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The Stoic Week 2020 Handbook Stoicism During a Pandemic: Care for Ourselves, Others, and Our World

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The Stoic Week 2020 Handbook Stoicism During a Pandemic: Care for Ourselves, Others, and Our World The Stoic Week 2020 Handbook Stoicism during a Pandemic: Care for Ourselves, Others, and Our World Every animal, as soon as it is born, is concerned with itself and takes care to preserve itself. It favours its constitution and whatever preserves its constitution, whereas it recoils from its destruction and whatever appears to promote its destruction … also parents’ love for their children arises naturally. From this starting point we trace the development of all human society … This is also the source of the mutual and natural sympathy between humans, so that the very fact of being human requires that no human be considered a stranger to any other. Cicero, On Ends, 3.16, 62-3 One should always keep in mind these things: what the nature of the whole is, and what my nature is, and how my nature is related to the whole, and what kind of part it is of what kind of whole, and that no one can prevent me from always doing and saying what is in accordance with nature of which I am a part. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 2.9. Learn Modern Stoicism Latest Revision: 16th October 2020 2 Contents Introduction Frequently-Asked Questions What is Stoicism? Stoic Week: Your Daily Routine The Stoic Self-Monitoring Record Monday: Progress Tuesday: Happiness Wednesday: Virtue Thursday: Community Friday: Emotions Saturday: Resilience Sunday: Nature After Stoic Week Appendix: Further Reading Copyright Notice & Terms of Use Copyright © Modern Stoicism Ltd., 2014-2020. All rights reserved. All images copyright © Rocio De Torres, reproduced with permission. Important: The contents of this handbook are not intended as a substitute for medical advice or treatment. Any person with a condition requiring medical attention should consult a qualified medical practitioner or suitable therapist. This experiment is not suitable for anyone who is suffering from psychosis, personality disorder, clinical depression, PTSD, or other severe mental health problems. By undertaking this trial the participant acknowledges that they are aware of and accept responsibility in relation to the foregoing. 3 Introduction to Stoic Week Welcome to this year’s Stoic Week! Stoic Week is an annual online event in which people from all over the world attempt to live like a Stoic for seven days. This is your opportunity to take part in a special experiment. You will be using this Handbook as your guide and following ancient Stoic Philosophy as an aid to living in the modern world. The Handbook was developed by Modern Stoicism, a multi-disciplinary team of academic philosophers, classicists, professional psychologists and cognitive therapists. The group was formed in 2012 to help others apply Stoic concepts and practices to the challenges of modern living. It includes several authors known for their writing and research on Stoicism. (You can find out more about us on the Modern Stoicism website.) For those of you interested, there is also a longer and more intensive version of Stoic Week called Stoic Mindfulness and Resilience Training (SMRT), designed by Donald Robertson, which lasts four weeks. Stoic Week has proven extremely popular – over 20,000 have participated since we started in 2012. Each year we receive a huge amount of online feedback from participants, which we use to revise and improve the Handbook. In this Handbook, you will find advice on how to adapt and follow Stoic principles. It combines general theory with more specific, step-by-step guidance on certain Stoic exercises. These materials have been prepared by experts in the field and give you an unusual and completely free-of-charge opportunity for personal development. Download Audio Files and Self-Monitoring Record To participate, you'll also need to download the audio recordings available via this link: MP3 Audio Recordings for Stoic Week ( https://learn.modernstoicism.com/courses/stoic-week/lectures/3401552 ) You'll also need a copy of the self-monitoring record sheet available via this link: Self-Monitoring Record Sheet for Stoic Week ( https://learn.modernstoicism.com/courses/stoic-week/lectures/3401565 ) 4 This Year's Theme: Stoicism during a Pandemic: Care for Ourselves, Others and our World When we looked at the challenges posed by the global pandemic of 2020, we agreed that the 2019 Stoic Week theme of “Care for Ourselves, Others and our World” would be extremely appropriate for 2020. The pandemic has posed many challenges but also opportunities to show our care for ourselves, others and our world. We believe that Stoicism provides a framework to rise to the occasion. Consequently, we made the decision to combine the material from 2019 with problems and examples relating to our current predicament. We hope in this way that Stoic Week 2020 will be relevant to the many people who are doing Stoic Week for the first time as well as those who have done it before. Probably, we all feel we should care properly for ourselves and for others; and increasingly today we feel we should also take more care of the wider natural environment in which we live. But how can we do these things in a coherent way that does not lead to conflict between these aims? And, how, in general, can we work towards giving our actions, relationships and lives more coherence and depth and a better focus? This Handbook is designed to help you to do this by outlining the Stoic framework for living. In the Introduction, we set out certain core Stoic ideas, including the idea that if we develop properly as human beings we learn to care thoughtfully for ourselves and others and to recognize that all human beings make up a wider community or family. Stoics also think that human beings form an integral part of nature, that nature as a whole has a providential care for all elements within it, and that we should play a constructive role within this natural whole. We also discuss the Stoic view of happiness, their belief that happiness depends on virtue, and that, as we get closer to virtue the quality of our emotional life changes, helping us to avoid negative emotions and to experience positive ones. Stoic week offers a step-by-step, day by day, opportunity for exploring these ideas and trying to put them into practice in your daily lives. We provide suggestive passages from the ancient Stoic writers as the basis for morning and evening meditations. The meditations and midday exercises give you a chance to think about key distinctive Stoic ideas and how they can be used to give more shape to your life, and to lead towards a life of happiness, whatever the difficulties and challenges that you confront day by day. Of course, this week can only be a start, both in learning about Stoic ideas and in putting them into practice. However, people have found it very helpful in previous years and we hope you do too. The Handbook also offers at the end suggestions about how to take this process forward after Stoic Week. 5 Frequently-Asked Questions Q: How do I know that living like a Stoic will benefit me? A: You can't know for certain until you try. Indeed, one of the reasons we're conducting the experiment is to find out whether, and how, Stoic practices can help us to live better lives. Having said that, in previous years, our participants have consistently reported benefits. For example, in 2017 our research findings showed that, on average, life satisfaction increased by 16%, flourishing by 10%, positive emotions by 11%, and negative emotions decreased by 14%. These figures are virtually identical to those reported by participants for the three preceding years, suggesting a consistent pattern of results. Data collected from the 2017 SMRT course showed that when we extended the exercises to four weeks, life satisfaction increased by 16%, positive emotions by 19%, flourishing by 15%, and negative emotions decreased by 20%. For the first time, in 2017, a follow-up was conducted three months after the course, which showed that improvement across these measures had been maintained to a considerable extent. Every year we have run Stoic Week participants have (on average) reported increases in well-being, however well-being is measured. Learning about Stoicism might help you in different ways. The benefit for you could be educational or philosophical, if it helps you to understand what Stoicism means. It may be psychological, helping you to become more emotionally resilient and possibly even happier. It may be moral, and you may find that the week helps you develop certain ethical qualities. Some people may, of course, find that Stoicism just isn't for them, which might in itself be a valuable discovery. However, from the questionnaire data we’ve collected and previous participants’ testimonies we can see that most people who participated in Stoic Week and related events found their experiences very enjoyable and beneficial. Q: What's the basic idea? A: You need to do the following: Follow the daily schedule, which consists of a passage for reflection and Stoic meditations for the morning and evening. At lunchtime, or another time more suitable for you, consider the Stoic exercise for that day. 6 We would also appreciate it if you would complete the online questionnaires. This will help us with our research and help you to assess your degree of Stoicism and how much the course has helped you. You should read each chapter in advance of the corresponding day. You might choose to read Monday's chapter, for example, first thing on Monday morning, or beforehand on Sunday evening. However, some people may find it easier just to read the whole handbook through before beginning Stoic Week and use the summary in each chapter as a daily reminder.
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