I experience a lot of positive emotions when I think about future plans. We have a great trip coming up. There’s fatherhood. I’m catching up with my cousin.
With my interest in Stoicism, this led me to think about emotions and ‘looking forward’ to something. Can we? I believe so.
For a Stoic, emotions are perfectly natural and inevitable. Looking forward to catching up with your cousin? Awesome! It sounds like a rad day. That is a natural emotion to have. But, and it is an important one, you can’t attach your well-being to the outcome. You can’t have an expectation that it will come to pass. There are many factors outside of our control that could prevent this from occurring. The car might not start.
I would shrug my shoulders and accept reality for what it is. I’d ring my cousin and catch up over the phone. The day is not ruined. In fact, I would be grateful that I have the opportunity where I have time available and access to technology to connect with my cousin.
What about looking forward to that holiday you have coming up next year? What about becoming a father?
To return back to our previous statement. Emotions are perfectly natural and inevitable. The Stoics put forward that we choose how to respond to our emotions. As Stoics, we want to respond in a rational and beneficial way. There are many different paths that we can take when we receive our initial impression. We begin to form and attach meaning to them, such as anger, joy, disappointment. As such, emotions are neither good nor bad in and of themselves. It depends if we choose the accept the impression that we have received, and then on how we interpret them and act on them.
Based on this, we can look forward to things, so long as we do not attach our well-being to the outcome. I have to remind myself that we should only focus on what we can control, which is our own thoughts and actions. How we respond to events.
So, back to climbing with my cousin. I can feel the anticipation of catching up and enjoy the emotion that comes with that. At the same time, I have to make sure I don’t attach the impression that going climbing is a prerequisite to having a good day. I might fall off every climb. The car might not start. I might suddenly fall ill.
Yes, we can look forward to something, and be ready to accept whatever happens and make the most of it. Look forward to the holiday and your weekend plans. Look forward to fatherhood. Enjoy the reality of the moment you are in, and if Nature has other plans for our futures, accept them and respond appropriately.
*image generated by AI