On May 7th 2023, I delivered a speech on "The Stoic Approach to an Ever Changing Life", sharing my personal experience of applying Stoicism to my life. An unforgettable experience, I extend my gratitude to my school, TISB and my peers for hosting an informative and intriguing TEDxYouth event on Generation Z and our future. For my talk, I discussed a prevailing situation in our lives, the college/job application for which we prepare ourselves academically, physically and mentally. I have attached a summary of my talk in this blog- for a deeper, more perceptive rendition of this summary, please watch the video attached.
Summary:
Zeno of Citium, the Ancient Greek philosopher, founded Stoicism. The underlying principle of this philosophy is that in our universe exists a dichotomy of control; there are few things that you can control and few things that you can not.
So, what can I control? So here is a small diagram that simplifies it for you.
In this universe, we can only control what we think, say, and do. Everything else is out of our control. This dichotomy of control is an important concept to grasp- in an ever changing world, we encounter differences in life everyday. Some days we encounter poor grades or performances, breakups and divorces, even the death of loved ones.
The dichotomy of control is the underlying principle of Stoicism and it has several applications and the focus of the TED Talk was on effort and expectation. A universal phenomenon is that our efforts translate into success. We work hard to rise the ranks and be one of the top 5% of the world. So, our parents, our teachers, our peers, tell us “work hard and you will succeed”, “your effort determines your success”. However, often, we attach our studies to a college of our choice, our internships to job opportunities.
By attaching your effort to a goal, you are forming extrinsic goals that are not within your control. An extrinsic goal attaches the value of your effort to some outcome outside your control. An intrinsic goal appreciates the value of your effort as the goal itself. I will share my personal experience with my mathematics examinations. I used to study maths just to get a good grade, so that I could get in to the likes of Stanford or Wharton. So my effort in maths was somehow attached to the goal of reaching top-tier colleges- this is an example of an extrinsic goal. However, earlier this year, I approached maths with the goal of learning every concept, of putting in hours, not worrying about the outcome. The outcome may be beneficial to me, but the effort and understanding mattered more in the examination in May 2023. I expected nothing extrinsic from my effort; my goal was learning and effort. Raising expectations would have created unnecessary pressure on the effort itself.
To conclude, the three key take aways should be:
- Define your goals within the limit of your control,
- Do not raise expectations from your effort
- Appreciate the journey more than the end point of your effort
Commentaires