Philosophy Friday: Use Your Superpower

Photo by King Lip on Unsplash

It feels like this pandemic has been going on forever. If all the world’s leaders would just have worked together for once and coordinated a global lockdown, we might have wiped out the virus in a month or two.

Yes, that would have been wonderful, but that’s not how the world works. We live in a world of petty squabbles, powerplays and one-upmanship. It’s human nature.

“You shouldn’t give circumstances the power to rouse anger, for they don’t care at all.” — Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor & Philosopher

Ancient philosophers of the Stoic school considered our existence split along two lines: 

1. things we can control, and 
2. everything else.

We do not control other people, the weather, markets, our planet and solar system, our possessions, even our bodies and health. We do not control these in any absolute sense, although we may influence some of these.

What do we control?

Our Thoughts and Voluntary Actions

That’s it—it’s all we can fully control. Doesn’t seem like much.

Could it possibly be more than we could ever have hoped for?

Two millennia ago, Epictetus concluded that we had received the best gift ever when he said, “People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them“.

The other day I missed out on some work. Initially, I was upset about this consulting job being cancelled as I had been looking forward to getting my teeth into a new project.

Any event or thing is just that—something that has happened to us. When it negatively affects us, we tend to look it at as a bad thing. Anger and depression follow. 

But this is not the only way to view events. It’s up to us to see the positive in all situations. Indeed, if we desire constant happiness, we must. Otherwise, we will face a miserable existence – as we are reeling every time we interpret an event as hurtful.

In the case of my cancelled consulting gig, I realised that one advantage had turned into another; I now had the time to pursue a couple of important personal goals that I had neglected for months.

Of all the gifts humans could have been endowed with, we hit the jackpot – we got a superpower! We are allowed to think of our situation as we see fit.

Unfortunately, most of us don’t use this superpower. Frequently we’re like young Luke Skywalkers bitching and moaning about how hard it is to control the Force. Luke had to relax and feel the Force before he could use it.

It’s the same with us—we need to realise that we too have control over a superpower, a force even more powerful than Luke’s. And then we only need to choose to use it.   

“Every Adversity, Every Failure, Every Heartbreak, Carries With It The Seed Of An Equal Or Greater Benefit” — Napoleon Hill, Author

“He is most powerful who has power over himself.” — Seneca, Roman Statesman & Philosopher