r/Stoicism

I mentioned in a previous comment that my mother passed away and I was struggling with saying goodbye to the house I grew up in. My family bought it while it was under construction, we moved in when I was 14 months old, and I while technically I had homes before it, it has always been my home, or at least it was my parents' home and always open to me.

That came to and end today.

I had managed to understand that I had a belief in my head that "home is permanent". My wife had moved several times and doesn't have this belief. I arrived at the point where I believed this was the core belief that was causing me distress.

>It is not the things themselves that disturb men, but their judgement about these things.
-- Enchiridion 5 (Oldfather)

The world no longer conforms to my belief. I cannot change the world and I do not want to keep the house. (It is 600 miles away, for starters.) So my quest is to change my belief.

The woman in charge of the clearing-out and estate sale understood my problem. It's not the walls, but the stuff on them. It's the books and photos and books and paintings and books and furniture and books and toys and books. Once that was all cleared out, the place wouldn't be as familiar. They will send pictures of the empty house.

My sister-in-law, whose mother also died this year and they just finished selling that house, pointed out they they referred to it as "the house on L street" instead of "our house." When I think about the house on R court, it's a little easier to not consider it mine.

>With everything which entertains you, is useful, or of which you are fond, remember to say to yourself, beginning with the very least things, "What is its nature?" If you are fond of a jug, say, "I am fond of a jug"; for when it is broken you will not be disturbed. If you kiss your own child or wife, say to yourself that you are kissing a human being; for when it dies you will not be disturbed.
Enchiridion 3 (Oldfather)

A house is definitely between a jug and a human being in the oomph-that-hurts scale. It's too big to dismiss as a minor inconvenience, and not as big as losing a loved one. But it's still packs a punch. But the idea here is that all things our lives are temporary. We can see them as resources to exploit, or gifts to use, or even gifts to preserve for the future. The house on R court is going to go on the market and a new family will live there and call it home. Then some other family will live there.

I also realized in the two-weeks I was there cleaning up, that the house was full of my mother's memories. She lived in the house alone for over 25 years. The letters my father wrote while he was in the service and they were apart are their letters. She kept them, but the story contained in them is theirs. Not mine. A lot of the things she had were important to her, but I don't have to take them on as part of a legacy.

I have learned many lessons from my mother in my life, and I learned a few more after her death. That is the way things go. That is how life works.

Yesterday I sat in my bedroom and said goodbye. I thanked it for the years, the security, the adventures, and I prayed that some other child would grow up there. I shed tears, but I have no shame in them.

A remarkable thing happened as I thought about all this on the 12-hour drive home yesterday. It hit me that the house I live in now had other people living here before us, and I can find no trace of them. I couldn't when we looked at the house, I couldn't when we got the keys, and now four-and-a-half years later there is definitely no sign of them.

The house I pay a mortgage on is in my care for the next people who will call this home. I wanted to take better care of my house. I keep a house we call "creatively cluttered" and it would win no prizes, but I am charged up to do more organizing and putting up the art on the wall. I want to make this house more of a place where my wife and I can live, and not just spend time.

I'm not sure that I've really re-written my belief, but I am no longer distressed by the sale of the house. I am home with my cats and my books and my life, with a few more books to add to the collection.

I am, after all, my mother's son.

I got in a car accident a week back, nothing too bad but my car is wrecked. Someone didn't obey the traffic rules and wasn't paying attention to the road and drove right into my car, the front, so it was quite a crash. Ofcourse when it just happened, I was furious. "How can you not see the traffic signs, I had the right to go first through this narrowed street, its clearly stated on the road!"

My precious car wrecked, not like it was a very expensive car but it doesn't need to be very expensive for it to have value. So my first emotion was anger, then it became sadness very soon and then i realised something more important. I was okay. I had not injury, some sore muscles but that's not like threatening or altering. And the other person was okay too, which made me relieved. He said he had some bad news and that explained his absence maybe at that moment.

I was at peace very soon with the situation, I accepted what happened and counted my blessings. I believe that without stoicism, and some Christian influence, i wouldn't have stayed so calm maybe and would've let my emotions take control. It is a emotional situation nonetheless and I miss my car, I was very proud of it and happy with it.

When I hear people say things like "you could've made your muscle pain sound worse and gotten something out of it" I just get disgusted because of their way of thinking. Is that what it is about for you? The fact that it ended pretty good is not enough? It is money that is most important? I can't get my mind to understand that way of thinking. To me it seems a bit sad. I am glad that I don’t think that way and that i can have my emotions under control, for the most part.

I wanna be like him

I truly messed up. I had something I’ve always wanted. It wasn’t perfect, but it was ours, and I didn’t take care of it the way I should have. I felt like I couldn’t give him everything, even though he gave me so much.

Seeing him today made everything feel real. It honestly felt like it might be the last time I see him, and that hurt more than anything. I take full responsibility for what I did. I wasn’t loyal. It started with entertaining people in my DMs, then turned into texting, and eventually things he saw that I shouldn’t have allowed at all. What we had felt natural and real. It wasn’t forced or from an app it just happened, and that’s rare. That’s part of why this hurts so much. He gave me so much, and I turned around and hurt him. I m not trying to play the victim. I know I caused this. I just wish I handled things differently. I do care about him, and I hate that I messed up something that meant so much to me. I know he wasn’t perfect, but neither am I.

I also know I need to work on myself. I don’t fully have everything figured out yet, but I want to be better and not repeat the same mistakes.

Just need some advice

I am a member some facebook groups, but I don't find the public groups to be ideal. What additional spaces are there that I might not have heard of?

A girl chased me hard, then her parents disapproved and she pulled away. A week later she came back, but I didn't want a texting/orbiting situation, so I called her out. She left me on read. I blocked her on social media and deleted her phone contact. Yet part of me still hopes she'll reach out one day.

What Stoic practices or mindsets can help me accept that she probably won't, and focus on my own life without clinging to that hope?

I have a friend who is mentally ill. We both bonded over our anxiety and over the years it became that I would advice her on what to do and how to help herself. I ended up taking medication and going to therapy, which I then started advising her on based on my experience. I would even analyse her thoughts and try my best to make her see reality for what it is. Without realising, I had basically become her therapist. This unfortunately has carried on for about 6 years now and she has not improved. She doesn't want to help herself at all. She stops her medication and doesn't apply for therapy (it's free in our country) even though I have told her it's for her benefit. She just sees me now as her therapist and just messages me about her anxieties all the time. I've tried advicing her. I've told her to get in contact with her gp and to get therapy. This year, I've cut down on acting like a therapist and just told her that I can't help as much as those things. She still doesn't want to, still messages me about it all in detail expecting advice and refers to me as her therapist as a joke. It isn't a friendship anymore. I barely talk about myself to her. It's all her her her.

My anxiety has improved a lot throughout the years but talking to her makes it worse. I've gone days ghosting her messages and I've felt so much better. Interacting with her actually ruins my day and at this point I just want to cut her off but a part of me feels bad because she's struggling mentally.

I'm reaching my breaking point. What do I do? Is there any stoic advice regarding this?

Recently, I had a mental breakdown because I was organizing a film project and the friend who was with me wasn't excited about it at all. He didn't seem to care, and I started to feel completely depressed because it honestly killed my motivation to do the project at all.

After that, I made a list of everything I hate in life because there’s a fucking lot. I was talking to a friend who said that in life, I need to adapt because the world isn't going to adapt to me. I think he is right because I’m realizing more and more that my problems with the world are often things I can't control that are bugging me, and I’m just not able to be at peace with them.

How do you make peace with things you can't control? I know you just need to accept it, like Stoics normally say, but I don't want to.

i want to say something and i need you to actually sit with it instead of scrolling past it.

you are going to die.

not in a scary way. not in a "watch out" way. just factually, quietly, eventually you are going to die. and when that happens, everything you spent your life accumulating stays here. the car. the title. the number in your bank account. the reputation you killed yourself to build.

none of it comes with you.

you leave exactly the way you came in.

empty handed.

The question is just five words -

"after i die, will this have mattered?"

not to the world. not to your boss. not to the people watching.
to you. in your last moments. looking back.

i've been running everything through it lately.

the argument i lost a week to. the money i'm chasing at the cost of my sleep. the opinion of someone i don't even respect. the comparison that silently ruined three of my mornings last month.

almost none of it survives the question.

we already know this. that's the part that actually haunts me. every religion, every philosopher, every person on their deathbed says the exact same thing it wasn't the work. it was the people. the peace. the time i didn't protect.

and then monday comes. and we forget. again.

the car stays here. the title stays here. the bank balance stays here. the reputation you broke yourself to build - stays here.

you leave exactly the way you came in.

empty handed.

what's one thing you're done sacrificing for something that won't matter in the end?
drop it below. i'm genuinely asking.

I would like to share a recent experience I had; hopefully this inspires one of you fellow students of stoicism to do the same one day. I know I will again this year.

Last summer, I had the pleasure of staying in the Belgian Ardennes Forest for one week during July. Sleeping in a former sauna cabin that now serves a sleeping hut for hikers, I had no access to electricity or running water. Surrounded by forests on a steep hill, I found myself in the midst of complete, long-lasting silence for the first time since I was born a quarter century ago.

I had come there to, as I wrote back then, to experience being. I wanted to decouple from the 'fast' life that is so full of constant stimulation. In this fast life, stillness or boredom is forbidden. There is always something to consume or to produce. There is rarely any time to be.

My phone remained in airplane mode all week. Sometimes I took it out to take a few pictures. Since getting my first smartphone at age 12, I have looked at it every day. Last couple of years I have been gradually deleting social media, attempting to cut my phone time. It is a constant battle to this day.

I read. I read A LOT. When there is no easy dopamine, the mind finds ways to be focused for hours. One of the books I really enjoyed reading was Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (letters from a Stoic) in the woods, pausing after each key statement, reflecting on it while watching the trees around me. I took notes and wrote short essays surrounding the topics I had just read about. I have missed handwriting!

I played my guitar, giving concerts to the trees. I watched ants on the ground. I meditated. I went for walks, asking locals for directions. My French needs improvement lol.

I want to highlight 3 insights that I had there.

1. A lack of social interactions hit me harder than I expected. By day 5, I caught myself replaying past dialogues and funny moments in my head. There I sat, laughing by myself in the woods. A homo sapiens desperate for human connection, finding a proxy where he can. Do not take human interaction for granted, no matter how simple and short it may be.
2. Boredom is a very complex experience. In the woods, I experienced real, deep boredom. The boredom we experience in the ‘fast’ world is nothing like this. I remember on day 3 sitting there after dinner, while the sun was setting, and not wanting to do any of the activities I described above. I was simply done. I lay down on my bed, but I couldn’t fall asleep. It was really uncomfortable. I just took it all in and embraced the discomfort. After a few hours, I fell asleep. It sucked, to be honest. On the other hand, it is a calming experience. One has nothing to do. Boredom creates a context in which tedious tasks seem worth pursuing. Doing chores is typically more mentally engaging than being bored. I learned how I can leverage boredom to practice virtue. One who is bored will work.
3. Stillness enables true appreciation of time. It allows us to witness each second as it passes, like dominoes falling one by one. Those who notice this falling sound can appreciate the sheer scale of the domino spectacle.

Please do a retreat like this yourself. I'm sure you will find it to be an essential challenge in pursuing a Stoic life.

Like if my girlfriend says "You don't do anything in this house, you're not responsible." When I'm doing my best, sometimes I even forget things.

Picked up the evening review habit from Seneca a few months ago and it's been harder to sustain than I expected. On good days it ends up as useful reflection; on bad days it turns into either guilt-accounting or the opposite, a sort of smug "I did well today" that feels very un-Stoic.

What I've landed on for now:

1. Three questions: "what did I do badly, where did I overcome something, what could I have done better." From Seneca directly.

2. Writing, not just thinking. Thinking drifts, writing forces completion.

3. Short entries. 5 minutes max. Longer and I skip it within a week.

4. Not rereading entries for at least a month so I'm not performing for a future me.

For anyone who's kept this going past a year: what actually changed? Did the review start catching patterns that your in-the-moment self couldn't see? Or has it mostly been a rehearsal of what you already know about yourself?

I feel like all stoicism does is trying to justify pain and suffering and because of it, can be used against pro social wellfare arguments .

Life is suffering anyway, you can learn to accept suffering, you can be free in mind even if your circumstances are dire, so why bother to create better environments for people? They will just get weaker and worse at accepting suffering.

So I guess by that logic polluters actually do a good thing. They create new opportunities for people to suffer and grow because of the suffering.

Oh god stoicism, viktor frankl, Martin seligman. All 3 are different from each other, but there is some connecting element in them that I can't really specify.

They make me feel really bad and sick, horrified and like either the world is just absolutely awful or I am morally evil for being pro-pleasure and anti-trying-hard-things.

I dont think having to survive extreme hardship should be seen as a growth opportunity. We just give bad people a pass to hurt others and justify it with "tough love approach" or something somewhat similar.

The Stoics believed in prosocial actions and shared community. That we are all interconnected as part of one global human family, and so, to cause a rift with other humans is akin to separating a limb from the rest of the body.

How does this apply to political differences, especially in a time like ours, where political division and extremism seem to be increasing? We are becoming more and more polarized, and more radical too.

I personally have made friendships with various people who are very right-wing, very left-wing, or somewhere in between. And I have always found the good and humanity in all of them.

I firmly believe that exercising toleration in this regard is of incredible value, because I can listen to others’ perspectives and challenge my own beliefs. Even if I think someone’s beliefs are wrong, I can be humble and empathetic, and try to influence them in a better direction whenever opportunity arises.

Not everyone agrees with this, though. A couple examples:

I’ve heard various people argue, for example, that a Liberal or Progressive socializing with members of the MAGA movement is wrong, as it shows tolerance to people who are arguably advocating harm and oppression.

Similarly, I’ve heard Socialists say that Socialists should not date someone unless they are also a member of the Leftist movement, because otherwise they are showing tolerance to someone who advocates an oppressive capitalist system.

I don’t agree with either of these takes, but I understand the arguments behind them.

What is the Stoic perspective on this?

I've been reading Seneca's letters and this quote really stood out to me because I feel like it perfectly relates to the circumstance I've found myself in. One of my closest friends is a very cynical and negative person whose sense of humor leans on being cruel "jokingly". I've expressed my discomfort with the sheer amount of negativity they bring into my interactions with them and they've made a promise to change these toxic aspects. They've made pretty decent progress and have refrained from jokes where the punchline is "you suck" these past 6 months. That being said she has momentary lapses where she falls right back into her old habits and she never apologizes or seeks to reconcile until I make the effort myself.

What I'm wondering is this. If someone you consider a friend is consistently behaving in spiteful, negative, and malicious ways, how do you identify the point at which you should part ways to protect your own virtue vs continually making efforts to cause them to change? I have read other stoic texts in which the author suggests that your own virtue can rub off on your friends and family, and you can be a positive force in their life towards great changes, but I feel like I'm at a crossroads here between protecting my virtue and having patience with my friend in waiting for their growth.

Some thoughts on emotional detachment and Stoicism. Don't take this as giving the whole picture, it's just the way I've come to understand it and I'm happy to discuss, elaborate or to be corrected.

On a first look it may seem that Stoicism promotes:

1. The suppressing of emotions
2. Emotional detachment from other people and not caring about them
3. That a perfectly wise person will not experience emotions

Now, if these really are true then I think it's perfectly understandable that someone would be a bit cautious of studying Stoicism. From fear of becoming too emotionally numb and detached - "I wouldn't want to be too Stoic" as it were.

But as I see it, points 1 & 2 are wrong. While point 3 is partially correct but needs to be qualified a lot.

One particular passage that may seem to support points 1 & 2 is this one:

> When faced with anything you find attractive, useful, or lovable, remember to tell yourself what kind of thing it is. Start with the least important things. If it’s a jug you like, say, ‘I like a jug,’ because then you won’t be upset if it gets broken. If you kiss a child of yours or your wife, tell yourself that you’re kissing a human being, because then you won’t be upset if they die.

Epictetus Enchiridion 3 (Waterfield, Robin, p. 53)

Taken on it's own, it sounds like Epictetus is simply instructing us not to be upset if our children or spouses die. Or even to view and treat them the same way we would a jug. But this passage is easier to understand when we read the whole of Discourses 3.24, where it is probably taken from. Similar words are used in this Discourse:

> Moreover, at the very time that you’re taking pleasure in something, present yourself with the opposite impressions. Can there be any harm in murmuring in an undertone as you kiss your child, ‘Tomorrow you will die’? And the same goes for your friend: ‘Tomorrow you’ll leave the country, or I will, and we won’t see each other again.

Epictetus Discourses 3.24.88 (Waterfield, Robin, p. 277)

However the context of this discourse is about a man who is afraid to leave his home and perform his duties in case his family members die while he's away. Epictetus explains that death is an inevitable fact of the world. It's not that he shouldn't care about his family, bur rather that he should not let fear of death prevent him from fulfilling the roles he has undertaken.

And there is much more from Epictetus on fellow-feeling and family affection, for example

> I shouldn’t be as unfeeling as a statue, but should maintain my natural and acquired relationships toward gods, father, brothers, children, and fellow citizens

Epictetus Discourses 3.2 (Waterfield, Robin, p. 217)

A similar idea is found in the Discourse 1.11, where a father leaves his sick child behind because he's afraid she won't get better and he can't bear the sight of her. This is not a behavior that Epictetus approve of. From those and others, I can't really see much that support points 1 & 2 as they are.

For the Stoics, the goal was to develop into an excellent person so that you can live the best possible life. This means understanding the world and your place in it correctly. And a part of that relates to the emotions one will experience. But what emotions would be left in a person who manages to do that? I don't think spite, envy or a desire to harm others. But certainly love and affection. But that is going into point 3 which I'll leave for now.

But it is a completely different thing from trying to suppress emotions or being callous.

I am working in casino in casino as dealer.

Yesterday player was insulting me and throwing bad words towards me. He was really bad. He was standing next to me at punch distance. At some point in my brain clicked so many possible variiations how to deal with it. I was thinking going ALL-IN at some point and ending his life. My blood pressure was so high, at brake my hands and whole body were shaking. But other side i was thinking about my life , my career and my future.

Losting this job costs me everything. I don't know how i have to feel right now.

After brake i was feeling , if i will see him again i would have very bad reaction, but he was blacklisted in 2 minutes.

I am feeling at point that i am weak person , at some point strong. Please Help Me !

Okay, I’m 19 and I’m going to move out and go to college next year because in all honesty, I completely hate my parents. Especially my mom. I sometimes hate myself for thinking such a thing. But she’s done nothing but hurt me, criticize me, call me names and infantilize me. And I can’t go on living like that.

I still live with my family and I do take care of improving myself and making sure I’m nothing like my parents but I realized that I have grudges I cant let go. Sometimes I’ll have a good day and the thoughts come and I get angry. I don’t usually tell anyone how I feel so maybe it’s that. But I understand that to become someone I want to be, I need to forgive and move on. But I don’t know how. I keep letting them make me angry for stupid reasons.

Can someone help me? I really want to be content with my life.

I'm scared, I'm always scared. I think I'm mildly good at hiding it, but many times I just feel like a cornered animal, who bites and isolates itself because of how scared everything makes him. Sometimes I feel like a great pretender, I'm able to put on a smile, repeat the same succesful jokes, people approach me because they find me funny, spontaneous, and just generally nice to be around.

Yet, every time I am with someone else, sometimes, even my closest friends, I feel the slight trace of fear that comes from my severe social anxiety.

I am afraid of trying, and it doesn't even make sense. Because my rational mind, has done a million and a half thought processes about how senseless and irrational all of my fears are, but truth be told, my body only answers to itself.

I am scared and envious of men mightier, more virtuous, and more successful than me. Inside me, there is a constant struggle between a drive for submissive surrender to the slightest oppression, against aggressive overreacting.

I am not the smallest man most of the time. I am not that much of a 'loser' or a 'bad person' as those I'm surrounded with. Yet lately, I've been driven by many factors to feel like a small, pitiable thing that should drop all hopes.

Even now, seeking help in r/stoicism, I am afraid that, even if the answers in this forum from when I sought others with my problem have aided me too, this philosophy, way of life, or whatever you may call it, might not be it. That, even if I follow it by heart, it will dull my passion for art, my capability of feeling others' emotions, hell, it might not even be what God has purposed me for.

But I think that I want to take my chances, that thanks to this forum I've learnt a lot of valuable stuff, and I'd like to know how to really learn these teachings. I know, I know a brave person is not the one who feels no fear, but the one who battles against this fear, even then, I want to know how to battle against it. I know next to nothing when it comes to battling myself, barely the few teachings I've taught my own brain.

So, what do I have to do? What are the babysteps? Who do I read?

Most days are common. You end up having time in the evening. Maybe nothing exciting or something bad is happening. You just have time and no plans. You decide you want to spend it on yourself, becoming more virtuous or working towards more ataraxia or eudaimonia in your life.

What do you do?