Almost all of us can see why excessive desires can harm us. We stay away from excesses because we know that things like excessive drinking, eating for greed, or excessive money may not be good for us. 

However, we don’t realize that our aversions (what we fear and hate) are the flip side of our desires. Desires can control our life because we desperately want something and will do anything to get it. Our fears and aversions can control our life as easily because we desperately don’t want something to happen and will do anything to avoid it. When we pursue something we desire, we believe that what we desire would bring us happiness. When we try to avoid something, we believe that avoiding it would bring us happiness. But the mechanism is the same for both. 

A good way of understanding our aversions is to think of them as our excessive desire to avoid something. Looked at this way, our aversions are no different from our desires. 

We need a special skill to deal with our fears or aversions. This special skill is courage. Courage is knowing what is terrible and what we should be afraid of, what is not terrible that we should not be afraid of, and what doesn’t really matter. As Epictetus (Discourses 4.4) says 

It makes little difference whether you want to be a senator or not want to be one; whether you want to hold office or not want to hold office; whether you say, “I’m in a bad way. I can’t do anything because I am tied to books,” or you say, “I’m in a bad way. I’ve no time to read.” 

What are aversions? 

In Stoicism, the term aversion includes a wide variety of things, ranging from your mild dislike of broccoli to your fear of death. Aversions include all fears, small or large—fear of illness, fear of old age, fear of loneliness, fear of death—all these are your aversions. If you were not averse to being ill, being old, being lonely, and dying, you wouldn’t fear them. 

Aversions are our dislikes, our “hates,” our fears of different shades, our prejudices and the like. They are the flipside of our desires. When we desire something, we move towards it. We spend a lot of time and resources to get it. When we are averse to something, we move away from it. We spend a lot of time and resources to avoid it. The only difference between the two is the direction. To be happy not only do we need to moderate our desires, but we should also have the courage to face our aversions. 

Aversions can take many forms. We avoid things we are averse to. They can be big or small: 

• You cross the street to avoid talking to someone. 
• You are fearful of public speaking. 
• You hate broccoli. 
• You are afraid to do things that you want to because of what others might think. 
• You accept whatever your boss says because you think your career is depends on it. (You are averse to losing your job.) 
• You avoid a person because he threatens to physically harm you or even to kill you. 
• You want to live in a gated community because you are afraid others may hurt you. 
• You are afraid of being lonely. 
• You are afraid of old age. 
• You are afraid of illness. 
• You are afraid of dying. 

Like desires, aversions are not a major problem if they are not intense or if they aren’t too many. But, as we will see, they can become a problem when they are many or when they are intense. 

We are ruled by our desires and aversions. When we desire something, we aim to get it. If we don’t get what we desire, we feel disappointed. 

Epictetus Enchiridion, 2 

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This is the seventeenth excerpt from our 10-week course on Stoicism. The book covering all course material, readings, and exercises is available from https://amzn.to/2Ck0fje. 

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