I spent years trying to control things. People. Outcomes. How others saw me.
It never worked.
Then I read Epictetus. A man who had nothing — no freedom, no rights. But no one could touch his mind.
That hit different.
The moment I stopped trying to control what I couldn't —
things actually started moving.
What's one thing you finally let go of?
“I wake up at 2am every day for work.
Some mornings I oversleep. 2:30. Sometimes 3.
I only do this in summer. September — I go back to university.
I hope this is my last summer like this.
Not because the work is bad. But because I have something I’m building toward.
Marcus Aurelius worked through wars, loss, sickness — and still showed up every day.
If he could do it — I can wake up at 2am.
What gets you out of bed when everything in you says stay?”
How do you deal with other people lying? Particularly people in authority positions that lie about you and cause you material damage.
Is it not healthy to get angry at this? I feel pretending everything is okay is suppression.
You state the truth about an abuse that happened. The person in authority gaslights you and punishes you further.
You aren't supposed to react and say fuck you?
Not all of our catastrophizing "what if" thoughts about the future come true, but some of them do.
And I think that's the problem. People are scared of all their "what if" thoughts and they're right - if not all, some of them will come true. So, how can someone cope with this fact even though they have no control over them?
And can they do something right now to prevent them from happening?
I (20F) have never really been into philosophy. I recently got to about it and I’d like to learn more - especially about how I can apply it to my life.
I enlisted in the Marines. I’ll be shipping out to bootcamp soon. How can I get into stoicism to help me get through bootcamp and have a successful career in the military? I applied for a combat role and I know it’ll be tough
I'm really intolerant of uncertainty. To me, uncertainty means anything is possible in the future. Catastrophizing thoughts may come true, none of them may come true or only some of them may come true.
This really bothers me because some of my catastrophizing thoughts in the past did come true. When they do, it's just so hard to deal with them. I just don't want to suffer.
I've tried lots of medications and I've even tried ECT, but none of them worked. I was diagnosed with several conditions, like anxiety disorder, OCD and autism spectrum disorder. I've also tried CBT and talk therapy, but I'm still not doing well mentally.
Hey everyone,
I’ve been practicing Stoicism for years. I studied the original texts of the giants Epictetus, Marcus, Seneca, I've read almost every book on the subject, journal daily, do regular deep-reflection sessions, and follow psychological insights to regulate my emotions and build self-discipline. I truly believed this mental preparation was building an unshakeable armor for whatever life threw at me.
Recently, I hit a major, unimaginable life crisis—and the wave completely knocked me off my feet.
What hit me hardest wasn't just the crisis itself, but the realization that all this preparation didn't protect me the way I thought it would. In fact, it forced me to confront a uncomfortable question: Has this hyper-focus on self-mastery actually done me harm?
When the crisis hit, instead of just being in the moment, meeting the hardship head on, feeling the pain, anger, dissapointment as any person would have, my brain immediately went into analysis mode: “What am I feeling? Why am I feeling this? What is the Stoic response here? How do I apply the dichotomy of control right now?”
I realized I had become a spectator in my own life. I wasn't participating; I was just observing, analyzing, and trying to regulate every internal fluctuation. By constantly looking at my mind through a magnifying glass, I turned every small wave into a tidal wave. I was so busy managing my internal reaction that I lost touch with the raw reality of the external situation.
After feeling miserable and defeated in dealing with the crisis and my philosophy for months, I’m considering a radical shift in my practice, and I want to hear your thoughts on it.
I’m thinking about putting my inner world "on fallow" for a while.
By that, I mean:
I feel like my mind is exhausted from constant "input" and self-governance. In agriculture, you have to let fields lie fallow so the soil can restore its nutrients. I feel like my mind needs a similar process.
To the seasoned practitioners here: Is stepping away from active Stoic analysis to just live simply and externally a valid phase of the practice? Or am I misunderstanding something fundamental about how Stoicism is supposed to function during an actual storm?
Would love to hear your insights.
"Look within. Within is the fountain of good."
We search for peace in money, in people, in success.
Marcus found it 2000 years ago.
It was never outside.
Where do you look when life gets hard?
Seneca wrote this 2000 years ago.
Most people scroll past it in 2 seconds —
proving his point.
You don't own your house. Your car. Your job.
One day, one decision — and it's gone.
But this moment? This breath?
That's yours. Right now.
The question Seneca wanted you to ask:
What are you doing with it?
I made a short video on this if anyone wants to go deeper.
You never stop having desires, no matter how disciplined you get. But you can check whether a desire actually fits inside what you're trying to build for yourself. If something pulls you off that path, it was never really worth wanting in the first place. You train yourself toward the things that move you closer to where you're headed, and let go of the ones that don't.
Odysseus didn't try to feel nothing when his ship passed the sirens. He knew he'd want to go to them. So he had his crew tie him to the mast and told them to tighten the ropes if he begged to be freed. He still felt the pull, he just made sure it couldn't take over.
Maybe the goal was never to kill desire. Maybe it's recognizing which ones will actually take you off course, and building something more reliable than willpower for the moments you know you'll be tested.
Marcus Aurelius — the most powerful man in the world —
kept a private journal asking himself hard questions.
He didn't pretend to have all the answers.
He sought wisdom. From books. From mentors. From struggle.
The Stoics never saw asking for help as weakness.
They saw it as reason.
So I'll do the same.
I've been creating Stoic content — trying to bring
these ancient lessons to people who need them.
But I'm struggling to reach the right audience.
If you've built a community around Stoicism or
self-improvement — what actually worked for you?
What would Marcus do?
“A human body in no way resembles those that were born for ravenousness; it hath no hawk’s bill, no sharp talon, no roughness of teeth, no such strength of stomach or heat of digestion, as can be sufficient to convert or alter such heavy and fleshy fare. But if you will contend that you were born to an inclination to such food as you have now a mind to eat, do you then yourself kill what you would eat. But do it yourself, without the help of a chopping-knife, mallet or axe, as wolves, bears, and lions do, who kill and eat at once. Rend an ox with thy teeth, worry a hog with thy mouth, tear a lamb or a hare in pieces, and fall on and eat it alive as they do. But if thou had rather stay until what thou eat is to become dead, and if thou art loath to force a soul out of its body, why then dost thou against nature eat an animate thing? There is nobody that is willing to eat even a lifeless and a dead thing even as it is; so they boil it, and roast it, and alter it by fire and medicines, as it were, changing and quenching the slaughtered gore with thousands of sweet sauces, that the palate being thereby deceived may admit of such uncouth fare.”
— Plutarch, On the Eating of Flesh (Moralia)
Most people wait for someone to
believe in them before they start.
Stoics believe in one thing only:
Your actions. Right now. Today.
No one is coming to save you.
But you can save yourself.
What's one thing you owe yourself
right now? 🙏
Most people announce their comeback.
Stoics don't.
They wake up. They work. They improve.
In silence. Without applause.
Because the real comeback isn't for
the world to see — it's for you.
What are you silently working on
right now? 🙏
Hello stoics!
Often times, the more you hear and know about the "ugly" side of the world, the more you wish you didn't know anything about it. Misguided people exist everywhere, and not everyone is within reach of help, nor guidance.
Being cold and detached is, to a degree, the opposite of being stoic; at the same time, inflicting to our soul the pain suffered by others, while a form of empathy, is also not stoic practice.
>Care for what is within reach and act on it.
Don't underestimate your reach, but acknowledge what is truly out of it.
If an earthquake completely destroys a city across the world, one might send a donation to those who are living there. One, albeit unrealistic, might even get on a plane and physically go there to offer help. Those things ARE within our reach.
Cursing Mother Nature would be pointless. Such things aren't "evil" - they just... are.
But what if a calamity wasn't a direct product of nature? What if we take the term "calamity" and instead apply it to human behaviour?
As the title suggests: "Human-created Calamities".
Criminal organisations, corrupt governments, powerful and sociopathic CEOs.
Destroying the world, going against nature itself, harming innocent people.
And so, here's the example I'm offering as a point of debate:
-
Imagine a person comes knocking at your door. They point a gun at you and demand money. You respectfully talk to them, trying to understand, trying to make peace, but they won't listen.
You give in and give them the money they want.
A week later the same person comes again. You try to refuse, and they threaten your family. Your kids, your partner. They threaten to destroy your car, your shop, your house, even if you try to ask for help.
You give in.
And again, and again, until you understand that this will never stop.
You ask for help.
Your neighbours "know nothing" about it. The authorities "know nothing" about it.
You're thinking of confronting them. "I'll threaten them".
But "eye for an eye" is not very stoic, is it? Besides, it wouldn't end well.
You're thinking of stopping them once and for all. "I'll kill them".
Vigilantism is not stoic. And again, it wouldn't end well.
You're thinking of running away with your loved ones. "At least we'll be safe".
But that wouldn't prevent them from doing harm to others - your extended family, your friends, and people that don't have the possibility to just "run away". It would be selfish, wouldn't it?
You're thinking of creating a movement of some sort to fight against such people.
But they're above you in every sense, except morally of course.
They wouldn't even budge.
-
This is just an example, but this stuff is actively happening in MANY parts of the world.
What would a stoic do? What are the limits of the stoic discipline?
Does stoicism contradict itself when faced with such situations?