Personal Narrative: Stoicism

Living like a stoic was hard, let me tell you. Stoicism takes a lot of self control and restraint to execute properly. I chose to not overindulge myself, and to focus on applying negative visualization and self-control to my life. At the end of the night I would write down if something was hard or problematic that correlated with my new found Stoic life. Day two reads “I was hungry this afternoon and The Nest was closed. I had to restrain myself from going to Taco Bell and so I just settled with a quesadilla and tortilla chips from The Den.” I wrote down a lot of similar things to that almost every day, whether it was the urge of Taco Bell or Piada, or just wanting to quit swimming or yoga.
Not allowing myself to overindulge was hard. I didn’t eat any cookies or any sweets, drink Starbucks or buy any food that did not require a meal swipe. My friends would want to get ice cream, Starbucks or go to Insomnia Cookies and when we went and I didn’t get anything, they thought I was sick. I had to tell them what I was doing and how I was living my life for two weeks, they looked at me like I was crazy, but I understood because if I were one of them I
I thought that living like one for two weeks would be a piece of cake, but it wasn’t. Being able to show myself that I do in fact have self-control when it comes to cookies, or even my just my own thoughts when I just want to pick up on my yoga mat and leave or take my swim cap off and say “See ya!” was great. Being able to think more positively instead of negatively, helped me become less stressed. I realized that I have self-discipline. I think Stoicism has a lot of truth in the way that you can control yourself and can have more of a positive light in your life, which is definitely not easy. It gives you a different view on life in general. You become less self absorbed, less indulgent and all of those cookie that you once thought you just had to have start to become just a tasteful