I would defy a person to find me a single ‘normal’ decade in American history. Second, the idea that this is not normal is also just historically untrue. You hear people saying ‘when things go back to normal,’ which is a preposterous phrase, first and foremost because normal is what caused this. “We see people do this thing, particularly with the pandemic. They may well be true, but are they moving the ball forward in any way?”ġ3:09 – ‘When things go back to normal’ is a preposterous phrase. Why me? I’m never going to recover.’ you know, those sorts of things. Does this emotion make it better or worse? Does holding on to this emotion longer than I ought to make it better or worse? That’s really what we’re thinking about. I think what the Stoics are really focused on is destructive emotions. “People think that Stoicism is the absence of emotions, because that’s sort of what the word means in the English language. We do control what we’re going to do about it, and that starts with how we’re going to see it.”ĩ:02 – Stoicism is not about removing all emotions - it’s about removing destructive emotions. You decide what you’re going to do with it. The other story you could tell yourself about it is that it was a giant forced lifestyle experiment, that it was a test or a challenge, that it was an opportunity to do things differently, that it was a time to spend more time with your family. Did you get screwed? Was it horrible? Was it the worst thing that could have happened? That’s one story you could tell yourself about it. They were known for what they actually did in real life.”Ĥ:31 – Life is the stories you tell yourself about it. What I love about the Stoics and why I think they remain relevant today is that the Stoics weren’t necessarily known for their brilliant writing or their beautiful writing. But the idea of Stoicism as a philosophy is basically routed around this idea that we don’t control what happens.

It’s probably not a coincidence that a big chunk of the Stoics in ancient Rome were lawyers in some capacity or another. It’s meant to meet the rubber of the road of real life. 2:08 – What is Stoicism? “We tend to think of philosophy as this sort of abstract, theoretical thing - and it can be that.

Stoicism the obstacle is the way