The power to change your life

Your life can change when you realize what you think of as facts are opinions

A lesson in attitude adjustment

Many years ago, I went shopping with a friend. It was Christmas time, and the mall was crowded. I didn’t enjoy it at all. I can’t say that I ‘hated’ the crowd, but I did not like negotiating my way through it, was bothered by the loud music, and did not enjoy waiting for a long time to get to the cash register. I turned to my friend to complain, but she beat me to it. With an enthusiastic smile, she said,

I love shopping around this time. So many people here are having fun shopping to celebrate the festive season with their loved ones! I’m sure they have other problems and cares, but now they are happy, enjoying the break, and preparing to celebrate! And the Christmas songs that are being played! This is the best time to be here!

The very things that annoyed me pleased her. Then I spotted a big bookstore. “Let’s go in here for a while,” I said. I can get lost in a bookstore and easily spend an entire afternoon there. We went into the bookstore, but after twenty minutes, she said, “Let’s go. I want to see the Christmas decorations outside.”

I was disappointed. I didn’t realize then that my friend was teaching me a lesson in Stoicism without meaning to. I was learning a lesson, although it did not become clear to me until years later when I came across this:

If you are pained by anything external, the pain is not due to the external thing. It is due to the way you look at it. - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.47

It was not the crowd and the loud music that was bothering me. I judged crowds and loud music as annoying, so they bothered me. It was not my having to leave the bookstore that disappointed me; it was my judgment that I should spend a long time there. I thought that the crowd was annoying and the bookstore was pleasant. No. They were my judgments, my opinions. It was my opinions that were making me unhappy. My friend had different opinions, so she was happy. I could have been as happy as her if I didn’t have my judgments. What can I do about it? Simple, says Marcus Aurelius,

Forget the belief “I’ve been harmed,” and you won’t feel harmed. Reject your sense of injury, and the injury itself disappears. - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.7

All you have to do is drop your judgments, and your misery will disappear. The best part is that it can be done in a moment.

Where do our opinions come from?

How is it that we hear and see the same thing but have different opinions, which lead us to happiness or misery? Where do opinions come from? Opinions come from a wide variety of sources, such as,

• Things we habitually do without paying attention: We may find sleeping on one side of the bed more comforting than the other, or prefer sitting in our favourite chair that is no different from another similar chair. We develop an attachment to what we have been habitually doing.

• Things we have been told. We are constantly subjected to religious, cultural, and social narratives. We internalize them and base our opinions on those stories.

• Things we have experienced. Our past experiences can colour our opinions. If we have grown up in a hostile environment, it is easy to see most neutral events as potentially hostile.

• Things that have a biological basis. Biologically, we are programmed to sense threats in our environment. Many such threats may be false alarms. Some of us are more prone than others to interpret many things as threats.

The Stoics said that it doesn’t matter where they come from; you have control over them and can change them at any time. Even when our reaction is instinctive—such as fear or anger when we perceive danger—we can pull back, pause, and reconsider.

The power to change your life

This deceptively simple Stoic lesson has the power to change your life. We go through life fully believing that things that happen and people we have to deal with cause our problems. We never stop to think that the same events and the same people who make us unhappy make others happy. Once we realize that the same events and people that annoy us please others and vice versa, we see we hold the key to making many things that bother us disappear instantly. We can change our lives not only in minor ways but in major ways as well.

We may see some logic in this, but we may still wonder how it can possibly change our lives. That’s because we don’t know how much of our lives is ruled by our judgments and opinions.

Everything depends on opinion; ambition, luxury, greed, hinge on opinion. It is according to opinion that we suffer. A man is as bad as he has convinced himself that he is. - Seneca, Moral Letters, 78

Epictetus takes it further and shows how opinions govern most of our lives.

What is misfortune? An opinion. What is subversion, dissension, complaint, blame, accusation, or foolish talk? All mere opinions, things that are not subject to our choice. If you transfer your opinions to what is within your choice, I guarantee you peace of mind, no matter what is happening around you. - Epictetus, Discourses 3.3

We dredge up the past and become heroes in our tragic stories. So, what do we do about it? You may say,

"None has ever been worse off than I. What suffering, what evil I have endured! No one thought I will recover. How often have my family neglected me, and the physicians seen me!”

Seneca asks: So what?

Even if all this is true, it is over and gone. What benefit is there in reviewing past sufferings, and in being unhappy, just because once you were unhappy? Besides, every one adds much to his own suffering, and tells lies to himself. That which was bitter to bear is pleasant to have gone through; it is natural to rejoice at the ending of this pain. - Seneca, Moral Letters, 78

We should realize that the past is over and done with, no matter what has happened. What is holding us back is not the past but our opinion that it was painful. If we had a painful past, shouldn’t we celebrate that it is over?

Most of us believe that other people and events around us make us react the way we do. We don’t realize it is how we react to what happens to us that causes all our problems,

We are not disturbed by what happens to us, but by our opinion of those things. - Epictetus, Encheirdion, 5

Transforming your life: An exercise

Stoics believed that most of our problems, large or small, would disappear once we realized the real cause of our troubles—our opinions and judgments. This is because we are mostly unaware of the source of our problems.

Let’s start with something small. For example,

• A friend says something mildly critical of you. Your immediate response could be defensive. Hold back. See that your response is because of your judgment that it was unfair. Haven’t you been mildly critical of others without meaning to be unfair? Why not change your opinion and see it as something harmless?

• A guest arrives late for your sit-down dinner. You are annoyed because you think she is disrespectful to other guests. Again, see this as your opinion. The guest may have arrived late because an accident could have held up traffic. Or some other thing that was not under her control.

Move on to more difficult things. For example,

• Someone whose mannerisms bother you.

• Someone you can’t stand because of their political views.

• Things that ‘ruin it’ for you, such as rain when you are on holiday, a noisy couple in an upscale restaurant.

And even more difficult things. For example,

• You don’t get the promotion, but your ‘undeserving’ colleague does.

• You go for your annual check-up, and the results are not good.

As you move from the easy to the more difficult ones, pay attention to your opinion’s role in creating your suffering. When your colleague gets a promotion, would you still suffer if you believe she deserved it? If your annual check-up is not good, would you still suffer if you didn’t believe it should be good?

As we become more conscious of our opinion’s role in creating our suffering, we can gradually free ourselves from the shackles of our opinions and become free of unnecessary suffering.

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