Missing link in stoicism

It is a million dollar question. How to live happy life while enjoying the uncertainty of everyday life? How to live a happy life in the face of adversity? How to live a happy life and being dependent on the external, on the temporary dopamine spikes. The more I walk on the path of uncertainty, the more I am realising what one person explained to me about stoicism but somehow I did not get it. “You can’t become stoic, by reading about stoicism, you must live it”. Two years ago, I theoretically understood the concept of stoicism, but I asked the universe to give me a challenge in which I could test my theories and hell yeah I got couple of them :). I got tested! And only recently, in the last two months I am finally starting to truly understand what stoics meant by focusing on the virtues like courage, wisdom, temperance or justice, focusing on the internal. All that time I was missing a link between stoic theory and true practice. What does it mean to live it. I have finally understood, that one must truly love himself/herself first regardless the achievements in the external world. Only then the true magic can start happening. But how can one achieve that, when we live in the society of constant comparing and in search for constant approval? Faith! One must believe blindly, that everything is happening for a reason and there is a universe that has always plan for you. Because faith is a killer of all fears, angers and anxieties. But how come can one build faith? By removing all biases that hold you back. All things you feel you must be, you must prove to others who you are, you must achieve this or that to yourself. The magic starts happening, when you start walking the path towards true self-love, regardless the outcome in a way, that you enjoy the ride, you enjoy the process. That self-love can start by repeating self-loving affirmations to yourself after you wake up. That self-love can start by allowing yourself errors and inefficiencies when making mistake without giving yourself a beating. That self-love is that you start loving truly the process and give up on the outcome. You almost must become agnostic to the outcome, you must let loose your wilful will. I believe that through deep self-love building, you can start trusting the universe and build that faith. So what is the formula?

Self-love -> Trust in uncertainty -> Loving the process -> Faith  and then use Bigger self-awareness -> Understanding that fear/anger/anxiety is not real -> Happiness 

Everything begins at being able to love yourself unconditionally. If you can achieve that, everything else in the formula will start to follow and day by day, week by week magic will happen overtime and one day, you will just love the way how you have lived and done things and you wont even care about the outcome. One day, you will be truly able to enjoy all those great virtues stoics talk about and finally start living a truly happy life finding that missing link, a self-love and patterns that hold you back. 

Amen.