Nature and the world continue on their path, indifferent to human wishes.

Time is like a river into which we are born, within which we are carried forward, and in which we die. Our individual life is a point of almost nothing within the nothingness of the cosmos, invisible on the scale of the forces that carry it forward.

Within such a small and imperceptible existence, situated in a field of events outside our wishes and even beyond our understanding, where is the domain of our will and freedom in a world filled with chaos?

In a world so far beyond human will and desire, how can we exercise any mastery over our fate?

How can we create order from this chaos?

How can we be free in such a world?

The second seminar in the Philosophy for Life course, entitled “Stoic Philosophy, Inner Order and the Art of Living Freely,” addresses these questions and considers how principles of Stoic philosophy may be used when confronting the difficulties of contemporary life.

For five centuries Stoic philosophy was one of the most powerful philosophical schools in Greece and Rome. In the modern world it has undergone a rebirth and is again receiving increasing attention.

It is a philosophy that tries to teach us that the more value we give to what lies outside our being and our control, the less control we will have over our life.

The most fundamental task of life therefore focuses on a simple ability: learning to distinguish between what is taking place outside us and over which we have very little control, and what in life we freely choose and can influence.

We should try to change what we can change, calmly accept what we cannot change, and cultivate the awareness and wisdom required to understand the difference.

The seminar begins with this prayer attributed in the source to Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher:

O universe!
May I find myself in harmony with whatever is in harmony with you.
May I understand that nothing that has ever happened in my life has been too early or too late,
for everything happens only in your proper time.

O nature!
Everything in my life has been only the fruit of your different seasons.
All beings are from you and within you,
and all beings will ultimately return to you.

https://youtu.be/MvreDWPtXuc