Another important virtue was self-control. But to ancient philosophers, to be a virtuous human being was to be an excellent human being, someone who was, among other things, wise, just, and courageous. In the 21st century, the word virtue is associated with a kind of prudishness: a “virtuous” woman is one who is sexually reserved. But before I continue, a word of explanation is in order. Furthermore, like most philosophers in the ancient world, they cared very much about virtue. One of the primary goals in the Stoic philosophy for living was to prevent themselves from experiencing needless anxiety-hence, their desire to overcome their groundless fears.

They realized, to begin with, that groundless fears give rise to needless anxiety. The Stoics had multiple reasons for trying to overcome their fears. One of them is not even trying to do difficult things because we fear failure. We might also come to realize that there are worse things in life than failing. By taking on such challenges, there is a good chance that we will fail, but in failing we will learn lessons that can help us succeed in the future. To overcome a fear of failure, we should go out of our way to do difficult things. When we survive this experience, perhaps to our amazement, we should move on to bigger audiences.

If we fear public speaking, for example, we should start out by addressing small, friendly audiences. The second step in our program to overcome fear is to expose ourselves, in ever-increasing “doses,” to the things we are afraid of. It is a fear, as I have explained, that can limit our ability to succeed. We might also find, if we examine our lives carefully, that we fear failure.

In doing this research, we might realize that we are afraid of public speaking. The first step is to figure out what we are afraid of. In my previous post, I talked about the things we can do to overcome fear.

The stoic challenge by william b irvine