situation. Ironically, as I have this advice from a recent podcast, I realized that this advice was exactly what I needed to hear in my life. With that, I began researching the stoic philosopher’s interpretation of our willpower/energy and its relationship with the world around us:
“2. On the occasion of each act, ask yourself: ‘How is this related to me? Shall I repent of it? But a little while and I am dead and all things are taken away. What more do I require, if my present work is the work of an intelligent and social creature, subject to the same law as God?’”
Stoicism is all about perspective, even if it’s extremely daunting and straightforward. In the case of Marcus’s above statement, he reminds us that our willpower limits need to be considered with the fact we are living a very limited life with the potential that “I am dead and all things are taken away”.
In other words, if we are to gossip about someone and we pass away later this evening, would that be an adequate use of our willpower and energy? Especially in situations where we are dealing with individuals who have backstabbed us, broken us, hurt us to the core, do they deserve our anger, thoughts, and words?
Although willpower and our energy may seem easily accessible and reimbursable, it’s emphasized in philosophy and science that may not be the case. Psychologists have researched an idea called “ego depletion” which is the idea that willpower is interconnected with our mental energy which is, indeed, finite.
But what does this mean for our world today as college students? This means we need to bring more intentionality into our lives across all aspects. Whether it is scrolling social media and making subtle comparisons cussing out our family members, or even to a more positive light obsessing over an celebrity, all of these deplete our energy and allow external variables to determine our mental health internally. This is an objective of mine as I navigate my freshman year here at Penn State, we should all ask ourselves every day: to what extent am I giving external variables and individuals control over my internal stability and health?
Ethan McCarthy, Penn State University, 11/9/23