Feeling Philosophical

      Happy Tuesday! I've officially been 18 for one week! Today seemed to be centered around thoughts and philosophy for some reason. This morning in Latin my friend gave a presentation on Stoicism, which is an ancient philosophy with the ideas that one should only live with the bare minimum (food, water, and air) to be happy. It preaches that humans can be happy in any conditions because they have control over their attitude, therefore nothing can make us unhappy without our consent.  Also, humans should try to be virtuous and avoid vices. I make it sound pretty simple, but the details of Stoicism are actually very complex and I don't understand most of it!
      Some people in my class argued that if something truly terrible happened to someone, they won't be able to control their emotions (hence, being "stoic") therefore Stoicism is unreasonable and illogical. There's definitely a part of me that agrees with this idea; if one of my parent's died or I became paralyzed or something like that, I'm not just going to change my attitude about it  and try to look on the bright side, I'm going to ask why it happened to me, and I'll probably feel wronged and bitter.
      Then someone mentioned 9/11 and the recent Boston Marathon bombing and I had a new idea: if my mom was in the World Trade Center on 9/11 or if I lost my legs because of a bomb during the Boston Marathon, I think I would ultimately try my best to (loosely) forgive Al Qaeda or the Russian brothers responsible, not because they deserve to be forgiven, but because I deserve tranquility, which cannot possibly be achieved if I hold resentment toward those responsible. I think this idea can be applied to most bad things that happen in our lives, especially the big things.
      Sometimes the hardest parts of life are when you are responsible for the bad things that happen to you. If only you had tried harder in school, if only you hadn't made that decision, etc... In those situations, I think you have to do your best to (yet again) give yourself peace of mind by forgiving yourself because everyone makes mistakes. Failing is a part of life, and even though it's not enjoyable, it is inevitable and it's better to accept that than to question why it is so. Whew, glad I got that rant off my chest!

Carpe Diem,
Brooke