“You can have freedom without responsibility , but not for long. The first thing an irresponsible person will do with freedom is give it away.” – The Stoic Emperor – Twitter
I’m writing this as I whizz through the British country side on a train headed to London. It’s delayed and so whizz might be stretching it a bit, perhaps trundling is more apt? Either way I feel a complaint coming on as I’m not going to get to my hotel till late in the evening. Maybe I’ll use Twitter in an attempt to publicly shame? Or Facebook so it remains on their company page…or perhaps a DM via email will suffice in order to get a more personal response? I stop myself from thinking for a moment and listen to the passengers around me.
It’s standing room only since we stopped to pick up people at Milton Keynes, and despite me being in first class for peace and quiet, I have people’s bums in my face and the loud chatter of moans throughout the carriage. Those around me have been crammed in due to multiple train cancellations, with some families travelling for many hours on what was supposed to be a much shorter journey. Tensions are high and arguments erupt throughout the carriage like fireworks going off one after the other. I decide to offer my seat to the person standing near me, she seems particularly stressed and has two young children with her, but she declines, thanking me for the kind gesture.
So I stay in my seat, deciding to shake away my complaining mood, sip my tea, resume my writing and feel grateful I’m at least comfortable.
I’m feeling more philosophical recently, it’s my way of dealing with stress. With this feeling I’ve been turning to stoicism. In the last 4/5 months I’ve found the change in roles from Microsoft to Unity has brought unanticipated stress into my life. The kind where I commute long hours to the office, slowly losing connection and time with my family. It’s time for change and that change is Denmark, where family is king and my commute is an hour a day at most (there and back).
What is Stoicism? The Oxford living dictionary describes stoicism as “…the endurance of pain or hardship without the display of feelings and without complaint.” I’m actually ok at enduring pain or hardship without the display of feelings, it’s the without complaint part I’ve been failing at more recently.
This has all been rather timely, as this week my wife Mandie asked me if I was interested in living a life without complaint. Mandie is curious at how it could make our lives and our children’s lives more fulfilling, I’m all for it. She isn’t one to complain much, though I do complain now and then. Only when it’s warranted of course, the question is, is it ever warranted?
In the last few weeks we’ve had to put a lot of reliance on others (travel companies, removals, utility providers, public transport, banks, postal service etc.) all of whom we needed to deliver on their customer promise. Unfortunately that’s not always been the case and it’s in my reaction to these occurrences I’ve realised I have work to do.
In my chosen profession (software quality) I’m focused on preparing for everything and anything that’s bad, could go wrong, or is wrong, and then preventing / correcting if possible. This means I have a tendency to highlight potential problems in my day to day to life and not just work. What I’m realising is that this isn’t always needed. So I’m exploring ways to not lose my ability to see problems before they strike, yet also live a somewhat care free existence, only highlighting the truly important issues to those around me (like things that could go wrong with a move to a different country). A life of what some might call real freedom.
So how does stoicism fit into this? The stoic philosophy asserts that virtue (such as wisdom) is happiness and judgment, which should be based on behaviour rather than words. Stoics believe we don’t control and cannot rely on external events, only ourselves and our responses. This then leads us to true freedom, though only when we remain responsible and take accountability for our lives.
This is very related to a life of no complaint. In Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl discovered those more likely to survive the POW camps of WWII were the ones who never gave up hope, the ones who chose their response to the atrocities bestowed upon them.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
So, I’m revisiting a famous book – A Complaint Free World, I’m teaching myself the deeper aspects of stoicism through the writings of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, and most of all I’m working hard at improving myself. None of us are perfect and it’s in times of trouble we see our true self. I need to make that true self a better version of me, and one I and everyone else can enjoy all the time, not just in times of trouble.