Stoicism: A real word study (Example 1)

A user, /u/NeverEndr, submitted this comment, recently, and I thought it would be a good example for applying stoic strategy:

^edited ^for ^context ^and ^content.

[I've] been having a rough sexless week and since I've decided not to fap to porn I am overrun with negative emotions. Anger mostly. Really fucking angry this morning after going to sleep with a raging hard on.

Crazy how much testosterone can influence your mindset.

First, let's examine his situation.

1. He has been having a "rough" sexless week. (I take "rough" as meaning he wants sex, and isn't having it.)
2. He is no longer masturbating, at least to pornography.
3. He is attributing his lack of sex and masturbatory abstinence to his mnegative emotions. Specifically, anger.
4. He woke up, still angry after going to sleep with a sustained erection.
5. He recongizes that his elevated testosterone is influencing his mindset.

Now let's look at this from a stoic's point of view:

He has been having a "rough" sexless week.

1. If you are unhappy, it is your fault: He is using his lack of sex as a basis for his unhappiness. this directly means that he uses sex to make him happy, furthermore, since his wife is the person he should be having sex with, he is using her as a vehicle for his happiness. He feels he needs sex with his wife to be happy.
2. Everything is temporary: This sexless phase won't last, whether it is as a result of eventually having sex with his wife... or someone else. This is not permanent.
3. Do not long for an ideal situation: He is wishing his sex life was better. He has options to make his sex life better: intiate sex with his wife; if hse rejects him, he knows that he now tried and she is pushing him away; she failed. He didn't fail. The only failure comes from not trying at all.
4. Maximize positive emotions and minimize negtive emotions: He is looking at his week as "rough" based on the lack of sex. He should be looking at his week as wide open for personal improvement activities and quality time with friends.

He is no longer masturbating, at least to pornography.

This is combined with the item below:

He is attributing his lack of sex and masturbatory abstinence to his negative emotions. Specifically, anger.

1. If you are unhappy, it is your fault: In this case it's specifically true: He is choosing to not masturbate and then immediately blames the lack of masturbation for part of his bad feelings. ^let's ^shelf ^this ^for ^a ^moment. He can at least fix one of these directly (more on that later) but he cannot fix the other; sex with his wife is partly out of his control. He may initiate, but she may reject. This doesn't mean that happiness is lost, it only means that you now have time and energy for other outlets for happiness.
2. Maximize positive emotions and minimize negtive emotions: Again, he is angry over his lack of sex and the lack of masturbation. Inasmuch as being unhappy is his own fault... being happy is his fault; no one can make you happy but you.

He woke up, still angry after going to sleep with a sustained erection.

1. If you are unhappy, it is your fault: ad infinitum
2. Everything is temporary: The erection will go away, sex will happen (at some point)
3. Do not long for an ideal situation: He should stop thinking about what he doesn't have and stop wishing it were the opposite and he should then create a new ideal situation that he can capitalize on.
4. Maximize positive emotions and minimize negative emotions: Anger is clearly not helping him. It hasn't gotten him sex and it hasn't made him happy. Remember, the person resigned to not getting rescued finds no value in building a fire.

He recongizes that his elevated testosterone is influencing his mindset.

In here we find the first step in changing his situation for the better: recognition.

Applying Stoic Strategies to Change His Mindset

• Accept what cannot be changed: He can't change his wife. He can't make her have sex with him. He can't be happy living through the lens of her sexualailty. He can change himself. Everyone can always be improved; to say that one cannot be improved is to say they are perfect and perfection is a paradox: perfection means that one should stop doing anything as there are no more goals; this is lazy thinking and laziness is not part of perfection. On the other end, believing things are fine as many wives do ("our sex life is fine," or "I feel fine") is also lazy thinking and prevents motivation.

Know that you aren't having sex and know that only she can change that. You can only change you. Apply the energy once spent on trying to change her and apply it to more fruitful ambitions. Get a hobby, build something, and lift.

• Have nothing you are not prepared to lose: He believes he needs sex to be happy. More simply, He believes he needs sex. It is clear he does not. He is alive, he is breathing, eating, communicating, and otherwise living. Minus the negative aspects of his emotional state and he could be thriving.

Know that you do not need sex to survive. Stop looking at not having sex as something you aren't getting, and start looking at sex as something that you could get at some point; it is something that fits at the end of priorities for you... not something that fills an empty space. Fill that empty space with something productive. Get a hobby, build something, and lift.

3. Negative visualization: He is already here, but not in control of the thoughts. Anger blinds his control and forces his negative visualization into negative emotions. The simplest method is to let his angry mind tell himself, "You're not having sex anymore!" To which he should reply, "so?" If one can successfully defeat a statement with something so simple as the word, "so?" then the statement being deilvered is empty.

You are not having sex and doing fine without it. You are not having sex... so what? Your wife isn't either, and she seems to do just fine without it. So ask yourself, "Am I weaker than my wife?" "Does my wife have more self-control than I do?" If your answers are "yes" for either of these, I suggest you "get a hobby, build something, and lift.

4. Exercise self-denial: This is where he is ahead of the game, though he seems to be stumbling through it. He needn't deny himself sex as his wife is doing that for him. Instead, he went ahead and deprived himself of the only sexual outlet he has: masturbation. Masturbation, when done healthily, is a valid sexual control mechanism for one's self. Some men even do it when they are rejected sexually by their wives; she rejects him and his mindset is "fine" I can do it myself knowing that he doesn't need her for a sexual outlet.

Masturbation is a healthy outlet for sexual release. It may help curb some anger and uncloud your mind to allow yourself to find some positivity in your situation. However, since you have opted not to, and I won't try to convince you that you should, we will work with the position of no masturbation. Since you are neither having sex and self-denying any other sort of sexual outlet, I suggest you get a hobby, build something, and lift.

Refuse to consider yourself the victim: He simply needs to stop seeing his wife as the "bad guy" and instead see her as a supporting actress for a few scenes. He can interact with her here and there, but she is not the main focus of the protagonist's quest.

Practice misfortune: He is already seeing his position as misfortune. He should start examining what would happen if he wasn't married and if he was single. Sex has already been removed so the next worse thing is the marriage completely.

Imagine, realistically, if you were to leave her right now: could you live somewhere, could you cook, clean, and maintain a home on your own? Do you have enough money to set a deposit on a place of your own, plus first month's rent? Do you have enough life skills to do the things that your wife may be doing for you, at the moment. Do you even know how to file divorce papers? Use that line of thinking as a basis for your next project: have a plan to bug out at a moment's notice. This is parallel to have nothing you are not prepared to lose and consider that a philosophy of life must be lived and that everything is temporary... even your marriage. In the mean time...

GET A HOBBY, BUILD SOMETHING, AND LIFT!

Stoicism: A Primer For How to Be

^^Of ^^course ^^I ^^misspell ^^"world" ^^in ^^the ^^title...