Stoicism and the Warrior Mindset – Part 1

Tim Ferriss’ ideas might seem unique but actually, he says himself that he is inspired by ancient philosophy and specifically, by the ideas of the ancient Stoics. Stoicism is a school of philosophy that dates all the way back to the 3rd Century BC. Its principles were founded and practiced by historical characters such as Epictetus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius.

And in many ways, Stoicism was an early approach to a ‘warrior mindset’. It was all about mental hardiness and about learning to expect and then live with things going wrong. In fact, many of us describe someone who is brave and courageous as being stoic.

So, what precisely does it involve?

Stoicism and the Warrior Mindset

The Power of Pessimism

If we tell someone that we don’t think things are going to work out as we hoped, then they’ll often tell us that we need to be ‘more optimistic’.

There’s even a song that tells us to ‘accentuate the positive’ and ‘eliminate the negative’. The general consensus is clear: being positive is a good thing and being anything other than positive is unacceptable.

But is this really the best way for us to approach our problems? Or is it perhaps actually quite damaging to constantly be blinded by optimism? Does it leave us vulnerable to disappointment and potentially easily caught off guard? Is expected life to be constantly ‘sunshine and rainbows’ the precise opposite of a warrior mindset?

Wouldn’t a warrior accept and embrace the fact that life is going to be hard? And then toughen themselves up to deal with it?

That’s the view held by stoics at least and when you delve into the philosophy a little, you might find that they actually make a very good case for pessimism.

The Central Ideas of Stoicism

The general gist of stoicism is not to try and ‘shut out’ negativity and pretend that bad things don’t happen but rather to embrace it and even to use it as a tool. Hope, according to the stoics, is the enemy, precisely because it means we’re unprepared for things going wrong and we’re likely to be disappointed.

Instead, stoicism advocates the notion of gritty realism – of recognizing the negative aspects of life and accepting that a lot of what happens is out of our control and is probably not going to be very pleasant!