Everything that happens to us happens for a reason, so a dominant way of seeing the world tells us. We might never be made clear on what that reason is in the moment. Sometimes, in hindsight, we learn to see a purpose and be grateful, which makes sense to our pattern-seeking brains. It may also provide some comfort to understand that whatever befalls us could be happening to better us, strengthen connections with others, or merely help us accept things in the moment, no matter how grim things seem.
Honestly, I struggle with this way of thinking. My inbuilt skepticism about worldviews that pretend secret knowledge, or that attribute things to some unknowable (and possibly malevolent) will, makes it hard for me to ascribe seemingly random occurrences to an all-knowing lesson-teaching entity. At the same time, I basically accept the tenets of Free Will, while understanding that modern neuroscience has essentially eliminated the idea that we consciously make decisions as we consider them. I wrestle with how both of these concepts can be true at the same time. Can my actions be part of some larger framework while the decisions I make are based on structures in the brain we barely understand? According to one school of thought, the answer is yes.
The idea comes from a school of Greek, and later Roman, philosophy called Stoicism. The Stoics were thinkers who held that the universe is ordered by a rational principle (logos) and that humans should use their reason to live in harmony with this order. They emphasized virtue—especially wisdom, justice, courage, and self-control—the disciplined management of emotions, and acceptance of what lies outside one’s control. In this sense, they were what we would call predeterminists, though not in the sense we sometimes apply to the theological offspring of Calvinism, where only the “pure and chosen few” are destined to get to heaven and “all the rest are damned.” Rather, the concept of predeterminism rests on the more sophisticated idea that the cosmos operates according to mechanisms we cannot possibly understand. Weather, famine, volcanoes, invasions, and scourges of locusts all occur without our input or action and therefore, because we have no control over them, whatever happens as a result of these trials will happen whether we accept them or not. This aligns more with the lyrics of the popular twentieth-century ballad that claims, “whatever will be, will be.”
It is important to note that this way of seeing the world is not fatalistic in the sense that there is nothing we can do to change events, so why bother to do anything? That way leads to madness. Instead, the Stoics supported the idea that there are things we can affect through our own actions. When the volcano erupts, we can help save our neighbors or provide food, shelter, and solace. In fact, this is exactly what they would have suggested is necessary as part of living within the world and in line with the concept of logos. The Stoics knew that our actions can have serious consequences for other people and the world. They understood that there were leaders, generals, and madmen responsible for invasions and war. They even acknowledged that the gods might allow storms, eruptions, famines, or pestilences for reasons we could never comprehend.
Although the concepts within Stoicism seem fairly arcane to us, the tenets of the philosophy are nevertheless applicable to the modern era. Later thinkers like Kant and Kierkegaard had the benefit of examining these Stoic assertions through the lens of their own time. As scientific and mathematical understanding grows, we too become more rational about the things that happen to us and our role in dealing with them, especially the moral and ethical questions such scenarios raise.
Even so, the Stoic way of thinking dealt with serious problems like the inevitability of age and death and, as Hamlet puts it in his soliloquy, “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” paving the way for seeing the world—and our role in it—not as something we’re merely swept along by, but as something in which we have some control, if only in how we respond. When things happen to us, we can either blame the gods and curse our fortune, or we can take a breath, accept it as part of the story of our lives, and try to benefit from it in some way. They taught that the best way to do this was to see the universe as having inherent meaning and to recognize that our lives are merely part of a much larger story.
This is certainly a fascinating way of seeing the world. For instance, during the last ice storm—which thankfully wasn’t as bad as predicted in my part of the world—some people lost power, while others nearby suffered terrible damage to their homes from falling trees. “Why did this happen to me?” they might ask the sky. The Stoics would say, “These things happen,” and, emulating the children’s song, pick themselves up, brush themselves off, and start again. This is good thinking, and it is universally applicable, especially if we can remain philosophical and reason-bound as the vicissitudes of the world wash over us. If we are dedicated to the principles of Stoicism, they can serve us during any challenging time.
There is, of course, the idea that the Stoics were emotionless, like Vulcans, having given emotions over entirely to the rule of logic. This is a modern misunderstanding of Stoic thought. Rather than sublimating emotions, the Stoics understood that humans are emotional beings, that our emotions arise almost beyond our control, and that they are a natural part of the trials of our lives. If we imagine the loss of a loved one, the Stoic response would not be to ignore or hide from our feelings. Instead, it would be to allow ourselves those feelings while still trying to get on with our lives. This might be rendered as: “These things happen, and they make us feel like crap, but we get on with living, while allowing ourselves the dignity to feel how we feel.”
The Stoics didn’t live in a vacuum. They understood that life brings pain and joy, madness and anxiety. What they proposed was a way of seeing the chaos of the world that allowed us to keep suffering to a minimum (such as it is), while retaining our agency in the decisions that impact our lives and the lives of those we love.
One of the best modern examples of this form of predeterminist Stoicism is the Serenity Prayer. This ancient Stoic thought, rendered into modern Judeo-Christian language, goes: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” My own favorite version is less influenced by religious terms and references to God. It goes: “May I find the serenity to accept things I cannot change, courage to act when I can change things for the better, and the wisdom to know that there is a difference.” This is sometimes referred to as living life on life’s terms, which, seen from the perspective of Stoicism, is exactly what that group of ancient thinkers was trying to imagine. The benefits of trying—there is no perfection or enlightenment promised in Stoic thought—to see the world this way are noticeable, if one has the ability to at least try.
The predeterminism part of Stoicism still rankles. For me, thinking that my life is merely a part in an epic play conceived by an entity that cares little for me (as little for me as I for it) is distasteful. And yet, if I stop to think about it in rational terms, our lives are predetermined in some fundamental ways. Each of us is mortal, doomed to “shuffle off this mortal coil” at some point, sooner or later. We cannot know when, but we can accept that this is true and, in solidarity with that idea, try to act accordingly in the moment.
A dear friend of mine has a somewhat saccharine saying that is nevertheless an excellent way of seeing things: yesterday is history, tomorrow’s a mystery, today is a gift—that’s why we call it the present. I admit there is a fortune-cookie quality to this particular aphorism, yet despite that, it really is a Stoic sentiment at heart. When we combine it with the spirit of the Serenity Prayer and the unavoidable reality of our own mortality, what we wind up with isn’t a concoction of pop psychobabble or New Age fluff, but a keen set of principles for seeing ourselves both as agents in our own affairs—acting to the best of our ability, remembering our mortality, understanding that life happens, and recognizing that we can choose how to deal with it while honoring our emotional lives and trying to find healing and understanding.
This somewhat knotted way of thinking is actually the foundational perspective of Stoicism and, as the great emperor Marcus Aurelius put it in his Meditations, “Does aught befall you? It is good. It is part of the destiny of the Universe ordained for you from the beginning. All that befalls you is part of the great web.” It may seem like cold comfort indeed to think that our lives are preordained, that our choices have no benefit, that we are leaves floating on the surface of a sometimes raging river. With thought and reflection, though, we might find that we are part of something larger than ourselves, that we can act for the benefit of others, and that we can accept the challenges of our lives more thoughtfully if we remember that we’re only here for a short time. That realization makes me want to remember how fortunate I have been.
As my dear friend might put it, this ought to give me an attitude of gratitude. From that starting point, I can face anything and recover from the ills of life’s misfortunes. That, if nothing else, is a fine solution to life’s challenges, grounded in Stoic predeterminism.
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