One of my favorite articles was published several years ago in a local newspaper when I was stationed at the United States Naval Hospital, Guam. The piece was written by a Navy chaplain named Barry J. Baughman and was entitled "Attitude." There is no Internet link to the article, and copyright rules prevent me from reproducing the article here, so I will summarize. The premise of the article was that there are a lot of things in life that you can't control, but the one thing that everyone can control is their attitude. Baughman quoted Dr. Charles Swindoll, who stated that "I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it." In other words, if everyone worried less about things that they could not control and instead focused their energies on maintaining a positive attitude, the world would be a much better (and happier) place! Baughman goes on to talk about Reinhold Niebuhr's famous Serenity Prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference." Baughman ended his article with a quote from Abraham Lincoln, who said, "People are about as happy as they've made up their minds to be."
While Baughman did not specifically mention it, his lessons for life are consistent with the teachings of the Stoic school of philosophy, an ancient Greek and Roman philosophy that was founded by Zeno of Citium in the 3rd century BC and later popularized by the philosophers, Seneca, Epictetus Epictetus, as well as the Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius. The Stoic philosophy is perhaps summarized best by Epictetus, who said "What, then, is to be done? To make the best of what is in our power, and take the rest as it naturally happens." In other words, Stoics believe that the best way to respond to life's challenges is to "roll with the punches" and control the one thing that is under your control - your attitude (How to be a Stoic). Admiral James Stockdale(more to come on him in a later post) has written extensively on Stoic philosophy (Stockdale on Stoicism).
The English poet, William Ernest Henley wrote a poem called "Invictus" (recited by the actor, Morgan Freeman here) which I believe encapsulates many of the fundamental tenets of the Stoic philosophy. Henley suffered from tuberculosis that invaded his bone, requiring amputation of his left leg below the knee at the age of 12 years (incidentally, one of Henley's close friends was the author Robert Louis Stevenson, who wrote Treasure Island - the character of Long John Silver was inspired in part by Henley). Nelson Mandela is said to have recited the poem to his fellow prisoners while he was a incarcerated at Robben Island prison (depicted in the movie, Invictus, starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon, about the 1995 Rugby World Cup, Nelson Mandela, and the rugby player Francois Pienaar):
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
It all comes down to attitude, just as Baughman said in his article. Again, quoting Charles Swindoll, "We have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day...We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way... The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude." Perhaps this is the secret to a happy and fulfilling life...
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