Could anyone give some pointers, good websites to study, and general pillars of Stoicism to see if I fall under it? I’ve always been a person who doesn’t get annoyed by things I can’t control, which I know is a somewhat big part of Stoicism.
Im just curious to see what the general idea around it is.
If you don't mind sharing how often you drink.
Thank you to everyone for giving there opinions I truly appreciate it!
To use a random none personal example. Someone who has a dream to become a restaurant owner. They have some money saved to afford starting up a business. But they don't. Because what if it doesn't go well? What if they become bankrupt?
No investment = no loss.
Only the complex side is that at the same time
No investment = no win exists too.
And a life where we never invest or commit in any context, will never be a winning one. It will never be a happy life where we let fears control our every decision. Happy people demands growth, and growth demands courage. And courage? Demands action (investment /commitment) But risking it all can also lead to very bad consequences that are hard to get back up from. Some never do.
So when do we know when to take action and not? How do we know our decisions follows a stoic direction?
I've always thought decisions that leads to the chance of purpose is worth investing in more times then not, but I'm not sure that's also a stoic direction or if stoicism views decisions differently.
I'm not native in English so if you can explain things with irl examples I understand better. Thanks.
Reacting to a situation can only bring dire consequences for the individual. Choosing to take a deep breath and either walk away or remain unresponsive is by far the best option when dealing with bad situations or bad people.
I'm autistic. I've seen firsthand the stigma that is associated with being neurodivergent. People have a hard time understanding and accepting things that are different. The idea of neurodiversity is to fight that stigma by normalizing being neurodivergent. There's nothing wrong with having a brain that is wired differently. This is a lesson that everyone needs to internalize — including neurodivergent people themselves. Too often neurodivergent people wish they were someone else, wish that their brains were "normal." The intention of this guide is to show how you can accept and even celebrate neurodiversity, and it uses philosophy to do it.
Pragmatism is a way of doing philosophy that treats ideas as tools. The test of a tool is whether it works when you put it to use. That's the approach I take here. As you read, you'll notice I borrow freely from different philosophies, because these are the tools that have worked for me. Maybe one or two will work for you. Keep what works and leave the rest.
Did you know you can choose to be lucky? That's because lucky is a mindset. It's something you can learn. Stoicism shows us how.
Stoicism is a philosophy that originated in ancient Greece and Rome. The Stoics started from a hard premise: the world is governed by fate. Most of what happens to you — where you were born, the body you live in, the way your mind is wired — was never up to you. You can rage against that, or you can do the harder and stranger thing the Stoics asked of themselves. You can welcome it. Marcus Aurelius, one of the most famous Stoics, set the bar high: to welcome with affection whatever fate sends — not merely to tolerate your life, but to want it.
Welcoming your fate is not resignation, and it is not pretending. It asks you to stop wishing your life had been a different life, and to turn toward the one you actually have.
So how do you welcome being neurodivergent?
Start with what's yours. You didn't choose your wiring; no one chooses theirs. The Stoics drew a sharp line between what is up to us and what isn't, and almost nothing drains a person faster than spending their strength on the wrong side of that line. Why am I like this? is mostly unanswerable, and grieving it can eat a whole lifetime. Given that I am, what now? is a question you can actually act on. Your neurology is not up to you. Your response to it is.
Consider the example of a poker player. She didn't choose her cards — they were dealt to her. There is no way she could know what the dealer would give her. She has no control over that. What she can control is how skillfully she plays the hand.
The Stoics had another practice to help get into the lucky mindset. Instead of dreaming about how things could've turned out better, they compared their life to inferior situations they imagined and concluded that things weren't so bad. This is known as negative visualization. Briefly considering how your circumstances could be worse can help you feel lucky.
But there are also genuine advantages, things you would never have found on an easier road.
Malcolm Gladwell wrote about the unexpected advantages of being dyslexic. One thing he found was that by the time many dyslexic people finish school, they've failed so many times that failure has simply stopped frightening them, so they look at a situation and see much more of the upside than the downside. Because they're so accustomed to the downside. The downside doesn't faze them. They've lived there. For some, dyslexia isn't the thing they succeed in spite of. It's part of why they succeed at all.
The very thing that made your path harder also built something in you that an easier path never would have, a tolerance for difficulty that becomes a real advantage. You are accustomed to the downside. It doesn't faze you. That is not a small thing.
Marcus put the principle in a line that a modern Stoic, Ryan Holiday, later used for a book title: The Obstacle Is the Way. The thing standing in your way can become the way itself. The obstacle isn't the detour from the path. Handled well, it is the path.
None of this happens on its own. The advantage was never in having the obstacle; it's in what you do with it, again and again, when quitting would be easier. Holiday's instruction is about as plain as advice gets — persist and resist. Persist in the work that is yours to do. Resist the pull toward distraction, toward discouragement, toward disorder. The persistence is the part that converts a hard fate into a strong one.
So, you become lucky the way you become anything — by practice. By meeting your fate with affection instead of argument. By looking for the advantages hidden inside it and the strength it built in you, and then putting that strength to use. The world handed you this wiring without asking your permission. What you make of it is the part that is up to you.
Anxiety is common in neurodivergent people. It's important to remember that things generally go better when we loosen up a little bit. The challenge is to figure out how to do that. Stoicism and Buddhism have some actionable advice.
The first thing to do is to focus on your own opinions, not other people's. As Marcus wrote: It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own. A lot of anxiety comes from worrying too much about what others think of you. You should focus on what you think of you.
That brings us back to one of the key ideas in Stoicism. You should focus on what you control. You can't control other people's opinions. You can't control the economy. You can't control the weather. You can only really control your effort, your attitude. That's where you should focus your energy.
A couple of other things you don't control are the past and the future. You only have the present, so that's where you should focus your effort.
If you find yourself worrying about things you don't control, remind yourself that, This is nothing to you. But what if you are having some serious anxiety, and you can't just disregard it? This is where Buddhism comes into play. Buddhism gives you another tool in your toolbox to deal with anxiety: mindfulness meditation.
What mindfulness meditation does is create some space in your mind to allow you to observe your anxiety and not get carried away by it. As you focus on your breath and remember that emotions come and go, you'll be able to navigate your way through the emotion.
Here are the general steps for meditation:
These steps can help you survive anxiety.
One additional thing you can do after you start your meditation with these steps is you can shift your focus to the anxiety and observe it without judging it. Try to keep the part of your mind that labels things as "good" or "bad" quiet and just observe the anxiety. What is the texture of the anxiety? Does it have a shape and color? How would you describe it? As you observe it without judgment, it becomes less a part of you. It has less influence over you. Eventually, it will subside. Through mindfulness meditation you can transform unhealthy emotions into healthy ones.
This guide asks that you stop fighting the wiring you were given and start working with it. But acceptance does not mean forcing yourself to endure every environment exactly as it is. Working with your wiring may mean asking for accommodations, protecting yourself from sensory overload, building routines, using medication, seeking therapy, or leaving situations that continually harm you.
This guide also offers a set of tools to help you work with your wiring. Stoicism teaches you to draw the line between what is yours and what is not, to welcome your fate instead of arguing with it, and to find the advantage hidden inside the obstacle. Buddhism gives you a way to sit with anxiety until it loosens its grip. You did not choose your neurology. You still have a say in how you understand it, work with it, and build your life around it. That part is up to you.
Introduction
My favorite definition of neurodiversity comes from NeuroTribes by Steve Silberman:
>Neurodiversity: the notion that conditions like autism, dyslexia, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) should be regarded as naturally occurring cognitive variations with distinctive strengths that have contributed to the evolution of technology and culture rather than mere checklists of deficits and dysfunctions. Though the spectrum model of autism and the concept of neurodiversity are widely believed to be products of our postmodern world, they turn out to be very old ideas, proposed by Hans Asperger in his first public lecture on autism in 1938. The idea of neurodiversity has inspired the creation of a rapidly growing civil rights movement based on the simple idea that the most astute interpreters of autistic behavior are autistic people themselves.
Some people argue that this condition or that condition should or should not be included in neurodiversity. I have a very broad interpretation of neurodiversity.
In NeuroDiversity, Judy Singer originally defined neurodiversity very broadly:
>While my focus was on AS, I considered that the scope of neurodiversity was far broader. It could encompass the near-absurdist splintering of the then DSM IV.
Pragmatism
From Reconstruction in Philosophy by John Dewey:
>If ideas, meanings, conceptions, notions, theories, systems are instrumental to an active reorganization of the given environment, to a removal of some specific trouble and perplexity, then the test of their validity and value lies in accomplishing this work. If they succeed in their office, they are reliable, sound, valid, good, true.
Choose to Be Lucky
The Art of Living by Sharon Lebell is a contemporary interpretation of Epictetus's most important teachings. It has this:
>As you think, so you become. Avoid superstitiously investing events with power or meanings they don't have. Keep your head. Our busy minds are forever jumping to conclusions, manufacturing and interpreting signs that aren't there. Assume, instead, that everything that happens to you does so for some good. That if you decided to be lucky, you are lucky. All events contain an advantage for you — if you look for it!
How to Live a Good Life by Massimo Pigliucci, et al., has a good introduction to Stoicism.
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, translated by Gregory Hays, has a lot of wisdom, including these passages about fate:
>To welcome with affection what is sent by fate.
And this:
>That every event is the right one. Look closely and you'll see. Not just the right one overall, but right. As if someone had weighed it out in the scales.
Discourses and Selected Writings by Epictetus, translated by Robert Dobbin, has the card-player metaphor:
>Model yourself on card players. The chips don't matter, and the cards don't matter; how can I know what the deal will be? But making careful and skilful use of the deal — that's where my responsibility begins. So in life our first job is this, to divide and distinguish things into two categories: externals I cannot control, but the choices I make with regard to them I do control. Where will I find good and bad? In me, in my choices. Don't ever speak of 'good' or 'bad', 'advantage' or 'harm', and so on, of anything that is not your responsibility.
William B. Irvine covers negative visualization in his book The Stoic Challenge.
The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday is a must-read. The phrase "persist and resist" is originally from Discourses and Selected Writings by Epictetus.
David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell has the stories of people who have thrived with dyslexia.
Loosen Up
The quotation from Marcus Aurelius is from Meditations, translated by Gregory Hays.
The Epictetus quotation and paraphrase are from The Complete Works by Epictetus, translated Robin Waterfield. It clearly explains what is up to us:
>Some things are up to us and some are not. Up to us are judgment, inclination, desire, aversion -- in short, whatever is our own doing. Not up to us are our bodies, possessions, reputations, public offices -- in short, whatever isn’t our own doing. ... So take up the practice right now of telling every disagreeable impression, 'You're an impression, and not at all what you appear to be.' Then go on to examine it and assess it by these criteria of yours, and first and foremost by this one: whether it has to do with the things that are up to us or the things that are not up to us. And if it has to do with the things that are not up to us, have at hand the reminder that it’s nothing to you.
Instructions for meditating are from Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics and 10% Happier by Dan Harris; Why Buddhism Is True by Robert Wright; and You Are Here by Thich Nhat Hanh.
In No Mud, No Lotus, Thich Nhat Hanh wrote about how to transform suffering:
>With mindfulness, you can recognize the presence of the suffering in you and in the world. And it's with that same energy that you tenderly embrace the suffering. By being aware of your in-breath and out-breath you generate the energy of mindfulness, so you can continue to cradle the suffering. Practitioners of mindfulness can help and support each other in recognizing, embracing, and transforming suffering.
Conclusion
Meditations, translated by Robin Waterfield, discusses Marcus Aurelius’s insomnia and his use of medicine to help him sleep.
Most people read Meditations as a philosophy book.
I read it as a recovery manual.
Not because I was looking for that. Because when I finally got still enough to read it — homeless, broken, every bridge burned — that's what it was.
Marcus wasn't writing for posterity. He was writing to hold himself accountable. The most powerful man in the world doing a daily honest inventory of his own character. In private. With no audience.
That realization broke something open in me.
I had spent years performing. Managing how I looked to other people. Constructing a version of myself that could survive the next day without anyone seeing the real one.
Marcus wasn't performing. He was examining.
"You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this and you will find strength."
I know that quote. Most people who've read Meditations know that quote. But there's a difference between knowing it and staking your life on it.
When you have nothing left — no home, no relationships, no constructed identity to hide behind — that quote stops being philosophy and starts being the only thing standing between you and complete collapse.
The dichotomy of control isn't an intellectual framework. It's a survival tool.
Two years out of that wreckage now. I still do the daily examination Marcus modeled. Still hold myself to account in private. Still return to Meditations when the noise gets loud.
The practice is what saved me. Not the philosophy.
What Stoic practice has actually changed your daily life — not as a concept but as something you live?
Hi so am 21 and I am going through the worst patch of life in my 21 years of existence. I am fat, recently got a back injury I can't even bend n shi,got my eye checked yesterday and have to wear fkin glasses and was admitted to hospital in February of this year and i used to smoke weed nd cigs and alcohol and all that like a lot everyday and ofc career and studies wise it's all shit so in all its all shit but crying won't do jackshit nd I know it so what exactly is stoicism and how can I use it to change my life I only want geniune suggestions as consider this me opening up to people for the first time thanks for reading this far
Amor fati gets quoted constantly, usually as "love your fate" with a vaguely calm, accepting tone. But the more I sit with how Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus actually used it, the more I think the popular version has it backwards.
Passive acceptance is resignation — "this is fine, nothing I can do." That's learned helplessness with a Latin name. What the Stoics were actually doing was closer to: "this is what I have. Now what do I build with it?"
The distinction is action. Amor fati isn't lowering your standards to match a bad reality. It's treating the bad reality — including the parts you never chose — as raw material to act from.
Marcus's own line is the giveaway: "the impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way." That's not resignation. That's using the obstacle.
What's interesting is how well it maps onto modern acceptance-based psychology. Steven Hayes's work on experiential avoidance found that trying to suppress or fight an unwanted internal experience reliably increases its intensity — the resistance becomes a second layer of suffering on top of the original. The Stoic move sidesteps that: stop fighting what already happened, then act from where you actually are.
The part I'm still chewing on is the Nietzsche version — he pushed it further, arguing you should retroactively want every moment of your past, wounds included. That feels like it can tip into self-deception (pretending genuine harm was a gift). The Stoic version seems more defensible: you don't have to love what happened, you just have to stop letting your refusal to accept it consume the present.
How do people here hold the line between amor fati as active transformation vs. it collapsing into "everything happens for a reason" resignation? Where's the actual boundary in practice?
Due to the string of recent patterns of posts here I just want to make a suggestion.
- No A.I. written posts. To write with an AI prompt is to expect everyone else to waste their time reading what you couldn’t even be bothered to spend your time writing in the first place. If you also don’t note that it was made by AI, you are demonstrating a lack of integrity.
- No advertising your apps. The goal of stoicism is not more tracking apps. Dependence upon tracking apps (and the money/ads ads within them) is the opposite direction of stoicism. Public forums to talk about it, such as this, are great. When posts are just AI-written vague “wanna understand stoicism? It’s not just this— it’s that. I made an app… here’s the link!” The sub degrades and all posts drift into “this is probably a grift.”
- No preaching. Religious beliefs and adherence to scriptures are not part of stoicism, and coming here to tell everyone that they need your deity in order to find peace is not the purpose of a forum on stoicism. The classical stoics mention “gods” but a better translation would be “the heavens” or Mother Nature, or fate. Something more akin to The Tao or Wu Wei rather than a religious doctrine. There is no dogmatism or commandment in stoicism, and belief on its own is not a virtue.
Just my suggestion to improve this sub.
(* I will not respond or engage into people's projected triggers. This topic mentions Covid but the focus is Stoic practice. If the content is triggering, please scroll on and make room for us who can discuss it civil.)
I got into Stoicism 4-5 years before Covid hit, and so I followed the restrictions in my area and did all the things I was told and got prepared , but I never felt that fear or panic some described. I wonder if any other stoic can relate? That you was ready for whatever might come but you didn't let it become a fear that controlled you and made you act irrational.
Over the years I have reflected why I could relax when others in same circumstance couldn't, (OBS. I refer to people who faced no serious consequences of Covid, we were there too)
I realized a big part of it was my limited access to the news and social media articles about Covid.
99% were negative catastrophe focused all to grasp people's attention, as news often is. You don't put on the news when you need a break and to relax or be grounded or stay present, you put on the news to remain alert, to be shaken up and get a slap in your face to stay on guard. And staying alert was the last thing I needed.
I'm also an optimist and have practiced graditude for several years so even in a collective world panic I will find the little gems of graditude and focus on that to remain peaceful and sane. There is always more than one perspective and even in bad situations, there can come out something good out of it and I'm great at searching and finding those truths. I'm aware I'm amongst the minority. But we exist too. (There was a magazine with only positive news, but most people still chose the classic news paper of horror scenarios that had already happened or scenarios to worry about in the future so that positive magazine didn't survive)
I've also been in life and death crisis situations before and I excelled at it. It was a hidden skill of mine to be extremely calm and collective when others panicked. So with this in my backpack I probably positively assumed whatever happens
I figure this is an interesting brain picking for stoics when it comes to fear vs confidence. You're welcome to ask me any questions you have.
I have developed my discernment over the years to be selective of where I put my energy. Part of that is the people I surround myself with. If they do not align with my values or raise concerns, I remove myself from that social situation and realign with healthy relationships.
However, I’ve found myself in a situation where I can’t do that.
Someone who I’m very close to, Person B, is in a relationship with Person C. Person C has had a lot of red flags come up both through my interactions with him and his interactions with Person B. Their values do not align with my own and I can’t help put get a bad feeling when I’m around them, like I can feel it in my soul this is not a person I should be around.
Person B is very near and dear to me. But in the span of a couple months they have completely changed. They now are with Person C every day at everything they’re invited to. I’ve brought up my concerns respectfully and tried to keep my distance at social settings, but I can’t help but feel my peace being disturbed.
As a stoic, do you have any advice? How should I handle this? I worry about pushing Person B away, because if what I’m feeling turns out to be true, I don’t want to abandon them when they need support.
Observation: Every morning, a small ritual. Ryan Holiday’s words arrive like light through a window, each page a mirror held up to the day ahead. The Daily Stoic isn’t read so much as inhabited, you don’t just learn philosophy, you live it, one meditation at a time. There’s something sacred about sitting with these ancient voices before the noise begins, letting Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus whisper their steady wisdom into the chaos. It rewires you slowly, quietly. Not with thunder, but with the gentle persistence of water on stone. The book doesn’t promise enlightenment, only clarity. And maybe that’s enough
We would give everything for a moment that passed, and so every new day we try to return the one that remained behind it. Do we not see how stupid that is?
At 20 we want to return to the period when we were 16, at 30 we want to return 20, at 50 again to 30, and so on until the end of life. Is it not better that, instead, we direct attention to the present moment, the only one that will be with us until the end, the only one in which, in fact, we live?
Because when you look a little closer, you cannot influence the past because it is passed, and you can influence the future exclusively through actions in the present.
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Technology preferences aside, accusations, hate and harassments on others content regardless topic one excuse it under, is still based on projected fears. And being a witness or even target in this can be difficult.
For me it makes sense to focus on what's in our control. We can only choose whether or not we use AI on our own devices, not whoever else use it or not and neither can we know which text online is a bot and which text isn't. We can guess. But that's still to focus on what's outside our control. A guess isn't control. It's choice. And if we can choose to guess it's AI, we might as well guess it's human. It's positive and welcoming and also logic imo.
But I don't need to guess to understand when someone is against AI and projecting that hate and fear on me or someone else. And I'm still figuring out what would be a stoic response here.
I have asked and discussed this on different subs and usually it's mass downvoted, trolls enter the threads, calls it AI/bot/ slop/ fake and kills the discourse.
I want it to lead to wise discourses so I figured fellow stoics have what it takes to muster this topic, maybe I can get some actual wise comments this time.
I find it hard to let my past problems go. Problems where I did nothing to stop being with rude and indifferent people.
Now, I already worked in it, and I know that I should let it go. However I am not sure what to do if I come across people who I have met before.
Is there any stoic solution for this?
For years I assumed being "sober-minded" simply meant not getting drunk. After digging into Scripture, I realized it means something much deeper. The New Testament repeatedly connects sober-mindedness with spiritual alertness, self-control, wisdom, and vigilance. It's about having a mind that is clear enough to recognize temptation and focused enough to follow Christ faithfully.
That made me think about our culture today. Many of us aren't intoxicated by alcohol, but we are constantly distracted. Social media, endless entertainment, online arguments, and even worry can consume our attention until prayer, serving others, and time in God's Word slowly get pushed aside. None of those things are necessarily sinful, but they can quietly shape what we value.
Peter's command to "be sober, be vigilant" takes on a whole new meaning when viewed through that lens. Sober-mindedness isn't about living a joyless life. It's about living with purpose, exercising the fruit of the Spirit, and staying spiritually alert in a world full of distractions that compete for our attention.
Hello fellow Stoics,
I'm a philosophy professor who recently dove into the world of Stoicism. I began with studying Epictetus' The Enchiridion and then Sanjay Tiwari’s A Stoic’s Guide to the Modern World. This school of thought had such a profound impact on me I began building something to help me apply Stoic principles in my daily life.
This all started as personal notes, but quickly evolved into a structured resource for daily reflection, journaling, and navigating life's hardships using Stoic principles. It’s NOT meant to replace the original texts, but to work alongside them; in other words a "companion".
If you’re just getting started on your Stoic Journey and looking for ways to put it into practice, Check out my personal outline below it might help. I’d also appreciate any feedback or ideas!
Here’s what my guide includes:
· Key Stoic principles extracted directly from the text
· Journaling exercises & structured templates for reflections
· Real-life Stoic action plans for varying scenarios of anxiety, failure, rejection, temptation, and more
· A glossary of Stoic Techniques & Terms, including Negative Visualization, Dichotomy of Control, and Premeditatio Malorum and many more
Also, for those of you who are already on your path to Stoic Sagehood I’d love to hear what practices or techniques have worked for you!