I was asked to do a writing sample for a potential job a few months ago. After looking at the options of subjects, I decided to write a sample on the topic of an introduction to Stoicism.
My only familiarity with Stoicism was the word stoic. After doing the necessary research to write about the topic, I realized I have behaviours that could be considered practising the Stoic philosophy.
I think that after my father died, I started practicing emotional detachment as a survival strategy. I was in such an emotional wreck after losing my father that I avoided making any emotional connection with new people.
Once I learned not to take everything personally and recognized that other people’s opinions of me are none of my business, I could remove emotions from most interactions.
As my research on Stoicism suggested, removing emotional responses to my interactions serves me well. It helps me gain clarity on any issue I’m confronted with. Even my conflict resolution training tells me to help the parties in the dispute focus on the problem, not the person involved in the conflict.
I was telling someone about my writing assignment, and she said that she didn’t think it would be a challenging topic for me to write about since she considers me to be quite Stoic. I smiled because I thought the same thing while working on the assignment.
If someone were to observe how I live my life, they would think I was practicing Stoicism. Any Stoicism that I practice, however, is entirely unintentional. I’ve never studied the philosophy, minus the recent assignment.
We’re back in Canada, and I’ve observed some of my stoic tendencies. There isn’t a long list of people I want or need to reconnect with. There isn’t any particular food that I’ve been craving that I can’t wait to eat.
This isn’t to say that I haven’t enjoyed reconnecting with the ones I have, and there are still a few I’d like to see before I leave, but I’ll be okay if it doesn’t happen.
I used to think something was wrong with not being emotionally attached to things. After doing my research on Stoicism, I’ve realized the benefits of practicing emotional detachment. ❤️