How to Love: A Stoic View

When we look into the question of how to love, many different types of love come into our minds. Take a second to think about what you refer to when talking about love. You might find it hard to define. It could brighten our days or it could cause us to stop living a free and peaceful life. If either of these is the case, then it is worth examining. We shouldn’t only focus on the emotions or states of being we deem negative. But also on those passions that we tend to praise. Love is one of them because it can rob us quite unexpectedly of our freedom if not approached correctly.

It’s time to divide the different kinds of love and see where we should keep our focus and when we should be cautious. I can hear some asking why they need to caution themselves with something as beautiful as love. This requires us to distinguish the passion we call love and the state of being we view as deep affection for what we care about. In this post, we will look at all sides and see how we should react to them. How we should perceive it and where our focus should lie.

Understand what you love

“In a similar way, you too should remind yourself that what you love is mortal, that what you love is not your own. It is granted to you for the present while, and not irrevocably, nor for ever, but like a fig or a bunch of grapes in the appointed season; and if you long for it in the winter, you are a fool.”

Epictetus, the Discourses, Book 3, Chapter 24.86

Who else but Epictetus to start us off with a reminder when talking about love, especially concerning living beings? We must keep in mind what it is that we hold. If it’s a person, we need to realize that they can be taken away from us. And why is he saying this? Is it to tell us not to love? No, we need to keep in mind that we shouldn’t love it out of its season. Nowadays, we can eat fruits at any time of the year. But back in his day, they didn’t have this luxury. Therefore, wanting figs in the winter would only cause you sorrow. But when they are in season, that’s when you need to love them and be grateful that you can taste them. The same goes for those around us. Be grateful in the moment when they are with us.

If we wish to remain free, we shouldn’t become attached to things that aren’t under our control. Love can drag us out of our peaceful state. It can hold a power over us that can bring us straight to something that resembles grief. We need to be careful with our emotions, even one that sounds as beautiful as love. And let me be honest, love can be wonderful as long as we apply it in a tempered and reasoned manner. We have to examine what it is that we love and how we love it. When we look into emotions such as anger, we try to prevent or resolve them, while love is one of the things we seem to be looking for. And when we can’t find it, its very absence can bring us despair.

You’re fond of a jug

“In the case of everything that delights the mind, or is useful, or is loved with fond affection, remember to tell yourself what sort of thing it is, beginning with the least of things. If you are fond of a jug, say, ‘It is a jug that I am fond of’; then, if it is broken, you will not be disturbed. If you kiss your child, or your wife, say to yourself that it is a human being that you are kissing; and then you will not be disturbed if either of them dies.”

Epictetus, the handbook, 3

Being in love is a great feeling, of course, but how rational is your mind in that state? This is a powerful way in which love can overwhelm us. And this is the form of love we have to be more attentive to. As a wave that can reshape the coastline, so can this emotion conquer even the strongest fortifications in the mind. Our thoughts go to only one place and keep us from sleeping, and even from eating or drinking. How wonderful it is to have this feeling. But what if it is not returned? And what is it that caused this feeling inside of us? We can put this feeling into the category of the passions we wish to avoid if we want to keep our peace.

If it is outward beauty that triggers the love in us, then we need to remember that even the most beautiful flower will, at one point, lose its colors. So it is with humans and that is one more point we need to remind ourselves of. But if we learn to dig deeper, we can see a purer and long-lasting source of affection. As we can see, there are so many layers that might bring us into a state of ecstasy. A passion that we wish to avoid or at least want to transform into a more stable form of love. The one who will listen to our rational mind and our reason. Getting a good and deep understanding of this emotion is key.

How good is love for us?

Where we can take our anger away, sometimes by taking a breath. Or sadness by allowing a moderate cry to release the first wave. Being in love is something different. It can stick with us and be ignited by a single thought of the person we have fallen in love with. Would we call ourselves free in that state of mind? What would you do to pursue the source of this great feeling? Would you follow them to the end of the world?

But what if this takes you off your path and down the cliff? Then we need to reconsider how good it is for us. It might feel good and seem like what we are after, but it has a short time span. And since we are dealing with people who are not you, we can’t say whether it is still there for them or has been there to begin with.

Falling in love, the verb falling can give us a hint to its nature, which is something we can’t always control. It’s one of those emotions that hits us with a sudden strike. Now it is time to take that same breath we do when we find ourselves becoming angry. We need to learn to apply temperance to this feeling. It might make you feel great, but risks are involved. And the Stoics teach us to use reason and a rational mind. We must remain true to Virtue, how high the cloud might take us, and remember that we are on a ball of water molecules. It could turn into rain, and then we need to be ready to return to Earth unharmed.

How and What We Should Love

How should we love, and what should we love? For this next question, we point our attention again to Epictetus.

“What a man sets his heart on, that he naturally loves. Do men set their heart on evils? – By no means. Or on what does not concern them? – No again. It remains for us to conclude, then, that good things alone are what they set their heart on: and if they set their heart on those, they love them too. Whoever, therefore, has knowledge of good things would also know how to love them; and he who cannot distinguish good things from evil, and things that are neither good nor evil from both of these, how could he still have power to love? It follows that the wise man alone has the power to love.”

Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 22.1

We love what we set our hearts on. And we should be focused on what is good. The more superficial the thing that we set our sights on, the more erratic the love is. But if we learn to love profoundly and find the true nature of the object of our love, we can be more grounded in it. We can stay true to ourselves because part of what we love is within us.

Now we can begin to recognize that our object of love also belongs to Nature and thus is like us. Then, when this aim of our affection would depart, we know it remains with us. We love nature, and that’s what we all belong to. This deeper, more honest sense of love is a feeling we can give to everything around us. It will stay with us like a warm blanket on a cold winter’s day. Let’s try to approach the wise woman and find that power to love.

Start with yourself

“There you’re still below your quota. You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat.”

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 5.1

Why not start by giving that love to ourselves? To do so, we need to know ourselves. But that sounds dangerous, as it might bring up our flaws. And how can we love things that aren’t good? Let’s be a bit kinder to ourselves and see these parts of us for what they are. We can change our view when we stop looking at them as our flaws and instead see them as room for growth. When we learn to embrace ourselves as a whole, we can show true love for ourselves. As Marcus says, if we can learn to love our nature, then it can make us lose ourselves. This would be the sense of ultimate freedom since we are now living in accordance with our nature.

A pure form of gratitude

From here, we start to expand that love to everything around us. Once we learn to accept ourselves as a whole, we can do the same to that which we wish to love, its flaws included. And now that we know that there is an expiry date on everything, we also know that we must love the moment. Whatever we find in that moment is there for us, and we can see it for what it is and in all its beauty. How to love is to love all. All that is there around us. Love what was and what will be by loving this moment right now. 

Take a moment to look around you and feel the love from everything that is there. The known and the unknown. Because it all shares the same and is part of everything. In this sense, we can learn to know what Nature meant by love: A pure form of gratitude and harmony with the moment. I will leave you with Marcus Aurelius since no one can say it better than he did.

“The things ordained for you—teach yourself to be at one with those. And the people who share them with you—treat them with love. With real love.”  

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 6.39

“To love only what happens, what was destined. No greater harmony.”

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.57

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Author Bio

Benny Voncken is the co-founder of Via Stoica, where he helps people apply Stoic philosophy to modern life. He is a Stoic coach, writer, and podcast host of The Via Stoica Podcast. With almost a decade of teaching experience and daily Stoic practice, Benny creates resources, workshops, and reflections that make ancient wisdom practical today.