Many philosophies are theoretical and lose their charm and value over time, but stoicism is one of the few philosophies that, despite being more than two thousand years old, still hold practical significance in our modern lives.
Stoic philosophy tells us many secrets and ways to become great by going deep into our character. In this article, we will discuss six secrets to achieve greatness in stoic philosophy.
1. Rules don’t make you great
The first secret of greatness is that great people never follow the rules. Rules in any society are made keeping in mind its lowest members and only then these rules do not apply to highly capable people. Like average parents keep their kids average by keeping them locked in a box. Average kids don’t take many risks, they don’t have much experience of the world due to being in safety and also they don’t have many friends because their parents tell them to stay away from strangers.
Whereas in an elite family, children are told that whatever they want is with an unknown person. Money, love, respect, and help all come from other people.
So make strangers your friends, question every rule taught by your parents and school and see if rich, powerful and great people are also following the same rule book or are their methods completely different.
2. The bigger you think the more you achieve
Stoic philosophy says that to date small minded people have not done any great work. The world has not seen such a person to date, who wants to reach a goal with all his heart, he also works hard for it and if he does not get that thing, the lack is in your mind, not in the world.
Money, good looking partner, spiritual insights the world will not refuse to give you whatever you ask for but the problem is that everyone is afraid to think big. Even if you bring a big desire into your mind, then only after five minutes your mind will come back to its default position and you will discard that desire of yours by calling it unrealistic.
According to Stoicism, any desire becomes reality only when you are thinking only about that one thing every moment.
3. Money isn’t real
Money is an idea and every average person has become a slave to these ideas. Sit in peace for two minutes and think whether a piece of paper can be more valuable than your life.
The Elites have brainwashed the people into paper slavery. Money is only as valuable as you make it out to be.
If you consider money as such a thing, after running after it, it goes away from you, then you will never become rich. Whenever people reduce spending money due to fear in the economy, then the government prints more money to bring liquidity to the economy. Think, here you are trying to save your money little by little, but there the government, by turning on the printer at any time, prints thousands of crores of rupees and lowers the value of the currency.
That’s why don’t consider money above yourself, focus on your value, and bury this thought in your mind through the reputation that you are the person who earns crores of rupees. Money is not real but your thoughts about money are, so first change your thoughts.
4. Speed prevents mediocrity
It takes a lot of work to become great, and a typical great person goes through life with 100 times more work than an average person. For this reason, the working speed of a person moving towards greatness is much higher than that of an ordinary person.
Elon Musk says that whatever goal you are thinking of accomplishing in 10 years, try to accomplish it in six months. By working fast, you will collect a lot of failures faster and complete your goal before the expected time.
5. You don’t become great by being selfish
Looking from a distance, it always seems that any person who is very rich, famous and great has reached that point thinking only about his benefit.
But if you look at any big actor, then from his debut film till now, lakhs of people are inspired to improve their lives by seeing him.
Every successful businessman gives employment to thousands of people and a great singer also changes the lives of many people with his music for the better. Every successful man can never reach the top without supporting and positively influencing other people.
That’s why the most direct and easy way to become great is to focus on helping other people.
6. Motivation can be positive or negative
If I ask you what are the things you want to achieve in your life or what motivates you? So you will say money, family happiness, good-looking partner or fame. On the other hand, if something has suddenly happened to your family apart from these things, then will your motivation remain the same as home, car or friend? You will say that I would like to save my family by doing anything.
Life of many great people is full of tragedy and their motivation is fear-based and not greed-based. Because if someone’s motivation is money, then he will become loose only after being very rich. But the person who has seen a lot of sorrow, that person would like to stay away from that sorrow as much as possible.
Therefore, if positive things are not motivating you, then make negative things your fuel in your life.
There is something tragic in the life of every human being. Even if you do not have any urgent reason to act like crazy, you can create a negative scenario in your mind that if everything is going well now, then imagine if something goes wrong in the next moment, how will you handle that situation. Will you manage?
I know this sounds wrong but for many people fear based motivation is more effective than dream-based motivation.
Final words – Key Take Away
According to stoicism there are two versions of the world, in one world average people live and in the other world top, alpha, intelligent and visionary people live. The world of average people has been made in such a way that they can never understand how happy people are living in another version of the world.
Average people are trained to be mediocre in the name of education, while people living in the other world are shown the path of greatness by sharing with them the bitter truths of the world and the secrets of great people. Only rich, powerful and great people know these secrets of Stoicism to become great. By adopting them, we can move towards our greatness.