Get to Know Stoicism

Have you read Filosofi Teras? Yes, you should. It’s somehow helps the reader to makes amend with themselves. No, I’m not the marketing team haha. It just, the book gives some positive impact on my perspective. And I’m started to read books related to it—so far only one book xixi.

Filosofi Teras is not underrated and its popularity doesn’t diminish the value of it. But, I agree with the writer who says that Filosofi Teras is still basic in the whole stoicism. But it is enough to attract you into stoicism.

If you wanted to know what stoicism is, just use google. Things I want to share here is what I catch from that book. Oh, and I have read Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. This is it:

·         Focus on Things Under Our Control.

This world favored dichotomy much. In the planet of things, stoicism divide everything into two: things under our control like our effort, our daily habit and mainly our very own perspective, etc. The rest is the uncontrolled things, such as people’s opinion, the result of our effort (since it’s involve someone else’s judgement), etc.

Sometimes people mix those things up. As a result we often doing denial a lot, looking for any error to blame rather than evaluating ourselves. It is ourselves: the culprit, the very person who responsible toward everything and need to be blame first. And if we have try our best but still lose the battle, it’s mean the other competitor just better than us. At least we’ve put maximal effort (thing under control) and defeated by great external. It’s way more honorable rather than losing because of our minim effort.

·         Mind Control

This point kinda related with point one. It is our perspective that sometimes hurt us the most. For example when we have broken heart. We blame the person who (we suspect) caused it. Does that person really responsible over the heart we carried? Actually not, it us who put too much expectation on someone. In fact nobody obligate to fulfill our wish as we are to them.

As Epictetus said, “It’s not thing that trouble us, but our judgement about things.” Sometimes we are disturbed by external (or uncontrolled thing) much. It is actually us who trouble ourselves by making some scenarios in our head. For example, one of your closest friend had a birthday party but didn’t invite you. What would you think? Did you by chance feel betrayed? Well then, it’s means you still affected by external things. The only fact here is that your friend doesn’t invite you, period. Your various judgement such your friend disrespect you or he/she is forgetting you, are the actual venom of your hurt feeling.

See, the way someone sees thing is very influential to their own peace. Don’t disturb yourself by making scenarios. Even if your judgement were true, so what? It doesn’t affect your wellbeing, right? Thoughts are not facts.

·         Validate (People Who Hurt Us Maybe Don’t Have Real Intention)

In line with the point above, we need to confront our thought. Aduh… saya capek ya berusaha pake bahasa Inggris (mana belum tentu bener), jadi intinya begini, orang (yang kita kira) menyakiti kita sesungguhnya belum tentu bermaksud menyakiti. Makanya ada istilah “kesalahan yang disengaja maupun tidak disengaja.” Karena hati manusia adalah daleman yang sangat privat alias hanya diri kita sendiri yang tahu.

Kita pakai contoh yang tadi. Bisa saja si teman yang nggak mengundang kita memang acaranya dikhususkan untuk keluarga. Tanpa disadari dia sudah menyakiti kita padahal nggak bermaksud, atau bahkan dia nggak berpikir sejauh kamu. Dan meskipun dia memang sengaja menyakiti kamu, dia pasti bergerak atas motivasi yang dikira benar, atas egonya sendiri.

Jadi orang-orang yang menyakiti kita justru harusnya justru diberi simpati. Mereka kekurangan common sense atas pantas/tidak pantas dalam memperlakukan orang lain. Jadi lebih baik dimaafkan saja untuk ketenangan kita.

Nah kan, jadi semakin susah cari celah buat sakit hati? Ya memang itu poinnya. Punya hati kok disakiti sendiri. Tindakan orang lain nggak akan pernah menyakitkan selama kita nggak mengizinkannya. Kita harus jadi tuan atas perspektif sendiri. Setuju? In the end, it’s internal peace that we need the most.

·         Give Ourselves Time Before React

This is it. Sometimes we are too fast to spat, quick to judge and eventually make tubir or hurt someone else’s feeling. Coba pikir apakah sesuatu yang bikin kita marah masih menjengkelkan tiga hari ke depan? Kalau enggak berarti sepele sekali. Stoicism teach us to control the automatic judgement of ours. Yakni dengan cara berikut:

-          Ingat bahwa kita sendiri nggak sempurna

-          Ingat bahwa efek kemarahan lebih berbahaya dari penyebabnya (dalam hubungan interpersonal)

-          Ingat bahwa orang menjengkelkan kita belum tentu bermaksud begitu. It could happen out of common sense.

Jadi perlu ada periode tertentu sebelum marah (misal kasih jeda bernafas/hitung 15 hitungan dll), gunanya adalah untuk menjernahkan pikiran kita.

.

.

Ya itu aja sih inti yang mau saya tuliskan. Soalnya biar nggak lupa. Oh ya, saya tetep saranin semua makhluk hidup buat baca Filosofi Teras dan buku-buku stoisisme lain (ada Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius dkk). It’s not wise to always test the temper of a creature of flesh and blood especially ourselves. Yang saya sukai dari stoisisme adalah pembahasannya yang fokus pada internal peace dan wisdom sih. Jadi kalau ada sesuatu yang sekiranya sialan itu kita melihat ke diri sendiri dulu, bukan moro-moro nesuni wong. Ini cocok bagi yang short temper atau yang dasarnya sudah ada bakat stoic.

Daftar Pustaka:

Manampiring, Henry. 2018. Filosofi Teras: Penerbit Buku Kompas.

Aurelius, Marcus. 2006. Meditations: Penguin Books.