How to Cope with Bad News, the Stoic Way.

[Mindful]

• The founder of Stoicism only came to philosophy after suffering a shipwreck.
• As the first Stoic, Zeno of Citium advocated a number of cognitive reframing techniques for coping with adversity.
• In this article, we imagine how he might have dealt with his shipwreck had he then already been a Stoic.

How to Cope with Bad News, the Stoic Way

Three powerful mind exercises for dealing with bad news.

www.psychologytoday.com

 

[Mindful]

# Zeno (b. 334 BCE), the founder of Stoicism, hailed from Citium (modern-day Larnaca) in Cyprus, and may have been of Phoenician origin. As a young man, Zeno set sail from Phoenicia with a cargo of imperial purple, a dye obtained by crushing sea snails. Unfortunately, he lost this precious cargo in a shipwreck, and wound up in Athens with little more than the clothes on his back, if even that.

Now fully recovered from his ordeal, Zeno visited an oracle and asked what he should do "to live the best life." The oracle replied cryptically that he ought to “have conversation with the dead." Interpreting this to mean that he ought to take up the study of ancient authors, he began frequenting a bookshop in the agora, the central square of Athens. One day, Zeno picked up a copy of the Memorabilia, a collection of Socratic dialogues by Xenophon. Struck by Xenophon’s portrayal of Socrates, he asked the bookseller where such men might be found. At that very moment, the Cynic philosopher Crates of Thebes happened to be passing by. The bookseller pointed to him and said, “Follow yonder man.”

 

[1srelluc]

# Zeno (b. 334 BCE), the founder of Stoicism, hailed from Citium (modern-day Larnaca) in Cyprus, and may have been of Phoenician origin. As a young man, Zeno set sail from Phoenicia with a cargo of imperial purple, a dye obtained by crushing sea snails. Unfortunately, he lost this precious cargo in a shipwreck, and wound up in Athens with little more than the clothes on his back, if even that.

Now fully recovered from his ordeal, Zeno visited an oracle and asked what he should do "to live the best life." The oracle replied cryptically that he ought to “have conversation with the dead." Interpreting this to mean that he ought to take up the study of ancient authors, he began frequenting a bookshop in the agora, the central square of Athens. One day, Zeno picked up a copy of the Memorabilia, a collection of Socratic dialogues by Xenophon. Struck by Xenophon’s portrayal of Socrates, he asked the bookseller where such men might be found. At that very moment, the Cynic philosopher Crates of Thebes happened to be passing by. The bookseller pointed to him and said, “Follow yonder man.”