Is Being a Stoic The Key To a Better Life?

 

I just recently learned the meaning of stoicism and what it means to be a stoic. I've heard the words thrown around from time to time, and not to long ago the words caught my attention in the TV series Gotham. Yes, it took a TV series based on DC comics to make me want to expand my knowledge and vocabulary, but that is the way the world works. This is how stoics think, briefly put they believe in accepting the things that we as individuals have no control over and making the best out of any situation. Stoics have a reputation of being emotionless, commonly compared to Spock from Star Track, but this can be interpreted in many different ways by many different people. From what I've learned Stoics may be misunderstood based on emotion, I think that stoics believe they have control over their own emotions and what situations they want to put in an effort to react to. Whether or not they want to show them is their choice and no one or nothing else's, which may come off to others as being emotionless or dry. But how would a stoic react to life's challenges? How would one advise another to react to other people? And most importantly how would they face the thought of death? Marcus Aurelius, the stoic roman emperor, would simply say "Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present."