No Faith Required
Systems for Living
You’re in luck!
You are playing this interesting and challenging game called “life.”
Hundreds of years ago, a bunch of old guys (the gender reference was intentional) devoted their lives to figuring it all out.
They packaged what they learned into systems and evangelized until they became part of the cultural zeitgeist of their times.
We inherited them.
They work for many people.
Why reinvent the wheel?
For the past several hundred years, the most popular systems have been:
(1) Judaism,
(2) Christianity,
(3) Buddhism,
(4) Hinduism,
(5) Islam,
(6) Stoicism,
(7) Confucianism, and
(8) Hedonism (commonly known as “self-medicating”).
It pains me to leave out existentialism, which is sort of the system for people who don’t like systems, but it gets so damned complicated, and I am not sure existentialism makes the short list.
So, for the sake of your valuable time, we will save existentialism for another day.
I also neglect those who emphatically state that the good life is the happy life, and that the happy life is based on good social relations.[1]
I’m not sure we have a name for the collective voices espousing this, but I know they are there.
I have been listening, but I am not sold.
There are also the “manifesters,” who believe that if you passionately believe that you will get a parking space right in front of your favorite restaurant, you have the power to manifest it.
If you are interested in this group, Napoleon Hill, Norman Vincent Peale, and Oprah are there for you.
I have also neglected the sages who left us with excellent maxims but no “systems,” like Benjamin Franklin, Heraclitus, and Aesop.
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Some of these systems are “theistic” (requiring a belief in one or more gods).
Others are more practical but are still part of a system, such as Stoicism.
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Rather than arm wrestling over the existence of a god or gods, I shall avoid for now Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism, all of which require belief in one or many deities.
Buddhism and Stoicism are non-theistic; you can be a Buddhist or a Stoic and be just as atheistic, agnostic, pantheistic, or secular as you want to be.
Buddhism and Stoicism are similar in some ways and different in others.
They each acknowledge that life is stressful (the Buddhists would state plainly that life is suffering).
They each offer practical techniques for navigating the undercurrents and tsunamis of life in real time (rather than chips to be cashed in after death) without resort to beliefs, opinions, or faith.
At the risk of repeating myself, these techniques work independently of your “belief systems.”
Generally, Buddha taught us that what we believe to be permanent is not.
The Stoics taught us that we do not have to accept reality as it first presents itself; our perceptions and interpretations of it are an integral part of the experience.
Neither has a goal of a reward in the afterlife; both provide a path to wisdom.
Buddhists call it “nirvana.”
Stoics call it “tranquility.”
Let’s take a slightly deeper dive.
Let Go
Rather than a “religion,” I think of Buddhism as more of the first self-improvement program.
Siddhartha developed an explanation for why people suffer and a method to relieve it.
Step right up!
Why do we suffer?
We believe that what we experience is full of this stuff called “reality,” which is relatively permanent and consistent.
Many of us cling to this idea, even when it is clear that their marriage is failing, their ship is sinking, and their political system is corrupt.
Clinging alone brings suffering.
Clinging to dysfunctional relationships compounds the error.
Our “realities” change.
That’s what realities do.
We have no control over that.
We cling to the illusion that they won’t.
This is the cause of suffering.
What do we do about it?
Stop clinging.
Stop expecting people, experiences, good times, bad times, whatever, to last forever.
How do we stop clinging?
Buddha developed a method to help people not cling (or un-cling): meditation.
Buddha walked across India for about 50 years, evangelizing and teaching his teachings and practices.[2]
It caught on.
As of 2025, an estimated 324 million people worldwide practice Buddhism.
Legend holds that Buddha’s final words were something like: “Try it and see. If it works for you, do it; if it doesn’t, don’t.”
No faith required.
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Stoicism has a different point of view.
While Buddhism focuses on metaphysics (the impermanent nature of reality), Stoics emphasize human behavior, specifically, perceptions.
Let’s take a closer look at that.
Both Buddhism and Stoicism emphasize that how we face life’s challenges should be based less on what they first appear to be and more on how we perceive them after rational reflection.
Buddhism emphasizes that we must always be mindful of the impermanence of everything.
Stoicism reminds us that, even though we cannot change the impermanent nature of reality, we have a choice about whether to perceive any act or event as good, bad, or indifferent.
The Art of Reframing
Siddhartha Gautama, later known as the “Buddha” (or the enlightened one), was born around 463 BCE.
A former merchant, Zeno of Citium, began formulating and teaching the beginnings of Stoic philosophy around 300 BCE.
Both philosophies notably precede (although do not conflict with) Christianity by several hundred years.
Why is Stoicism still relevant?
In the 1960s, psychologist Aaron Beck, the guy who developed Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), was forthright in admitting that Stoicism is the grandfather of CBT.
CBT has become a big deal.
It has become the “go-to therapy” for depression and anxiety in our culture.
No surprise that we are experiencing a revival of interest in a philosophy developed around 300 BCE.
What is Stoicism?
First of all, it has nothing to do with a stiff upper lip.
If you asked me for a succinct summary of the basic tenets of Stoicism, I would repeat the Serenity Prayer:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference. [3]
Or as Shakespeare articulated in Hamlet:
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
If something looks bad at first, reframe it.
This is the wisdom of the Stoics.
Seemingly insurmountable obstacles are challenges in disguise, designed to test us and make us wiser.
Their emphasis is not on the impermanence of reality but on our ability to interpret it.
Resources
Marcus Aurelius wrote one book, which was really a journal.
Epictetus didn’t write anything, but one of his students took notes.
Those that survived are known as the “Discourses.”
Seneca wrote a lot of letters before committing suicide (after several gruesome attempts) at the direction of Nero.
Despite the lack of written content, the wisdom of Stoicism has survived.
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If you are looking for a good short course on Stoicism, I can recommend the 12-lecture series from The Great Courses, taught by Professor Massimo Pigliucci of the City University of New York.
He focuses on Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/books-that-matter-meditations
And, not to worry, no stiff upper lip required!
The Great Courses also offers an entertaining 24-lecture course on cognitive-behavioral therapy for those looking for a deeper dive, as well as several courses on Buddhism.[4]
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Even if you don’t want to think of yourself as a “Buddhist” or a “Stoic,” you must admit their systems have stood the test of time for a reason – with no faith required.
Each system transmits different versions of wisdom.
No matter what system you prefer, developing the skill to discern wisdom leads to wise decisions, and wise decisions result in a wise life.
And that is as good as it gets.
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P.S.
Coincidentally, while I was writing this, Ryan Holiday, our resident Texas sage, published Wisdom Takes Work: Learn, Apply, Repeat. Check it out!
[1] An idea dating back at least to Aristotle.
[2] If you see an image of a fat Buddha, don’t believe it. No way a vegetarian could have walked all of those dusty roads and been a candidate for Weight Watchers.
[3] Most people attribute the Serenity Prayer to the protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr in the 1940s (Pietsch, 1990, p. 9). Compare his words to those of Epictetus and you will find the resemblance both to Stoic doctrine and terminology is unmistakable to anyone familiar with the literature of the subject. As it happens, courage and wisdom are two of the four cardinal virtues of classical Greek philosophy, along with self-control and justice. See: https://donaldrobertson.name/2012/12/20/the-serenity-prayer-and-stoicism/
[4] See https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/buddhism