Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

We all know that a morning routine can become another demand to perform perfectly. You miss one day and you feel guilty, and then you eventually abandon the whole thing.

The problem is that the reason for doing your routine is wrong. The Stoics offered a better reason to practise. The purpose of the practice is not to create a flawless morning, like a robot ... The purpose is to prepare your judgment for the day you are actually going to have.

The ancient texts do not give us a fixed ten minute schedule, so what follows is a modern adaptation of several exercises found in Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus and Seneca.

And remember, its value lies in the questions it asks and not in the exact number of minutes!

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Some may think that journaling is a modern invention. It is not. The Stoics practised related forms of written self examination, rehearsal, and moral reminder.

Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations is the clearest surviving example. It was written to and for himself. It was not intended to be a polished book for a public audience.

Seneca also describes reviewing each day, while Epictetus insists that philosophy must be practised rather than discussed. We have plenty of the latter today … flooding social media …

So the answer is yes, with an important qualification. Stoic journaling is not about recording feelings, collecting inspirational quotations, or producing a perfectly organised account of the day. It goes beyond that … It is a deliberate attempt to improve judgment and prepare the mind for action.

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Estimated reading time: 12 minutes

As we approaching the end of Season 2, let’s see how a modern Stoic routine would be.

Maybe, rise before everyone else, take a cold shower, write a journal entry, imagine disaster, read a quotation, work with perfect concentration and end the evening with a scorecard? Too intense you think?

Well, some of these practices can be useful. But none of them, taken together, is the recovered daily program of the ancient Stoic schools ..

Stoicism was NEVER designed as a system for making every day feel controlled. It was a philosophy for meeting a day that will not be controlled. Deal with the difficult colleague, the unexpected loss, the temptation to lie, the public responsibility, the sick friend, the delayed plan or the anger that rises before thought has caught it.

Its purpose was to train judgment, desire, action, and character until a person could meet changing circumstances without abandoning what was right.

So, the ancient evidence does not give us one universal Stoic timetable. It does give us though a pattern of repeated work. First learn the principles, then test the impressions that arrive, act according to your responsibilities and finally review your conduct and return to the work.

That was Stoic daily practice, because a discipline of becoming reliable when life becomes difficult.

There was no universal Stoic routine

The first Stoics taught in Athens around 300 BCE. Their name came from the Stoa Poikile, the Painted Colonnade, where Zeno and his followers met, spoke, argued, and taught in public.

This is already very different from the image of a lone person perfecting a private morning routine, right?

The Stoa was a school where it formed people through apprenticeship, lectures, reading, debate, and shared attention to how a human being should live. Zeno himself is described as studying with several teachers before becoming a teacher. The practice of philosophy began with learning from others and allowing one’s judgment to be questioned. Without being questioned it is almost impossible to learn.

We should also be honest about the limits of the record. The complete writings of Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus have not survived. Much of what we know about the early school comes from later reporters and fragments. We can recover its ethical aims and some features of its teaching but we cannot reconstruct every student’s morning, meals, exercise, or sleep.

What we can say is that the early Stoics did not divide philosophy into a practical corner called wellbeing and a set of abstract subjects to ignore. They treated logic, ethics, and physics as connected parts of one education. Logic trained a person to reason, while physics situated the person within nature and the wider whole, and finally ethics asked how to choose and act well.

A Stoic day was therefore built around learning to see more truthfully, choose more carefully, and take one’s place in a human world.

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The center was appropriate action

A crucial ancient distinction is easily missed.

In his summary of Stoic doctrine, Diogenes Laertius explains that virtue is always required and not particular exercises. He names dialectical questioning and walking exercise as activities that may be useful without being required at every moment.

This is the most important correction to the checklist version of Stoicism.

A walk or reading or writing or even time alone may help. An exercise in discomfort may help too. But none of these practices has value just because it is repeated. Their value depends on whether they form a better person and prepare that person to act well.

The constant task was what the Stoics called appropriate action. In ordinary language, this means asking what a situation requires of you as a human being and in your particular relationships.

As a parent or a friend or a citizen, colleague, student, teacher, and neighbor, you have responsibilities. No fixed ritual can decide every case in advance. But the Stoic was expected to meet each case with honesty, courage, justice, self command, and care for the common good. Then everything else follows.

Cicero’s presentation of Stoic ethics makes the point clearly. Repeated choices become habits. Habits can become a stable character. The end is a life whose judgments and actions become more coherent with nature, reason, and social responsibility.

So, the daily question was not, “Did I complete my Stoic routine?”. It was, “What is mine to do well here?”

The decisive moment: an impression arrives

For Epictetus, the daily training ground was not a quiet room. It was the instant an impression took hold of the mind.

An insult, a message with bad news, being ignored or feeling envy when another person succeeds. Your body will register this “alarm” and then a story begins immediately: this is unbearable, this is unfair, this must be fixed now … you know the drill …

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But wait a minute, Epictetus tells the student to slow that sequence down. When a harsh appearance comes, he says, do not accept it at once as the whole truth. Recognize that it is an appearance, examine it and ask what it represents. Ask whether it concerns what depends on your own judgment and action, or what lies beyond your command.

This is not denial … stoicism does not require a person to pretend that injury, grief, fear, or loss do not exist. The work begins after the first appearance. What will you endorse? What will you tell yourself is good or terrible? What impulse will you strengthen through the action you take next?

In one passage, Epictetus gives the practice a remarkably direct form:

And that pause is the heart of Stoic practice, because it creates room between what happens and the judgment that turns an event into anger, panic, resentment, or rash action. It does not make the world harmless but it gives the person a chance to respond as a moral agent and not as a captive of the first story their mind has produced.

Epictetus organizes this work into three connected fields: desire and aversion, the impulse to act, and assent.

What do you make necessary for your happiness?

What do you fear as unbearable?

What action follows from your view?

And have you examined the judgment beneath it?

That is much larger than a habit tracker, it is a lifelong education in how desire, thought, and conduct belong together.

Prepare for friction, not for a perfect day

The Stoics did prepare in advance, but their preparation was not an attempt to make ordinary life run smoothly.

Epictetus offers the example of going to the baths. Before going, he says, remember the nature of the activity. There may be splashing, pushing, insults, or theft. The aim is to remain reasonable and act well when inconvenience comes.

The example is almost deliberately ordinary, because stoic training does not wait for a catastrophe. It begins in ordinary events, like queues, family conversations, crowded rooms, demanding workdays, and the many minor frustrations that reveal how quickly our peace depends on circumstances behaving as we wish.

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Marcus Aurelius uses a similar exercise at the beginning of his personal philosophical notes. He tells himself that he will meet intrusive, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, envious, and unsociable people. Yet he does not use this reflection to justify contempt. He reminds himself that human beings are made for cooperation, “like feet, like hands, like eyelids.”

The purpose is to prevent another person’s poor conduct from making your own conduct poor. Do not forget here that people will always try to bring you down to their level. If you let anyone control your emotions, independently if they do it consciously or unconsciously, you give them that power willingly and you lose control of yourself.

There is a vital difference between accepting that difficulty is likely and surrendering to difficulty. Stoic preparation says: this obstacle may appear, and I will decide in advance not to become unjust because it does. It does not say: nothing can be done, so I will do nothing.

You may still need to set a boundary and a difficult conversation may still require firmness. Stoicism asks only that the action come from tested judgment and not from the hunger to punish, dominate, or control what does not belong to us.

Study was meant to change conduct

The ancient Stoics read, argued, taught, memorized, and wrote. Yet they had little patience for philosophical display that did not alter a person’s conduct… People love having philosophical discussions where application is absent…

Epictetus warned students against admiring moral principles while leaving their lives untouched. It is possible, he says, to explain why one should not lie and still continue lying. It is possible to know the arguments and remain untrained where it matters.

His alternative? Principles should be ready at hand “night and day.” Read them, write them, speak about them to yourself and to another person and bring them into contact with the pressures of ordinary life.

Seneca makes the same point in a different voice. He advises Lucilius not to rush through endless books, but select a thought worth carrying into the day. Digest it and if an idea remains only in memory, he says, it has not yet entered the reasoning power.

A sentence from Epictetus or Seneca was not meant to decorate a desk or create a moment of inspiration, as we do today with the quotes we like an love on social media … It was meant to be tested in traffic, at a meeting, during disappointment, in a disagreement, or in the silence before an honest decision.

Writing served the same purpose. Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations are best understood as personal philosophical notes and self reminders. Their repetitions are part of their function. Marcus returns to the same teachings because the mind forgets. He writes to recover the viewpoint from which he can act with justice and steadiness.

His famous morning appeal to rise for “the work of a human being” is often presented as a command to become more productive. Its meaning is deeper and the work is the work of a social creature: to contribute, to act justly, to use reason, and to serve the life shared with others.

Review was correction and not self punishment

Seneca offers one of the clearest ancient examples of a recurring daily exercise.

At the close of the day, he says, he reviewed what he had said and done and he did not conceal nor omit anything from himself. The purpose was to notice where a habit had become harmful, or a conversation had been needlessly sharp, and most importantly where correction was required, and what could be done differently tomorrow.

Seneca admired a practice associated with the Roman philosopher Sextius, who asked at day’s end:

These questions are powerful because they are concrete and turn attention from vague self criticism toward conduct.

Did I listen?

Did I speak more harshly than the situation required?

Did I avoid a duty because it was uncomfortable?

Did I become defensive rather than truthful?

Did I use power fairly?

The exercise was not a license for endless self condemnation. Seneca’s review included correction, advice, and a commitment to act better. Its purpose was moral education.

He also recommends occasional rehearsal of feared conditions. In one letter, he advises a short period of simple food and coarse clothing, asking oneself whether this is the condition one feared. The practice was meant to loosen dependence on wealth and comfort. It was not a celebration of real deprivation, which is never chosen freely by many who endure it.

Voluntary discomfort was a training exercise that was meant to reveal that a person could remain decent and capable when a preferred external condition was absent. It was not meant to make suffering fashionable!

Gratitude was a debt of character

Marcus Aurelius begins Meditations with a long account of what he learned from other people.

From relatives, teachers, friends, and public figures, he names patience, moderation, fairness, affection, endurance, justice, and love of truth. He gives thanks not only for what these people gave him but for the kind of person their example asked him to become.

This is more substantial than a list of things that feel pleasant today.

Stoic gratitude recognizes dependence because no one forms character alone, we inherit examples, language, instruction, care, and opportunities from people who may never fully know the part they played in us. To remember them is also to accept the obligation to continue what was good in their example.

A daily note of gratitude can be a meaningful modern practice, but it should not be advertised as a universal Stoic journal ritual. Marcus gives us something better: gratitude as ethical memory. It asks, whom do I owe for the virtues I admire, and how will I make those virtues visible in my own conduct?

What Stoic practice did not mean

It did not mean feeling nothing.

Stoic writers cared intensely about fear, anger, grief, love, betrayal, friendship, death, and political duty. Their concern was to prevent a first reaction, a false belief, or an uncontrolled desire from becoming the master of action.

It did not mean ignoring the external world.

Health, money, reputation, office, safety, and the choices of other people are not entirely in our control. But they remain the material within which we act. A Stoic can seek health, protect a family, resist corruption, mourn a loss, and work for justice without treating any external result as the final measure of a good life.

It did not mean withdrawing from other people.

The Stoic account of appropriate action includes parents, siblings, friends, fellow citizens, and the wider human community. Marcus returns again and again to cooperation. Epictetus makes roles and relationships central to his teaching. The point of training your mind was to become more trustworthy in service, conflict, and care.

And it did not mean turning life into an optimization project.

The measure of a good day was whether you used the circumstances of the day to become more truthful, more just, more courageous, more self commanded, and more useful to others.

A rhythm

If we ask what the ancient schools actually did, the honest answer is not a single schedule.

The early Stoics studied in a community, learned a demanding account of reason, nature, and virtue. They practiced appropriate action in their relationships and public lives. Later Roman Stoics left vivid examples of examining impressions, anticipating friction, reading and writing for moral use, reviewing conduct, recalling benefactors, and occasionally rehearsing feared conditions.

The recurring rhythm is clear even when the timetable is not.

Learn a principle until it becomes usable and meet an impression without immediately surrendering judgment. Choose the action that your role and the common good require and always review your conduct with honesty.

A person today can build a modern daily practice from these materials. A short morning reflection, one carefully read passage, a pause before a difficult response, and an evening review can all be valuable. But honesty requires us to call that what it is: a modern adaptation inspired by ancient exercises.

The ancient Stoics did not hand us a perfect routine for controlling the day.

They left us a more serious invitation: to become the kind of person whose judgment, action, and character remain available when the day refuses to go as planned.

By Dr Ioannis Syrigos

References

Diogenes Laertius. Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book VII, sections 2 through 6, 22 through 27, 36 through 41, 89 through 92, and 108 through 110. R. D. Hicks translation.

Cicero. De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, Book III, sections 20 through 26 and 65 through 68. H. Rackham translation.

Epictetus. Encheiridion, sections 1, 4, 17, 30, 33, 37, and 46 through 52. Elizabeth Carter translation.

Epictetus. Discourses, Books I through IV, especially 1.4, 1.15, 2.10, 2.18, 3.2, 3.24, and 4.1. W. A. Oldfather translation.

Seneca. On Anger, Book III, section 36. Aubrey Stewart translation.

Seneca. Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letters 2, 15, 18, 20, 83, 84, and 107. Richard Mott Gummere translation.

Marcus Aurelius. Meditations, Books I, II, V, VIII, and XI. C. R. Haines and A. S. L. Farquharson translations.

Sedley, David. “Stoicism: School History and Sources.” Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Sellars, John. “Marcus Aurelius.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. “Stoicism,” and “Epictetus.”

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Let’s say for example that a client wants a delivery date that you cannot reliably promise. So, your manager suggests leaving the uncertainty out of the proposal. The goal is “Let’s secure the agreement first. We can work out the details later.”

You want the work, you are confident you can do it and you also know the client will make plans around your promise, right?

Is honesty impractical here? Or is “being practical” becoming a convenient name for passing the risk to someone who cannot see it?

Last week’s essay on Cato explored the strength and danger of refusing to compromise. This note brings the question into ordinary life. After all in these articles we are trying to find practical and realistic applications of Ancient Wisdom.

So, we should not need to choose between rigid refusal and agreement at any price, but we need to identify what an agreement actually requires us to give up.

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Cato’s decision was coherent with his own severe republican and Stoic commitments. This however is not a simple rule that Stoicism gives to everyone.

Looking at the ancient texts, we find the explanation why later writers admired his refusal to live under Caesar’s power. They also show us why his choice was bound to a particular character, political defeat, and civil war.

Cato the Younger died at Utica in 46 BCE, after the defeat of the forces opposing Caesar in North Africa. His choice became a symbol of republican resistance, personal consistency, and a refusal to accept a political order Cato believed had destroyed Roman liberty.

The question is therefore whether integrity can require a final refusal when every available public role seems to demand complicity? Let’s look carefully at the Stoic answer.

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Estimated reading time: 13 minutes

Many consider compromise to be a sign of maturity. Well, there is no golden rule. It may indeed be the case in many situations, but it is also true that there are many scenarios where compromise becomes a source of discomfort for people. For example, people would be giving in to a partner’s demands, instead of negotiating the terms of the contract so that both individuals are satisfied with the outcome. Another good example would be different people working in political-related areas, where negotiation is a very important component of success.

The difficult question is not whether we should compromise. Of course we should, and often. The question is what kind of thing is being traded away?

Convenience can be traded, vanity can be traded, a preferred plan can be traded. But justice, truth, responsibility, and the protection of people placed in our care should not be bargaining chips. For example, I would never compromise my time with my son for any amount of wealth.

Marcus Porcius Cato, known as Cato the Younger, became Rome’s great symbol of this problem. He was a senator in the last decades of the Roman Republic, a serious student of Stoicism, and a relentless opponent of bribery, private ambition, and the concentration of power in a single man. An issue that is very prominent today … unfortunately.

Cato has often been remembered as the Stoic who would not bend. Cato’s public integrity was remarkable. His resistance to Caesar was noteworthy. He believed that a republic could not survive if law, offices, and public resources became instruments of individual power. He was also capable of severity, anger, political obstruction, and choices that remain difficult to defend. His life offers no easy permission to call every refusal principled.

So, Cato, forces us to ask a more exact question than, “Am I being flexible?”, such as “What would this agreement make me betray?”

Refusal is not automatically a virtue

There is a form of refusal that is little more than vanity…

It appears when a person treats every concession as humiliation. They cannot revise a mistaken view, because they have confused being right with being admirable. Every disagreement becomes an injury to the self. What appears to be principle, is in reality an appetite for control.

Stoicism won’t praise that condition, it is not interested to preserve an image of being unyielding. Once again, the main goal is to use judgment well.

A refusal becomes morally serious when it protects something that should not be sold, such as an obligation to tell the truth, a duty to deal fairly, a boundary against harm, a public trust, or the dignity of another person. And even then, the person who is refusing has work to do. They must name what is at stake and distinguish fear from duty. They must also accept the cost of saying no without turning that cost into a … theatre.

Cato made this discipline public. He did not retire to private moral purity, instead he brought his convictions into courts, elections, financial administration, the Senate, and eventually a civil war. Too far you would say …

The Roman Republic of Cato’s lifetime was marked by widening inequality, competition among elite families, debt, bribery, political violence, military commands, and contests over who could control the state. The old institutions still existed, but they were under extraordinary pressure.

Cato saw that pressure as a moral and political crisis. He feared that Rome was learning to accept what it should have found intolerable.

A Roman trained by Stoicism

Cato was born in 95 BCE and entered public life in a Rome already accustomed to political emergency. The fullest ancient account of his life comes from Plutarch, who wrote much later. Plutarch was a Greek biographer, and although his scenes need careful handling, his portrait preserves an important part of the historical record.

According to Plutarch, Cato studied with Antipater of Tyre, a Stoic philosopher, and devoted himself particularly to ethics and politics. Plutarch says that the form of goodness that attracted him most, was rigid justice that did not bend to favour.

The word rigid should make us pause for a moment. It appear to name Cato’s strength and his danger in the same breath.

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For Cato, Stoicism was a way to enter it without being bought by it. He adopted a deliberately simple manner of life, cultivated endurance, learned to regard public rank and private wealth as less important than moral worth and he tried to carry that standard into the institutions through which Rome governed itself.

Cicero gives a complementary image in De Finibus. He finds Cato seated in a library surrounded by books on Stoicism. Cato, Cicero says, had such an appetite for reading that he would study while waiting for the Senate to convene, without taking attention from public business.

You see, Cato is not presented as choosing philosophy instead of public responsibility. He is shown carrying philosophical study to the edge of public action. In other words, he was really into it …

When Cicero lets Cato explain Stoic ethics, the argument is pretty simple, moral worth is the sole good. Wealth, office, popularity, safety, and victory may matter in practical deliberation, but none makes a person good merely by being possessed.

This did not mean that Cato thought all external outcomes were equal. Stoic ethics would not ask a senator to treat corruption and honest administration as interchangeable nor to refuse the easy mistake of calling success itself virtue.

For Cato, the public service was a testing ground, a way to remain just while influence, fear, faction, and public appetite pressed upon them. A touch task.

The uncompromising voice in the Senate

Cato’s most famous early intervention came during the Catilinarian crisis of 63 BCE.

A conspiracy associated with Catiline had shaken Rome. Senators debated the fate of captured conspirators. Sallust, who wrote a history of the episode, gives speeches to both Caesar and Cato. Ancient historians did not produce modern transcripts, so these speeches are shaped literary constructions, but they still reveal the kind of political argument later Romans associated with each man.

Sallust’s Caesar argues for a penalty of execution. Sallust’s Cato answers that the Senate must think first about protecting the state, not about finding elegant language for danger.

“Once a city has been taken,” Cato says in Sallust’s account, “nothing is left to the vanquished.”

This line is powerful because it identifies a real political failure. A society can become so preoccupied with procedure, appearances, or private comfort that it cannot recognize a threat until its ability to act has already disappeared.

Cato then turns on the senators themselves. He accuses them of valuing houses, villas, statues, and pleasures above their country. He sees private luxury growing beside public weakness and men who call greed generosity and recklessness courage because the honest names would indict their conduct.

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There is something deeply Stoic in this diagnosis. Cato sees political collapse not only in laws and armies but in disordered judgment. A community becomes vulnerable when its leaders cannot distinguish what is useful from what is honorable, or what is popular from what is right.

But the episode also exposes the limits of admiring Cato too quickly.

His proposed answer was the execution of Roman citizens without ordinary trial. Such a decision was legally and morally contested, even in antiquity. It should not be turned into a general lesson that strong leadership means punishing hard and asking questions later.

Cato’s strength in the scene is his refusal to sentimentalize a grave threat. But his weakness is the risk that emergency can make severity feel self justifying. A person can be right that danger is real and still be wrong about what justice permits in response.

This is a lesson worth keeping close, because integrity is not proven by intensity. The more serious the crisis, the more carefully courage must remain answerable to law, evidence, proportion, and the people who will bear the consequences.

Cato and Caesar: the question was power

Cato’s conflict with Julius Caesar is often reduced to a clash of temperament, but it goes beyond that. Yes, Caesar was flexible, brilliant, generous, and ambitious and Cato was severe, austere, and difficult. There is truth in the contrast, but it can also hide the question that was most important to Cato.

Cato feared that Rome’s institutions were becoming tools for exceptional individuals. He opposed Caesar’s rise, but he was not blind to the risk presented by Pompey either. He had resisted Pompey’s exceptional commands before the civil war. When the conflict with Caesar became unavoidable, he joined Pompey’s side because he judged Caesar’s advance on Rome to be a more immediate threat to the Republic.

This is important, since it corrects the legend of a man who never made any adjustment. Cato did make strategic judgments and he chose among bad alternatives. He did not confuse moral seriousness with the fantasy that every situation offers a clean option. This would be unrealistic

Plutarch records one episode that captures the ground of Cato’s resistance. After Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul, Cato urged that Caesar be handed over to the peoples he had wronged in alleged violation of a truce. The proposal was extraordinary but also politically impossible. Yet its logic was clear: a successful general does not receive a moral exemption from the laws that restrain Roman conduct.

In a culture where victory could transform a commander into a public idol, Cato insisted on an older and harder rule:

This is a lesson for every government and every institution, because each one has its version of Caesar’s problem. A person may be talented, productive, influential, wealthy, or admired and their success may bring real benefits. But none of this should give them a private constitution. None of it permits them to treat colleagues, commitments, or rules as obstacles made for other people.

Cato’s question remains useful:

The difference between a line and a wall

Cato’s example becomes dangerous when it is simplified into one instruction: never compromise. No serious political or personal life can survive on that rule …

That line protects something specific, it marks the point beyond which an agreement would require dishonesty, betrayal, cruelty, corruption, or abandonment of a real responsibility. On the other hand a wall is different, it keeps out criticism, negotiation, correction, and human complexity. A line can defend justice but a wall can defend pride.

Cato did not always keep this distinction clear though. Modern historians debate how much his obstructionist tactics contributed to the collapse he hoped to prevent. Some argue that his devotion to Rome’s ancestral customs mattered more to him than Stoic philosophy. Others point to contemporary evidence from Cicero showing that he was genuinely associated with Stoicism and brought philosophical argument into public life.

The debate does not of course reduce Cato to an inconsistency, but it reveals the difficulty of translating philosophy into institutions.

Cato could see the corruption of public life with unusual clarity. He could also treat accommodation as more dangerous than it was. He could resist the rise of personal power while lacking a political method capable of preserving the Republic. Even a morally serious person can identify a real danger and still misjudge the most effective response.

We should use this as a reason to dismiss principle as impractical. It would be more efficient to ask principle to become more intelligent!

Before refusing an agreement, a Stoic should ask:

What exact good does this refusal protect?

Is there a version of the proposal that preserves that good?

Who will pay the cost if I make this a public battle?

Am I refusing an injustice, or am I refusing the discomfort of not getting my way?

These questions make it more responsible.

The final refusal at Utica

After Pompey’s defeat and the collapse of the Republican cause in Africa, Cato was in Utica where he helped organize the departure of people who could escape. When Caesar’s victory became certain, Cato chose to die rather than live under the new order.

Later Stoics, especially Seneca, treated Cato as an image of moral freedom under overwhelming external loss. In On Providence, Seneca imagines him standing upright amid the ruins of the commonwealth. Seneca is shaping Cato into a philosophical exemplar.

Cato’s death was an irreversible act in a civil war and it should not be romanticized, copied, or treated as a general answer to defeat, political disappointment, or loss. Do not take Ancient Roman ideas about honor, freedom, defeat, and political order as instructions for modern private life.

External defeat does not automatically compel moral surrender. A person can lose office, status, safety, influence, reputation, or a public contest without giving up the capacity to judge, speak truthfully, care for others, and refuse corruption.

Cato’s final hours, as Plutarch tells them, included concern for the safety of those around him. You see, even at the end of his political world, the question of responsibility to others remained.

The Stoic lesson we get today, is to preserve moral agency when circumstances are no longer favorable.

What cannot be sold

Cato does not allow us to admire integrity as a pleasant personality trait.

Integrity is costly and it can cost promotion, access, approval, comfort, a coalition, or the image of being easy to work with. And it worth it. Because if it never costs anything, it may simply be a preference that has never met pressure. Everything is tested when it meets with pressure, everything in life.

However, cost alone does not make a refusal noble. We can pay dearly for a mistake, we can sacrifice relationships to preserve a false self image and we can also create a crisis because certainty feels safer than listening.

The Stoic discipline is clarity about value.

There are of course matters where negotiation is wise. Everything can change, from a plan to a role to a timeline. But we can learn from criticism without losing our character.

There are also other matters where agreement would make us participants in what we know is wrong. Misusing money, concealing misconduct, or choosing lie over truth to gain something. Cato pointed us to identify that difference before the pressure arrives.

Each one of us should know which duties they will not abandon in exchange for comfort, praise, security, or access. They should know the difference between a negotiable preference and a moral boundary. And they should be humble enough to test whether their refusal serves justice or merely serves the self.

To the battle with honour and integrity!

By Dr Ioannis Syrigos

References

Plutarch. Life of Cato the Younger. Bernadotte Perrin translation. LacusCurtius. https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Cato_Minor*.html

Sallust. The War with Catiline. J. C. Rolfe translation. LacusCurtius. https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/sallust/bellum_catilinae*.html

Cicero. De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, Book III. H. Rackham translation. LacusCurtius. https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cicero/de_Finibus/3*.html

Seneca. Of Providence. Aubrey Stewart translation. Wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Of_Providence

Morrell, Kit. “Cato the Younger: life and death at the end of the Roman republic.” Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2021. https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2021/2021.02.05/

Halper, Mary Elizabeth. “Cato the Younger: Roman Citizen.” Law and Liberty, 2020.

Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Marcus Porcius Cato.”

The quick answer is “Yes”. A Stoic can be ambitious, work hard, seek responsibility, build skill, create something excellent, and pursue influence. The only question is what ambition is serving and what a person is willing to become in order to satisfy it?

The ambition of a Stoic person is to be active, but not to have extreme desire to succeed in their endeavors. The person should have purpose and direction. But to achieve the purpose and to direct their ambition, they must accept and use the necessary discipline while at the same time make full use of all available opportunities. Ambition cannot depend upon any chance or other forces such as institutional restrictions, the marketplace, the opinions of others, or the opinions of the public. It should also not be connected to the outcome of the ambition. It should have its foundation on the work required. And here is where the connection between the ambition and the person lies in the character of that person.

The Stoic’s ambition must not be able to be owned or controlled by outside forces, therefore, a Stoic person needs to focus on their character as the primary driver of their ambition.

So, Stoicism asks us to stop treating rank, wealth, applause, and victory as proof that our lives are good. These things may be worth pursuing but they cannot be allowed to own us.

A Stoic ambition is therefore active but not desperate. It has an aim, accepts the discipline required, and makes serious use of opportunity. Yet it does not depend on an outcome that rests partly with chance, institutions, markets, other people, or public opinion. The ambition belongs to the work and the attachment belongs to character.

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Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Of course you want the promotion. The salary would definitely help (especially today), the responsibility is of interest to you, and you have worked hard enough to make a serious application, right?

Then the opportunity begins to occupy more than your working day. If someone praises you, it feels like a threat, then you may consider taking credit that belongs to a colleague, and slowly the question quietly changes from “Would this be worth pursuing?” to “What would it say about me if I did not get it?”.

The Stoics had a framework for this change, a framework that allows ambition, but refuses to let an external result decide the value of the person pursuing it.

They called certain things preferred indifferents. The phrase sounds contradictory but there is a practical distinction:

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Estimated reading time: 16 minutes

For sure money can pay for food, safety, education, care, time, and the ability to help another person. Nobody doubts that. We also know that status can open doors, command attention, and enlarge the reach of useful work. And it is not for the sake of statues, it is because you worked hard to achieve it. And then success can create room to build, provide, repair, and serve.

The Stoics knew this. They were not naïve about the uses of wealth or the consequences of rank.

Yet today, Stoicism is often presented as if it required a simple choice. Either money is corrupting and the wise person should reject it, or money is a reward for disciplined thinking and the wise person should accumulate it without apology. However, both readings miss the point!

The central Stoic question is unrelated to money, status, and public success. The question, as with anything, is whether they make a human being good or bad.

For the Stoics and for most of rational people, the answer is no. Wealth cannot make an unjust person just, an office cannot make a vain person wise, public praise cannot make a coward courageous and poverty, obscurity, or failure cannot by themselves make anyone virtuous.

And please do not take this distinction as an argument for withdrawing from ordinary life. It is a simple argument for placing ordinary life in the right order. Money, recognition, influence, health, and security can be worth choosing as long as they are used with intelligence and care. But, even then, they remain external conditions. They are materials for judgment and unrelated to your moral worth.

This is a demanding position, isn’t it? It tells the person who has little that lack is not a verdict on character and it also tells the person who has much that possession is not proof of character. And for everyone else, the ethical question begins after acquisition as much as before. The question is, what are these resources making possible, and what are they making of us?

The false choice between worship and renunciation

Our modern life creates a constant pressure to turn visible success into an identity, and here is the mistake. Income, title, followers, prestige, influence, and possessions appear as evidence that a life is advancing. But is it? Because at the same time, another performance waits nearby … the performance of being above all ambition, untouched by practical need and proud of needing nothing.

BOTH are just performances … and the Stoics refused both of them as such ...

Their own tradition makes the question impossible to avoid, isn’t it? Because, Seneca was a wealthy senator and adviser at Nero’s court. Epictetus began life in slavery and later taught philosophy in exile. Marcus Aurelius was emperor of Rome! Their circumstances were radically different, but they had something in common, as all of us have:

And the answer begins with a distinction that it can initially sound strange until its purpose becomes clear.

Early Stoic doctrine classifies wealth, fair fame, and noble birth among things that are neither morally good nor morally evil in themselves. Diogenes Laertius, reporting the school’s teaching, includes wealth, health, reputation, and their opposites in this category. And it is as true today as it was in the past.

Another word often used for this category is … “indifferent”, and it is one of the most misunderstood words in Stoicism.

We need to distinguish between Indifferent and irrelevant. It does not mean that health, food, housing, money, safety, family, or social standing have no practical consequences. It also does not mean that a person facing poverty or exclusion should be told that nothing important has happened!

What it really means, is that these things do not settle the deepest ethical question:

Thus the Stoics made a further distinction. Some externals are normally preferable. Wealth is clearly preferable to poverty, health is preferable to illness, safety is preferable to danger and a good reputation may have practical value. I do not think that any of us would disagree with that … So let’s called them preferred “indifferents”, which will be a useful label later on, for the Stoic distinction.

Cicero’s account of Stoic theory simplifies the practical reason for that. If every external condition were treated as exactly equal in choice, then ordinary life would collapse into confusion, right? A person would have absolutely no reason to seek health over sickness, security over danger, or resources over deprivation. That would be totally unrealistic. So, Stoic ethics do not abolish practical judgment, instead it gives practical judgment a second rank.

A preferred external is worth choosing when it can be chosen in a just way. And it is not what makes the chooser worthy.

This single distinction, separates Stoicism from both success worship and theatrical renunciation.

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Wealth is useful and It is not the good.

The reason Seneca returns to money so often, is because wealth has a special power to disguise itself as the “good life”.

Why? Because it can undeniably reduce hardship, increase choice, protect a family from shocks, provide education, leisure, treatment, travel, and the ability to give. And exactly because it can do so much, it can be easily mistaken for the thing that makes all other things worthwhile.

Seneca objects to this mistake, but not to every use of money.

In Letter 87, he says that “riches shower upon us a semblance of the good”. The phrase is exact: Wealth resembles the good because it can look like security, freedom, admiration, and power. But resemblance is not identity, right?

A person of poor character can possess money, a person with money can be fearful, dishonest, arrogant, cruel, or enslaved by comparison. Wealth can therefore be useful, but without being morally good in itself.

Seneca’s makes the (true) point that rich people sometimes behave badly. What is genuinely good should consistently benefit the person who possesses it. And wealth does not ... It may be used with courage and generosity, or with vanity and injustice, because it can serve either character, it is a tool and therefore it cannot by itself be the source of character.

This is why Seneca distinguishes an advantage from a good. Because an advantage may have more usefulness than harm. But a good, in the strict Stoic sense, must be unmixed. And while virtue meets that test, wealth does not.

By doing this distinction, the Stoic say two things at once without contradiction. That money may be worth pursuing and money is not worth becoming morally dependent upon.

When possession becomes servitude

Seneca’s most memorable warning is psychological. “He who needs riches least,” he writes, “enjoys riches most.” The person who craves wealth, he says, ceases to be master and becomes a steward.

So it is not an attack on saving, planning, building a business, or providing for dependents. It only describes the moment when the owner begins serving the possession, and this is where the mistake and the darkness lies.

The signs must be familiar to all of ue. More is never enough because each increase creates a new standard and because of that you cannot enjoy what has been earned since attention is consumed by protecting it, displaying it, comparing it, or fearing its loss. And while a promotion produces relief for a week, then becomes the floor beneath the next demand. The income rises, but the mind becomes more dependent on the next rise. I have been there and I am sure most of you have been there too …

Money itself does not cause this condition. Seneca, in Letter 17, he says, “the fault is not in the wealth, but in the mind itself.” The same restless desire that makes poverty unbearable can make abundance feel inadequate. The two sides of the pendulum.

This is why Stoic simplicity is not a performance of looking poor. Seneca’s phrase is clear: “If you wish to have leisure for your mind, either be a poor man, or resemble a poor man”. But the point is voluntary sufficiency, that is the person with resources should be able to live without constant luxury, display, and dependence on excess.

And we need to make a distinction clear … Voluntary simplicity is not the same as involuntary deprivation…

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A person without secure housing, health care, food, safety, or economic choice is not receiving a spiritual lesson from poverty. And stoicism does not make hardship beautiful just because it exists… Seneca himself makes a suggestion that should stand beside every sentence about austerity:

The Stoic target is the belief that no amount of security can ever be enough unless it becomes a guarantee of personal worth.

Enough is not the same as much

Seneca’s Letter 119 asks a question that remains difficult in every age:

Enough changes with circumstance. For example, a parent responsible for children, a person managing illness, someone caring for an aging relative, or an individual living with financial insecurity, has real reasons to seek more resources.

Seneca’s question targets the logic of limitless craving. The person who has much but must always have more has not reached sufficiency. On the other hand, the person who knows what is enough has a stopping point.

This is why money can fail to make someone rich in the ethical sense. Yes it enlarges the capacity to acquire, but it may also enlarge the appetite for acquisition. It can create an entire life organized around protecting an image of success that can never be completed.

The Stoic alternative is to ask ambition to state its purpose.

Does the next financial step provide for a real need? Does it create time, security, knowledge, or capacity for useful work? Does it permit generosity? Or is it mainly an effort to avoid the discomfort of feeling ordinary beside people who have more?

The answer may not always be clear, but the question interrupts a powerful habit:

Status is a role, not a self

Money is only one form of external success. Status on the other hand, can be even more intoxicating because it arrives through other people’s recognition. And most humans crave that … we are social beings after all.

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A title, office, award, institution, audience, family name, or public following they do have real utility, because they can help a person persuade, lead, protect, teach, fund, or organize. We cannot deny that. What the Stoics denied, is that borrowed prestige becomes the moral excellence of the person who possesses it.

Epictetus offers a sharp image for that, if someone owns a beautiful horse, he says, the beauty belongs to the horse, the owner is foolish to treat the horse’s excellence as his own. Let’s extend this analogy. A prestigious role may be real, a successful company may be real, an admired title may be real, but NONE of them automatically becomes evidence of the holder’s wisdom, courage, or justice.

In the Enchiridion, Epictetus includes property, reputation, and command among the things that are not fully ours. This of course does not mean we have no influence over them, because we do most of the times. What it means is that they depend partly on fortune, institutions, markets, other people, and circumstances beyond personal choice and they cannot provide a secure foundation for freedom.

In the Discourses, he asks a socially powerful man whether he is truly free. The man lists his credentials: free born parents, senatorial rank, friendship with Caesar, a consulship, and many enslaved people. Epictetus does not deny the social reality of those advantages, he only asks whether the man is still compelled by fear, appetite, money, or the favor of powerful people.

This question works as a diagnosis of dependence. Money becomes a master when a person will betray judgment, relationships, or justice rather than risk losing it ... Similarly, status becomes a master when someone will flatter, conceal, or injure others rather than lose the appearance of importance.

This is why Epictetus can speak of the poor person, the governor, and the private person in the same breath. None of these roles determines the quality of the soul, each creates a different field of duty.

So the governor must govern justly, the employee must act honestly, the parent must care for a child and the citizen must consider the common life. Nonattachment to a title does not mean to neglect the responsibilities attached to it.

Recognition has utility but Applause has no authority

Marcus Aurelius knew the pressure of status from inside the highest office in the Roman world. He was an Emperor and not many have been in such a position in the history of humanity.

So, he did not solve it by pretending that office was worthless. In Book 1 of the Meditations, he praises Antoninus Pius for managing public expenditure carefully, attending to the common good, and using the supplies of fortune without arrogance. Antoninus could use abundance when it was present and refrain from craving it when it was absent.

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That is exactly the Stoic model of external success. Use the resource but DO NOT worship it. Administer the role but DO NOT become the role.

Marcus is especially alert to praise when he asks, “What is praise, except indeed so far as it has a certain utility?” Reputation can sometimes assist us, it may make a leader more trusted, a teacher more heard, or an institution more capable of acting.

But praise does not make something good. An emerald does not become more valuable because people applaud it, neither does justice become just because it is admired, nor does vanity become wise because it is rewarded.

Marcus calls applause “clapping of tongues”. By that he means that public approval is unstable, often poorly informed, and easily confused with truth. A person who treats applause as the source of worth gives other people the power to define the value of a life, right?

What is the alternative? It is certainly not private self congratulation. It is a more demanding measure of success. In Meditations 11, Marcus asks:

This does not mean outcomes never matter. Feeding people, administering institutions, building useful work, and correcting injustice all involve external results. Marcus’s point is that a person can work seriously for those results without making personal credit the reward.

The useful question is not simply, “Did I win?” It is also, “Was the effort just? Was it honest? Did it serve the common interest? Did I remain capable of acting well if recognition did not arrive?”

Ambition without self worship

Stoicism is not a philosophy of staying small to avoid envy, risk, or responsibility.

Marcus begins one of his best known reflections by telling himself that he is rising “to the work of a human being”. He contrasts actions that concern society with the intense labor people willingly give to money and glory. His challenge is that they may work tirelessly for external reward while treating service, justice, and fellowship as lesser concerns.

There is a different kind of ambition.

It can seek a demanding role, build expertise, earn resources, lead an organization, persuade others, improve an institution, or deliver a public good. But it does not make possession of the result the condition of self respect.

Marcus calls this acting with reservation. Work for the just result, use reason, persistence, and courage, but remember that outcomes can be blocked by other people, material limits, timing, illness, and fortune. This means that a failed effort is not automatically a moral failure, nor is every successful effort a moral success.

This distinction protects action from two equal errors. One is passivity disguised as acceptance and the other is outcome worship disguised as ambition.

A Stoic says:

There is no promise here that discipline will produce wealth, prominence, or influence. Stoicism offers something harder: the possibility of working without handing over one’s freedom to the scoreboard.

Money as a social responsibility

The Stoic view of money becomes most demanding when money can be shared.

Seneca’s On Benefits does an inquiry into giving, receiving, obligation, gratitude, and power. He argues that gold, silver, office, and honor are not themselves benefits. The moral value of a gift lies in the goodwill and judgment of the giver.

Obviously, a kind intention cannot replace material help. A person who needs food, treatment, secure shelter, education, or protection needs real resources. Goodwill without adequate assistance can become a flattering story that the giver tells about themselves.

Seneca’s point is subtler. The same transfer of money can have a different moral meaning depending on how it is given. It can meet a need with respect. It can advertise the donor. It can purchase access, gratitude, silence, or loyalty. It can preserve another person’s agency, or it can create a dependency that the donor enjoys controlling.

The Stoic question is therefore not only how much someone gives. It is whether the giving is wise, proportionate, timely, respectful, and free of domination.

Seneca says that a person should help someone in need “yet so that I do not want myself.” Generosity requires judgment about resources, responsibilities, the recipient’s situation, and the scale of assistance. This is not permission for selfish caution. You need to refuse to treat self destruction or performative sacrifice as the only form of moral seriousness.

A good gift does not make the recipient a permanent stage on which the giver performs importance.

Cicero, writing in a Roman Stoic moral tradition, makes a similar point about wealth. Money may supply necessities, influence, and the means to bestow favors, but unjust acquisition must be avoided.

The Stoic ideal is an unbought capacity to use resources for human good without turning aid into a private monument.

Seneca and Marcus: the test cases are not simple

It is reasonable to ask whether Seneca’s own wealth undermines his criticism of wealth.

It is also reasonable to ask whether an emperor can credibly warn against status worship.

These biographies do create tension, and for a good reason. However, they should not be dismissed.

Seneca’s proximity to imperial power, his wealth, and his participation in Rome’s elite world make his attacks on luxury, greed, and display more difficult and not less. His writing may not solve every historical question about his conduct, but it provide a standard by which his conduct can be judged: wealth should remain in the house and not in the heart; it should be used without arrogance, fear, or injustice; it should never become an excuse for moral exemption.

Seneca is not presented in his own letters as a person who has made every external pressure disappear. In Letter 87, he admits embarrassment when traveling with inadequate equipment. This is important because it shows the stoic discipline that exposes the gap between what a person says and what their reactions reveal.

Marcus offers a different test. His authority was immense and yet he warns himself not to become “Caesarified.” The ancient phrase is specific to empire, but its meaning is familiar today too ... A role can begin as a duty and become an identity that changes its holder in a bad way. Authority can become a color that stains every judgment.

Marcus praises the public administration of Antoninus precisely because it is sober, responsible, and free from the hunger for display. Office becomes morally demanding because it enlarges both the opportunity to serve and the opportunity to dominate.

The lives of Seneca and Marcus show why the doctrine is difficult. It is just that money and rank make the moral task more visible.

Success as stewardship

The Stoic view of money, status, and external success is not an excuse to avoid success, and it is also not permission to worship it.

Money is a resource, reputation has practical utility, office is a field of service and achievement can provide the means to protect, teach, build, employ, support, and give.

But none of these things can make a corrupt person good or guarantee freedom or permanently secure the admiration of others. And also none can relieve a person of the duty to ask how it was acquired, used, or what it costs others, and whether it can be relinquished without the loss of self.

The Stoic audit is therefore:

What am I calling success: a resource for a worthwhile life, or evidence that I deserve one?

What duties come with my money, position, visibility, or expertise?

Is my next financial or professional step just in its acquisition and honest in its presentation?

Would the loss of this title, audience, income level, or possession be painful without becoming a verdict on my character?

When I give, am I meeting a real need in a way that preserves another person’s agency, or am I buying deference and a flattering image of myself?

These are questions designed to make achievement answerable.

By Dr Ioannis Syrigos

References

Diogenes Laertius. Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Book VII. Robert Drew Hicks translation. LacusCurtius. https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diogenes_Laertius/Lives_of_the_Eminent_Philosophers/7/Zeno*.html

Cicero. De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, Book III. H. Rackham translation. LacusCurtius. https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cicero/de_Finibus/3*.html

Cicero. De Officiis, Book I. Walter Miller translation. Project Gutenberg edition.

Epictetus. The Enchiridion. Elizabeth Carter translation. Internet Classics Archive. https://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html

Epictetus. The Discourses, Books 2, 3, and 4. Elizabeth Carter translation. Internet Classics Archive. https://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/discourses.2.two.html https://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/discourses.3.three.html https://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/discourses.4.four.html

Seneca. Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letters 14, 17, 20, 87, 115, and 119. Richard Mott Gummere translation. Wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_14 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_17 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_20 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_87 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_115 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_119

Seneca. On Benefits, Books I and II. Aubrey Stewart translation. Wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Benefits/Book_I https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Benefits/Book_II

Marcus Aurelius. Meditations, Books 1, 5, 6, and 11. George Long translation. Internet Classics Archive. https://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.1.one.html https://readaurelius.org/book/5 https://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.6.six.html https://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.11.eleven.html

Durand, Martin. “Stoicism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/stoicism/

Kamtekar, Rachel. “Marcus Aurelius.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

It is Monday; your calendar is full, but the one thing you want to do most … is not in your calendar. You may have a conversation that you keep putting off, or you may be doing the work that matters (to you) beneath all of the requests and updates coming in. Maybe you need an hour of rest to allow you to meet all of your obligations adequately?

The problem isn’t that you have forgotten that you’re going to die someday; you already know that. Your problem is that when your calendar is so crowded, you can quickly start thinking that borrowed urgency is more important than living the life you’re choosing. This is where the use of “Memento Mori” becomes important, as it is a way to think about how to spend an ordinary day.

So:

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*Thinking about death can be healthy when it is brief, voluntary, and directed towards living more truthfully. It can create anxiety when it becomes compulsive, overwhelming, or detached from the life that is still here to be lived.*

While some Stoics would take time each day to reflect on their mortality, it was not for the sake of becoming … depressed. Instead, they sought to use mortality to establish the reality check of one’s attentiveness.

Let’s think about it. Mortality serves as a way of determining the relative importance of one’s life goals while taking into account the limited time that we have available. So, the Stoics asked themselves:

Obviously, this way of thinking cannot be forced on someone. The writings of the ancients simply provide an approach for developing one’s judgment and making it easier to consider death without becoming immobilized by it.

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Estimated reading time: 14 minutes

Memento mori is among the best known phrases attached to Stoicism. It appears on rings, posters, notebooks, and social media feeds. It is often presented as a severe Roman command: remember that you will die.

The phrase is useful, but the history needs a correction. Memento mori is a later Latin formulation, not exactly a Stoic technical slogan. Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius wrote in Greek. The surviving Senecan passages on death do not use those words. The popular story that a servant whispered the phrase to every victorious Roman general is not secure evidence for its Stoic origin either.

Yet the correction does not weaken the practice. It makes it even more interesting!

Obviously, the Roman Stoics did not need a slogan to make mortality central to their philosophy ... They repeatedly returned to death, time, change, loss, and the limits of possession. They did so to make human attachment seem foolish. They used mortality awareness to ask a harder question:

For them, remembering death was a discipline of clearer living. It exposed the cost of postponement. It challenged the fantasy that other people belong to us and it reduced the power of status and trivial conflict. It also made a person focus on the next act that could still be chosen with justice, courage, and affection.

This distinction matters, because death awareness is easily misunderstood. It can sound like fatalism or be confused with emotional numbness and it can even be used to dismiss grief, or even worse, to make life seem disposable. None of that applies to the Stoic tradition.

The Stoic invitation is more demanding and more humane:

The phrase is later. The practice is ancient.

Mortality was a constant influence on peoples’ lives in the Ancient World; From Roman banquets where they served meals with little skeleton-esque decorations to schools of thought that were founded in Philosophy (though it didn’t stop with the Philosophers). Mortality was something that was viewed by many different schools of thought (e.g. Stoics, Epicureans, and others) and was incorporated into their beliefs and practices. For example, Seneca actually reported that Epicurus said to “remember to die.”

But it is important not to turn this broad tradition into a false quotation. Memento mori does not appear as a Stoic motto in the texts of Epictetus, Seneca, or Marcus Aurelius. The label came later. It gathered together themes that were already present in Greek and Roman reflection, then acquired a long afterlife in Christian art, devotional practice, and modern culture.

When creating a slogan like Memento mori to express Stoicism, we do not need to create a belief that by repeating Memento mori over and over again we will somehow be healed of our fear of death. Stoicism was designed to help us learn to face our fears, to prepare us to deal with future changes, to recover today from the past, and ultimately to have healthy relationships with people based on their uncertainty, rather than their guaranteed ability to die first.

The phrase Memento mori can be a useful reminder of Stoicism, as long as we remember that “doorway” does not mean “house.”

“Indifferent” does not mean that nothing matters

Stoic language creates another difficulty. The school classifies death as neither a moral good nor a moral evil in itself. In the technical vocabulary of Stoic ethics, death is an “indifferent.”

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Using this language can come across as cold or cruel when, in fact, it does not imply that dying does not hurt, that losing someone does not hurt, or that it has no effect on the people that were close to them. Death, as defined by the Stoics is a claim about what makes a human being morally better or worse.

Furthermore, Stoics viewed virtue and vice as the most important factors when determining what defines a good or bad person. To be virtuous means to have courage, justice, honesty, self-control, and care for others; these virtues define a person’s character, while death, health, wealth, fame, and current conditions are not, in themselves, what make a person good or bad. They matter deeply in ordinary human life, but they do not have the final power to determine whether a person acts nobly or shamefully.

This distinction may be difficult for people because it eliminates the two gratifying simplifications. It refuses the idea that a painful event is morally good simply because it happened. It also refuses the idea that an external loss can automatically destroy every possibility of acting with dignity.

You can suffer grief and still love. You can be ill and still be honest. You can lose time, position, or security and still choose to be brave. This is the position of Stoicism.

An awareness of our own mortality starts from this point, not from a hatred of life but from the understanding that life is temporary and, therefore, morally the most meaningful relative to the time we are given.

Epictetus: Separate the event from the verdict

Epictetus places the work of death awareness in the discipline of judgment.

In his book Enchiridion, Epictetus provides the foundation of stoicism regarding death. He asserts that death itself is not an evil, but rather one inflicts evil upon themselves via the mental judgment of death.

Epictetus is not telling a bereaved person that loss should feel painless. He is just making a technical claim about terror and moral evaluation. Because fear often arrives with a verdict already attached: This must not happen. I cannot bear this. My life will be ruined. Nothing good can remain. The Stoic practice simply asks our mind to notice that the event and the verdict are not identical.

In a passage from the Discourses recorded by Arrian, Epictetus conducts an austere exercise. “Your son is dead,” he says. “What has happened? Your son is dead. Nothing more? Nothing.”

The severity of the line must not be hidden. It is meant to interrupt the added conclusion that the bereaved person has therefore become morally ruined or that life has become worthless. It is not a denial of the bond, the absence, or the grief. It is an attempt to locate the part of human life that sorrow does not have to destroy: the capacity to act with integrity, to care, and to continue meeting duties.

This is obviously not a simple practice, and it is certainly not a command to suppress your feelings. It only asks for precision at the moment when fear begins to speak as if it were the whole and only truth.

That same precision appears in Epictetus’s direct instruction on a daily reflection. “Let death and exile, and all other things which appear terrible be daily before your eyes,” he writes, “but chiefly death.” The purpose, he says, is meant to prevent abject thought and excessive craving.

The logic is clear, isn’t it?

The practice can make vanity look smaller, ordinary kindness to feel less postponable and it can reveal how much life is being spent preparing to live later.

Epictetus calls philosophy preparation for what comes upon us. Death awareness belongs to that preparation and it is a refusal to be caught wholly unprepared by a truth that was never hidden.

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Impermanence can deepen gratitude without making loss easy

Epictetus’ remarks regarding our loved ones, are often difficult for the modern reader to comprehend. He tells the student to remember, when embracing a child or spouse, that the person is mortal. Other times, he says to think not “I have lost it,” but “I have returned it.”

A good reader will not interpret these two instructions as prohibitions against loving or grieving for someone. In fact, both are just very strict lessons about non-possession. In both instances, Epictetus challenges the reader’s desire to consider someone as a permanent possession and/or that love has conditioned the other person to be in the same state of permanence as that possession.

What Epictetus was trying to teach us was not that love or attachment is bad, but that possession is an illusion.

When we remember that we do not own a relationship, this presents us with a unique ethical opportunity; we are likely to be more present and less attached to our loved ones. We may also become able to hear others without assumptions. We can speak our truth to others and we will feel empowered to share our lives with them while we are still alive, rather than waiting on the perfect time to do it.

Gratitude, from this perspective, does not demand that we feel happy about our losses. Loss can remain devastating and grief can remain real. Mortality awareness does not ask a person to be grateful for pain but it asks whether the fact of impermanence can make care more attentive while the person, conversation, or day is still here.

In conclusion, the ethical approach, based on the knowledge of mortality, would be to allow this experience to encourage us to continue to be more present with and less attached from those we love or will eventually lose.

Seneca: We are dying daily because time is already passing

Seneca’s approach begins with the experience of time slipping away.

In the opening letter to Lucilius, he asks, “Who understands that he is dying daily?” The question is not theatrical. Seneca means that the years behind us are already beyond our possession. Time does not begin to matter only when illness, age, or catastrophe comes. It is important because each day has already become part of a life that cannot be retrieved.

This is why Seneca treats postponement as a moral problem. The busy person believes life will begin after the project, the promotion, the conflict, the improvement, or the next period of stability. But the period of waiting becomes life itself.

In On the Shortness of Life, Seneca observes that many people spend their days preparing to live. They guard their money, reputation, and calendar with care while allowing their attention to be taken by trivial demands. Then they imagine that the important conversation, the worthwhile work, or the considered life can begin at some time in the future.

Mortality awareness interrupts this thinking! It asks, not “What if I die tomorrow?” but “What has the assumption of endless tomorrow allowed me to postpone today?”

The answer does not need to be dramatic. It needs to be an honest conversation. For example, it might be time given to someone who has become an item on a list. It might be a task that has been delayed because it asks for courage rather than convenience. Or it might be a quiet hour without distraction, spent examining whether the life being built actually reflects the values being praised.

Seneca’s death awareness does not make every day a frantic final performance, that would be exhausting! In Letter 61, he says he is trying to live each day as a complete life. This phrase means that a day should not be made meaningless by being treated only as a corridor toward some imagined future that may or may never arrive ….

A complete day can include unfinished work as well as uncertainty and ordinary obligations. What makes it complete is that the person has not abandoned the present entirely to anxiety about what has not yet arrived.

Seneca’s important refusal

In his letters, Seneca warns against turning awareness of death into a love of death. In Letter 24, he emphasizes that a person must be strengthened for both Life and Death; the idea of ‘the balance between Life and Death’ should be taken seriously. Seneca says a person should not love Life too much or hate Life too much; he admonishes against what he calls “The Lust for Death.”

As such, a modern interpretation of Stoicism will only be complete if we understand that the awareness of Death does not glamorize it, purify it or make it attractive; it does not provide a means to escape the ordinary sufferings of existence. It does not provide a solution to grief, trauma or severe emotional distress. Ancient philosophy cannot replace the kindness and compassion of the support of a fellow human or the experience of a professional when an individual is overwhelmed.

Seneca describes a ‘servile fear’ of Death; when a person views Death as the ultimate evil, they will also develop an inordinate vulnerability to all forms of threat, humiliation, and the pressure to conform. A person who wishes to pursue Death as an object of desire has simply inverted an obsession. Neither of these poles results in freedom.

The Stoic path is steadier than that. Death is to be accepted as a part of the human condition when it occurs; during the time between one’s Death and one’s Birth, to live one’s Life with courage and without evasion.

Marcus Aurelius: Cosmic scale, immediate duty

Marcus Aurelius returns to mortality again and again in his private notes (we call today the Meditations). His reflections move between two scales, as it would be with every human being.

At one scale, he looks outward. Asia and Europe, he writes, are corners of the universe. The sea is a drop. The present time is a point in eternity. Generations rise and vanish. Fame is brief. Even the people who remember us will soon be gone.

The passage can sound bleak if it is read alone, but Marcus uses it to put vanity in proportion. What becomes smaller under the larger view is the anxious need to be admired, the resentment over trifles, and the fantasy that status can make a life secure.

At another scale, Marcus looks closely at the next act. In Meditations 2.5, he tells himself to do each act as if it were the last. The surrounding language is important and the act should be carried out with dignity, affection, freedom, justice, and rational self command.

This is the Stoic form of death awareness at its most practical. The awareness that time is finite directs us toward the quality of the thing immediately before us.

Can the next conversation be more honest?

Can the next decision be less ruled by vanity?

Can the next obligation be met without complaint?

Can the next act of care be offered before it becomes a regret?

Marcus describes death as an operation of nature. The phrase belongs to a Stoic view of the world as a whole of change and transformation. He is not claiming that every death is morally good, or that loss is painless, or that people should become passive before injustice. He repeatedly insists on cooperation, gentleness, truth, and service to others. The cosmic scale is a way of removing the distractions that keep us from particular duties. Isn’t it something similar that astronauts said when they saw Earth from space? It puts things into perspective…

The universe may be vast but the person in front of you still needs your kindness.

What the practice can offer, and what it cannot

Practice of one’s own mortality may bring perspective on a day-to-day basis. That practice may evoke a sense of urgency and purposefulness that we may not have been aware of in the past, allowing us to break the cycle of the never-ending desire for more, by producing a sense of responsibility towards action in the present. Furthermore, it may also allow us greater opportunity to appreciate those we may have taken for granted; when we realize we cannot predict the future, nor do we know how long we will be surrounded by those we care about, it creates a greater understanding for these people in our lives.

However, there are certainly limitations to this practice. It will not erase the pain of loss, nor will it remove the mental anguish one suffers as a result of losing a loved one, nor will it bring peace, eliminate worries about the future, or provide a permanent support system when life becomes overwhelming. What the Stoic philosophers offer, is an insight into how to “think” through a given issue or situation, rather than providing any actual source of comfort when dealing with loss.

This distinction is important because creating an awareness of our mortality should create more appreciation for the present and less for the future. If, as you reflect upon your mortality, it becomes too much for you to handle, do not attempt to force yourself. It might be better for you to put aside your contemplation and seek out a trusted friend or family member for help in making sense of your experience. Stoic thinking is not about carrying a burden alone. It is important to get help and benefit from the experiences of others.

The one possible way to develop an awareness of your own mortality in a very simple way, is to stop and think about how we postpone enjoyable activities simply because we feel there is always a tomorrow to enjoy those activities. You could think about how when we treat our relationships as something that can always wait until tomorrow, you might see the importance of that relationship more clearly if you have only six months to live than if you feel you have 60 years. Perhaps you could consider the duties that you have today versus the duties you will need to perform tomorrow.

When you have completed your day and have lived your life the way you wanted to live it, you may be able to look back and appreciate those people you have allowed to enter your life.

Remember finitude, then live more faithfully

The later phrase memento mori has survived because it names a real human need. We need reminders that time is not an unlimited resource, that bodies change, that people are not possessions, and that delay can become a way of refusing life.

The Stoics gave that reminder a demanding moral shape. Epictetus asked for clarity about the judgment added to fear, Seneca asked for a day that is not sacrificed entirely to expectation and Marcus, like a modern astronaut, asked for justice and affection in the next act, even under the scale of the cosmos.

None of them asks us to become cold. None of them asks us to despise life. The most careful Stoic version of death awareness says the opposite.

Because life is not infinite, love should not be postponed. The future is uncertain and courage should not wait for perfect conditions. Remember that every reputation fades, truth and kindness deserve more of our attention than vanity. And at the end, because loss is real, presence is not trivial.

By Dr Ioannis Syrigos

References

Epictetus. The Enchiridion. Elizabeth Carter translation. Internet Classics Archive. https://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html

Arrian, recording Epictetus. The Discourses, Book 3. George Long translation. Internet Classics Archive. https://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/discourses.3.three.html

Seneca. Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letters 1, 24, and 61. Richard Mott Gummere translation. Wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_1 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_24 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_61

Seneca. On the Shortness of Life, Chapters VII through IX. John W. Basore translation. Wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_shortness_of_life

Marcus Aurelius. Meditations, Books 2, 6, and 9. George Long translation. Internet Classics Archive. https://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.2.two.html https://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.6.six.html https://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.9.nine.html

Diogenes Laertius. Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book 7. Attalus. https://www.attalus.org/old/diogenes7b.html

“Memento Mori.” Oxford Reference. https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100149356

Durand, Martin. “Stoicism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/stoicism/

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

The proposal is treated as an emergency.

The speaker shows unwavering confidence in his stance regarding the evidence, which is less than complete. Then, questions posed by others are viewed as a delay in proceeding with the current suggestion, and any doubt that is expressed by others (regarding this proposal) will be framed as disloyal to the organization. And then, the speaker concludes his reasoning with the statement,

It does not appear that the speaker has lied about any of the facts, right?

In fact, the speaker has not only changed the way in which his arguments are being presented, but he has also changed the type of incentive being presented.

The speaker now presents a proposal that is intended to be a practical decision; however, as soon as a proposal is indicated as being a practical decision, it creates a situation that tests the integrity of a person.

The logical question that should be asked about this argument should be:

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Someone who is stoically calm will make decisions not based on panic, anger or need … to please others.

A pushover, on the other hand, will let the wishes, coercion, or misconduct of someone else dictate their actions. While both types of people may act in some way, their actions will stem either from clear and rational thought or from the impulse to retaliate immediately.

Stoicism is commonly misconceived to be a philosophy that promotes passivity. That’s not true… Stoicism promotes justice, courage, and experience-based knowledge. It also encourages individuals not to add their own anger to difficult circumstances, and does not demand that you submit to mistreatment.

Calm Is Not Silence

Sometimes people call a person calm because they do not object. But in reality, they may be displaying this attribute due to fear, fatigue, dependency, or a learned behaviour of trying to keep their peace. Silence does not necessarily indicate wisdom…

A stoic calm is different. It comes from first trying to understand what has happened, and then deciding how to best react. In the Enchiridion 5, Epictetus states that it is not simply the things themselves that disturb us, but rather the judgments we place on those things.

The first interpretation of any event does not need to be the final decision.

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Estimated reading time: 12 minutes

An extravagant compliment, a demand for an answer before there is time to think, an accusation that makes silence feel like guilt, a story told so quickly and confidently that questioning it seems unkind or an insult that seems to require an immediate response.

What do all of these have in common? Although these moments differ in tone, they more than often make the same demand:

Let’s see how Stoicism can become useful here. The Stoic task is very precise. It is to recognize an incoming impression, slow down the movement from impression to judgment, and choose an action that remains faithful to truth, justice, and the responsibilities of the moment.

Be assured, Stoicism is not a magical tools that promise that other people cannot affect us, nor a slogan for emotional numbness, and certainly not a reason to meet every person with suspicion…

A historical boundary is important from the outset. The ancient Stoics did not possess the modern clinical category of manipulation. They wrote instead about false appearances, flattery, fear, reputation, insult, anger, deceptive argument, and social dependence. Their texts cannot diagnose contemporary people or explain every unequal relationship. They can, however, offer a durable discipline for the point at which pressure asks for our assent.

But keep in mind, that having that discipline does not erase danger. If an encounter involves threat, violence, captivity, financial dependence, or credible fear, safety and support, obviously, take priority over philosophical conversation. A person may need distance, witnesses, professional advice, or help from trusted people. Stoicism does not make an unsafe situation safe, and it does not turn difficulty leaving into a failure of character.

An appearance is not yet a verdict

In Book One of the Enchiridion, Epictetus states it most clearly. When confronted with something harsh, he tells the student to say, “You are an appearance and not at all the thing you appear to be”. He encourages the student to examine it.

Epictetus is not telling the student to deny the existence of harshness; rather, he is telling the student to recognize how we tend to interpret things surrounding that perceived harshness. He recognizes that there is a reality of the harshness itself (a harsh message, broken promise, urgent request, troubling claim, or angry person) but that these realities come with the interpretation of “You must respond now,” or “You are responsible for how I feel,” or “If you don’t respond, I will reject you,” or “I can’t bear to see you not respond.”

Epictetus is advocating for a pause between what was said and what the mind has perceived through the filter of its own judgment.

In Discourses 3.8, Epictetus emphasizes this point repeatedly. A son has died, a ship is lost, a person is imprisoned; all these are horrible, terrible facts of life. However, the interpretation that can be inferred from these events (interpreting the event as making life worthless or unbearable) is something that has been added by the mind after the fact. His point was never that grief, loss, or confinement are trivial; his point was that the mind can create panic, shame, and confusion on top of something already difficult.

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While the same type of distinction can be used to clarify a potentially or even likely manipulative interpersonal communication, “You received an urgent demand from me,” is simply a fact. “You must agree immediately, or you are disloyal,” is a claim that requires investigation; “Someone praised your generosity,” is a fact; “You owe that person your obedience,” is an inference; “Someone is mad at you,” is a fact. “Thus, you are wrong, insecure, or unworthy,” is an interpretation; thus, its credibility needs to be checked.

This is why Stoicism begins with attention rather than reaction. It does not say that every intuition is false. It says that urgency, confidence, fear, and pleasure are not proofs.

Persuasion is not the enemy

A Stoic response to manipulation must not become a refusal of persuasion itself. Human beings need to persuade one another. Teachers persuade students. Friends persuade friends. Parents persuade children. Citizens persuade one another about what justice requires. A person may change a mind through evidence, example, tenderness, warning, or reason. None of this is a threat to freedom when it respects the other person’s capacity to judge.

The difference is ethical. Good persuasion makes examination easier. It gives reasons. It allows questions. It does not need to disguise a weak claim behind fear or flattery. It directs attention toward the matter itself rather than trying to capture the listener through performance.

Seneca makes this distinction in his letters. He is suspicious of speech that rushes past the listener and creates applause before understanding. Philosophical speech, he argues, should be plain enough to be considered and steady enough to remain in the mind. It should work more like a remedy than a spectacle.

This gives us a useful test. Does the person speaking invite you to inspect the evidence, ask for time, consult what matters, and disagree without humiliation? Or does the conversation become more forceful whenever you seek clarity?

The first may still be difficult. Honest persuasion often asks us to revise a cherished view. The second is more troubling because it treats reflection itself as disobedience.

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The pleasant pressure of flattery

Not all pressure arrives as threat. Some of it arrives as approval.

Seneca warns that flattery can resemble friendship so closely that it is welcomed precisely where it harms. This does not mean that compliments are always false. Gratitude, encouragement, and admiration can be honest forms of human connection. The danger begins when praise renames a vice as a virtue or makes a person feel indebted for an identity they are eager to receive. And I have seen this many times happening in my environment.

A person may be praised as brave when they are being reckless. They may be called loyal when they are abandoning their own judgment. They may be told that only a generous person would agree to an unreasonable request. They may be assured that a truly strong person would tolerate conduct that deserves a boundary.

The praise is powerful because it offers a flattering story about the person who performs it. And a person with low self esteem, will certainly welcome it.

Seneca’s answer is practical: compare the praise with conduct. In Letter 59, he observes how readily people accept names that contradict what they actually do. Don’t we see this today all the time?

The work of discernment is not to reject every kind word. It is to ask whether the description is true, and whether accepting it now would require abandoning a responsibility that matters more.

A compliment can be received with gratitude and still leave judgment intact. You do not have to pay for approval with compliance.

Urgency recruits the body before the mind is ready

Pressure often accelerates time. “Decide now.” “Do not make this difficult.” “If you cared, you would know.” “There is no one else you can ask.”

Sometimes speed can be justified by the need to quickly address a specific urgent situation which is classified as an emergency. However, urgency by itself does not define an emergency. It can also be a way of preventing reflection, consultation, and proportion.

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Stoics would not encourage someone to delay indefinitely as a way to escape making difficult decisions. Their primary objective was to ensure the quality of the consent given to their actions. Epictetus encouraged his students to use caution when judging their own judgement and to certainty regard those things that are beyond their power. We tend to do the opposite of that. We become anxious about things that we can’t control and are indifferent to the methods by which we attempt to control those things.

In times of great pressure, this can lead to an overwhelming desire to maintain social acceptance, reputation, comfort, and power in one’s life. What the Stoic response encourages us to do is to establish a decision-making process that does not allow them to influence your perception of what is truly “fair,” “true,” or “necessary.”

When a situation allows it, taking time is a moral act. Thus, you may ask for verification of the claim that was made against you, request additional evidence that supports the claim, inform them that you will get back to them once you have had time to think it through, and consult your friends and family whose opinions you trust. You will likely see the request with more clarity and conciseness after you give yourself the time to reflect on it and enable you to decide whether the request is still reasonable.

The pause does not guarantee a perfect decision, but it returns authorship of the decision to you.

Do not let provocation choose your character

Insult also creates another form of pressure. It can seem as if the only choices you have are submission or retaliation. This is not true and Seneca challenges this false choice in On Anger. He does not deny that people can act unjustly, cruelly, or contemptuously, but he asks what happens when a perceived injury becomes an appetite for vengeance.

In the translation by Robert A. Kaster and Martha C. Nussbaum, anger is described as “hungry for vengeance” and “shut off from rational deliberation.” The phrase used is important because it names the danger of being recruited into another person’s terms, right? A provocation may be real, but retaliation can still hand the other person control over the shape of our conduct. In other words, you allow the other person to control and manipulate you.

Stoic calm is not passivity, because it can include a refusal, a warning, a record of what happened, a request for accountability, a boundary, a departure, or an appeal for help. What it refuses to accept is the idea that injury makes any response permissible.

Marcus Aurelius puts the standard in social terms. When another person is acting wrongly, he recommends correction that is direct, tactful, and free from malice or performance for an audience. This is a discipline for speech whenever speech is safe and appropriate: state what is true, name the limit, and do not reproduce contempt in the name of self respect. Because this will certainly be not self respect…

The person who provokes may want a spectacle, but our response should aim at clarity.

Independence is not stubbornness

There is an easy mistake in all this. A person who is determined not to be manipulated may begin treating every correction as pressure and every disagreement as an attack. Stoicism, obviously, does not support that attitude …

In his meditations, Aurelius reaffirms that when someone has provided the proof or rationale for a different opinion, one should be able to adopt their new opinion by still maintaining their personal freedom. In 8.16 of meditations, Aurelius stresses how changing one’s mind as a result of a correction still represents an act of freedom, and is just as valid and appropriate as continuing to hold onto an erroneous belief.

This correction has significant implications. Freedom comes from being able to acknowledge the reason that is superior to one’s previous belief and, to still be able to make an adjustment to your belief without any loss of dignity.

To be stoic does not mean to be immune to persuasion. To be stoic means to understand that persuasion does not equate to dominance. Evidence can be convincing and wise individuals can correct one’s understanding; however, there may be times when one has the opportunity to come face-to-face with one of their friends who has pointed out an unpleasant truth about them. What is crucial, in the end, is whether the person has taken ownership of the judgement through careful assessment, rather than through fear, status, flattery, or exhaustion.

Marcus has also indicated that individuals should be open to being evaluated through careful examination, to remain steadfast against false accusations, to openly disagree with others, and to be happy to be shown a superior way of doing something. This is the antithesis of defensive isolationism and represents a valid form of trust. While it is essential to remain open to new ideas, it is equally essential to be vigilant in evaluating and assessing what is considered to satisfy that criteria.

A practical Stoic response when pressure appears

Begin by naming the impression in simple language. Do not assign a label to the other person. Just say what has happened., such as:

“I have received a request.”

“I have been accused.”

“I am being praised.”

“A decision is being presented as urgent.”

Naming the event plainly reduces the power of the story that has arrived with it. You take out emotions and past memories …

Next step is to separate fact from interpretation.

What is directly known?

What has been inferred?

What prediction is being treated as certain?

What would need to be true for the demand to be reasonable?

This does not mean to distrust everyone. You just do it to keep fear, shame, and hope from dressing themselves as … facts.

Next, examine the form of the persuasion.

Does it give reasons?

Does it permit questions?

Does it remain coherent when you ask for time?

Does the speaker’s conduct support the values they claim to represent?

Seneca’s concern about flattery and verbal display directs attention to this point. The issue is whether the speaker’s eloquence is replacing evidence and character.

After that, name the duty. You may have a duty to protect your safety, speak truthfully, care for someone dependent on you, keep a promise, report harmful conduct, preserve professional integrity, or refuse an unjust demand. Stoicism is not only self protection. The question is, “How do I feel about this?”, but also, “What action can I defend as fair?”.

Finally, choose a boundary or a response that does not require you to become what you oppose. This is very important …

“I need time before I answer.”

“I will discuss this when we can speak respectfully.”

“Please send the evidence.”

“I cannot agree to that.”

“I will not continue this conversation alone.”

“I am leaving now.”

Clear language does not need flattery, evasiveness, or humiliation.

Again, if the situation involves immediate danger, coercion, or credible threat, the Stoic response may be much simpler… Just move toward safety, contact support, and document what is necessary. There is no moral prize for remaining available to a person who is making an encounter unsafe, right?

The freedom to remain responsive

The deepest Stoic promise is that other people can still disappoint, deceive, persuade, praise, threaten, or provoke us. Circumstances can narrow our choices, and fear can arrive before reflection. And yes, pain can be real.

What the Stoics defend is a more limited and more useful freedom:

the freedom not to let pressure become an automatic judgment or a borrowed character.

We can examine what is presented, or accept correction when it is warranted, or set a boundary when it is not. We can also speak plainly, seek help and refuse to build our response out of the same fear, vanity, or contempt that is being used against us.

That is responsible participation and not detachment from the world. This is also true emotional intelligence and metacognition – popular terms nowadays …

The Stoic response to manipulation and persuasion is a practice of clear sight, proportion, and moral independence.

By Dr Ioannis Syrigos

References

Epictetus. The Enchiridion, Chapter 1. Elizabeth Carter translation. Internet Classics Archive. https://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html

Epictetus. Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 1, “That Confidence Is Not Inconsistent with Caution.” Elizabeth Carter translation. Internet Classics Archive. https://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/discourses.2.two.html

Epictetus. Discourses, Book 3, Chapter 8. William Abbott Oldfather translation. Wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Epictetus,_the_Discourses_as_reported_by_Arrian,_the_Manual,_and_Fragments/Book_3/Chapter_8

Seneca. Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 40. Richard Mott Gummere translation. Wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_40

Seneca. Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 45. Richard Mott Gummere translation. Wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_45

Seneca. Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 59. Richard Mott Gummere translation. Wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_59

Seneca. Anger, Mercy, Revenge. Translated by Robert A. Kaster and Martha C. Nussbaum. University of Chicago Press. https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/748412.html

Marcus Aurelius. Meditations, Books 4, 6, 8, and 11. George Long translation. Read Aurelius.

https://readaurelius.org

Graver, Margaret. “Epictetus.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epictetus/

Vogt, Katja. “Seneca.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/seneca/

Durand, Martin. “Stoicism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/stoicism/

Certainly!

The Stoics believed that each undertaking should first be evaluated prior to making any commitment.

This evaluation required consideration as to whether taking on any particular risk is worthwhile, because it will further or serve a reasonable purpose, be consistent with a set of obligations/responsibilities, and can be done with clear thinking.

In contrast, the motivating factors of danger or excitement, prestige or honour, and the desire to prove that one is bold, cannot be justified alone as sound reasons for taking on risk.

This distinction between philosophical attitudes towards risk and moral principles concerning risk-taking cannot be overemphasized.

Stoicism is not a set of ideas or beliefs about how to stay safe or to retreat from an unfortunate circumstance. Nor is it an idea or concept about being courageous.

The Stoic inquiry surrounding risk cannot resolve itself simply by asking, “Will I be successful”? Nor can it be adequately satisfied by asking, “Am I courageous enough to do it”?

Instead, the primary inquiry should be, “Having considered the negative or detrimental aspects associated with this course of action, am I able to undertake this course of action with good reasoning and ethical values”?

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Estimated reading time: 11 minutes

The hardest decisions usually come when we do not have all the facts.

We cannot know if or when we will get a second chance at an opportunity. We do not know if having a difficult conversation with someone will lead to reconciliation or complete estrangement. We do not know if taking a new path will be successful or not, if taking a risk will result in a reward or loss, if we will improve our ability to diagnose, if the person we trust will continue to be trustworthy, or if our plan will survive the next shift in circumstances.

We often respond to this uncertainty by seeking more certainty. Sometimes, additional information provides greater clarity, increases awareness of risk, and provides a safeguard against carelessness. However, the Stoics recognized that circumstances can only be predicted to a certain extent and that at the point where you can no longer improve based on your predictions through continued contemplation; procrastination may transition from exercising caution to avoiding responsibility for making a choice.

The Stoics did not claim to have developed methods for predicting the future. They did not guarantee that having a calm and clear mind would allow us to know what happens in the future. Rather, they provided a way of acting when prediction fails: having specific, positive evidence of our choices, being deliberate about selecting what is a worthy option for us, being mindful of our duties, and committing ourselves fully to our choices; we must also be resolute in refusing to judge our choices as worthy based only upon their outcomes.

The position of the Stoics is not a position of pessimistic expectations; it is a position of steady agency.

The mistake of demanding a guarantee

We tend to judge a decision’s good qualities based on the outcome. If we find success in our job, we made a good decision. If our investment fails, we have made an unwise choice. If our conversation produces good results, we spoke wisely. If it did not go over well, we should have stayed silent. Therefore, we agree that the outcome is very important. While Stoics don’t argue that we should be indifferent to all causes of health and illnesses, we know health is better than an illness, security is better than danger, a repaired relationship is better than an injured relationship, and a just outcome is better than an unjust outcome. To suggest otherwise is not only unwise but also negligent.

However, while there is a preferred outcome, we cannot conclude from a disappointing result that our decision was a poor one. A person can make a wise decision, prepared with great care and ethics, but still face circumstances beyond his/her control, while another person can make a rash decision and get lucky. If we only judge our decisions on their outcome, we condition ourselves to admire luck and mistrust integrity. Keep in mind that every decision depends on the information we have available.

Stoics require much more than a hope of success. We should also ask ourselves, regardless of the success or failure of the decision, what will be the measure of our responsibility for it?

In most cases, we indicate factors such as the quality of our attention, the honesty of our evaluation and analysis of the situation, the fairness of our treatment of others, our level of care in preparing for action, and the action we ultimately choose to take. We do not include our environmental circumstances (e.g. weather), the character of the people that we are responsible for interacting with, the future behaviour of a market, or every potential consequence that may result from our actions.

This does not negate the fact that uncertainty is a very negative experience for most of us; but it does allow for us to be better able to understand uncertainty as it pertains to our thoughts and actions.

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Caution in one place, confidence in another

One of the most advantageous pieces of advice offered by Epictetus, as a representative of the school of Stoicism, regarding difficult decisions, is to separate caution and confidence entirely.

Caution should guide us when we apply our own judgment. Care must be taken to not deceive ourselves, to not confuse fear with wisdom, to not choose malice over fairness, or to let the desire for an outcome outweigh the ethical implications of the means used to achieve that outcome. This area of judgment as to our own conduct is our responsibility, and it is here that we must exercise the most care.

Confidence, on the other hand, should be our response to the unpredictable. Confidence does not mean that we believe that our plans will succeed; rather, it means that we believe that the outcome we expect will not prevent us from fulfilling our duty, nor negate the validity of our good faith efforts to achieve it.

In practice, many of us invert this process. Rather than expect what will occur based on our actions or decisions, we assume that we can firmly control what happens. Thus, as we worry ourselves into a state of hysteria over what may happen, we also tend to disregard a sense of responsibility regarding how we conduct ourselves. We often believe that it is acceptable to act in an unprincipled way or violate the principles we espouse simply because the unknown is creating stress or anxiety about the situation.

The Stoic’s reversal is easy to express but quite difficult to follow: place your concern where you have control, and your confidence where you do not.

A decision is more than a forecast

A major aspect of modern decision making is prediction:

What are the odds?

What is the upside?

What can go wrong?

All of these questions require some thought. The Stoics do not ignore evidence, probability, or practical foresight; however, they would say that a decision cannot be simply a prediction. A prediction informs us of probabilities for events, while a decision indicates the level of responsibility we are ready to accept.

Let’s explore the situation of confronting a co-worker who has a pattern of unfairness. In terms of prediction, there are many variables in play; the person confronting the co-worker could receive an apology, denial, retaliation, or no resolution at all. Stoicism does not eliminate the potential outcomes; however, Stoicism does provide an alternative set of questions to consider:

What do you know for certain?

What is the ethical response?

Where do I fit in?

What can I support, regardless of the outcome?

The Stoic concept of appropriate action is what makes Stoicism relevant. The right thing to do does not necessarily mean the outcome is what I want; however, the right thing to do has reasoned justification in the given circumstances, accounts for the relationships present, and does not allow fear or desire to dictate the response.

When considering an issue from the Stoic perspective, it will require more thought and reflection. The Stoic approach to decision making avoids two extremes: viewing all uncertainties as evidence that you cannot act and acting impulsively based on a strong desire.

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Preferred, not possessed

The Stoics often refer to desired outcomes as “preferred.” Many people misunderstanding what the phrase means. “Preferred” does not refer to a person’s Health and Safety, A good name, Wealth or a Desired End Result. Instead, it says:

You may prefer winning a contract, regaining health, maintaining a relationship, or receiving the recognition you have earned. Such preferences must be justly preferred, reasonable, and accepted as having real importance. But your entire value for any action should not hinge on possessing the preferred outcome, reward/triumph.

The Stoic’s view of objectives is based on the path (the discipline) taken to achieve those objectives instead of solely focusing on the objective itself.

When you pursue any objective, you pursue a target.

When the targeted objective is altered in a way contrary to yours, the distinction between these two philosophies becomes very clear. A decision to pursue a targeted outcome based solely on possession will conclude that the efforts were worthless because you did not achieve the desired outcome; Conversely, a Stoic who made a decision based on a Stoics understanding of virtue will be able to ask, “What continued to be worthy in the manner I pursued it, and what should I have learned to do differently?”

A response to an outcome based on possession is rigid, and a response based on virtue will continue to be open to a correction.

The quiet reserve in every plan

Stoics view their plans with an implicit reservation. Stoics’ plans usually include an unstated backup plan, “I will do this, if the conditions allow”. This is not a magical expression, nor an excuse for weak commitments: it is a statement of reality as it stands today.

A plan that includes uncertainty is not of lesser weight; rather, it is a more serious plan; it clearly shows a separation between commitment and fantasy. You may choose to apply, start the project, talk, take the trip or assist. You will devote yourself to the task with maximum discipline, but you cannot responsibly promise that the necessary conditions will remain constant for you to succeed.

An individual using a backup plan can communicate two things at once. One: “I will act vigorously”; two: “I will not assume that a vigorous action means that the world is under my control”.

This is especially helpful in situations where procrastination is portrayed as careful analysis; where an individual spends an excessive amount of time in research to support or substantiate a decision that could not be made due to fear of judgement, disappointment, or being wrong.

The backup plan does not clarify when sufficient evidence is enough to warrant a decision. However, the backup plan does remind a person that no amount of evidence can eliminate all the risk from living a meaningful life.

At some point, the role of further research is not to gather additional information, but rather to choose wisely based on what you already have.

The people inside the decision

Stoicism implies that an act is never simply an individual choice, but rather represents an ethical aspect of one’s involvement in the relationships and communities we inhabit as human beings. Thus, we as human beings form part of a variety of relationships, e.g. family, neighbours, friends, colleagues, citizens, and the greater community at large.

Stoicism does not advocate for every individual to sacrifice themselves for the sake of approval from others but rather demonstrates that to make a complete decision one cannot simply take into account what will benefit them alone; therefore, the answer to the question “What do I want” requires an additional dimension: “What do I owe?”, “Who will pay?” and “What would Fairness require if I were not to benefit?”

In an uncertain environment, asking these questions can help you avoid becoming anxious over every decision you make and will stop you from treating every decision you make as a means of protecting your status, comfort, or your private interests. Without acknowledging the role of your various communities, your use of Stoicism could become little more than a fancy way to justify your own self-centred actions.

In some instances, the obligations associated with a decision may not be fully understood, and the individual may not know for certain if their truth will be accepted by others, but they do know that lying is not an ethical choice. They may also not know if their expression of compassion will be reciprocated, but they do know that the vulnerable person needs this support. Similarly, they may not know if holding individuals accountable will be a popular choice, but they do know that no action taken will continue to allow the potential for harm to exist.

Ultimately, there are infinite possibilities available in the future, yet our obligation to one another is still consistently present.

A Stoic decision practice for uncertain moments

To start the process of making an impossible decision due to the uncertainty of the future, frame the decision as a clear, one-sentence statement defining the action you believe is best. Do not say you need certainty about the future in order to make the decision, that’s unrealistic. Instead, articulate the action you will take based on your current understanding of the situation, including what you feel is the most responsible next step.

Next, it is important to look at the facts versus forecasts. The facts you should consider include all that has happened, all that has been spoken, all that you have at your disposal (resources, obligations, etc.), and any constraints you are confronted with. The forecasts are the possibilities of what you think might, could, or should occur (the negative or positive aspect of what might be possible).

To help define the preferred outcome of any decision you are trying to make, state the preferred outcome and why it is so important to you. You may wish for the relationship to continue, the project to be successful, or for the risk to be decreased to a minimum or for the opportunity to remain open. By naming your preferred outcome, you will not fall into the trap of thinking that detaching from preferences is an appropriate way to handle difficult situations. As an example of Stoic thinking, the preferred outcome serves as direction for your efforts and is not the outcome itself.

Your next step is to determine your personal sphere of responsibility. What can you prepare for, ask for, verify, say, refuse, offer, document or even do something about? What is the sphere of responsibility for others and for circumstances or time? This practice allows you to cease putting an effort on things you do not control.

The next step is to analyse the decision you have made on the basis of duties and reversibility. For example, who will be affected? What is the fairest approach to additional resources, time, and responses? When you consider reversibility, does what you will undertake represent the best possible chance to review what the outcome will be if you take a minimal version of the action rather than a guaranteed larger version?

In this way, it is appropriate to accept responsibility for the results of your decisions and never to pretend to be all-knowing. All Stoics demonstrate great courage by acting on their reflections and releasing themselves from the safety of their reflections.

After the decision

Uncertainty continues after action. The Stoic response to a disappointing result is neither denial nor contempt for oneself. It is something better, review, reflection.

Ask what information was missing, what judgment was sound, what assumption proved weak, what duty was met, and what needs to change next time. Try not to use hindsight to punish the person who had less knowledge than you have now. That person was you, working inside the limits of the moment!

This is one of Stoicism’s quiet strengths, the fact that it does not require a person to be invulnerable to disappointment. It asks them to convert disappointment into clearer perception rather than into a permanent accusation against themselves or the world.

The Stoics made decisions under uncertainty by refusing to treat uncertainty as a reason to abandon judgement. They prepared carefully, selected what was preferable, considered their roles and responsibilities and then they acted. And when fate supplied an outcome they did not choose, they returned to the one task that remained theirs:

Certainty is not the condition for a good decision. Character is the condition for making one.

By Dr Ioannis Syrigos

References

Epictetus. Discourses, Book II, Chapter 1, “That Confidence Is Not Inconsistent with Caution.” Translated by George Long. Internet Classics Archive. https://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/discourses.2.two.html

Kamtekar, Rachana. “Marcus Aurelius.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, substantive revision 2025. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marcus-aurelius/

Durand, Martin. “Stoicism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, published 2023. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/stoicism/

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

No matter how carefully you prepare for an interview, presentation or hard conversation, or the launch of a product, or how much effort you put into getting yourself ready for the event, the moment you’ve been waiting for could come to an unexpected and abrupt halt. Welcome to life!

You are not just going to fail to get what you wanted, you’ll feel as if all your hard work has been wasted.

The Stoics developed a way of addressing these feelings in an effective manner: The concept of “the reserve clause”. This concept states that you should pursue what you want fully, with the understanding that there are many external factors involved in achieving that goal. The result does not depend only on you.

The principle can be expressed in one sentence:

This is disciplined commitment without a claim over reality!

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The Stoics did not ask that we ignore cruelty, deception, exploitation or violence. Likewise, they didn’t expect us to continue associating with those who repeatedly harm us. Their central request is much harder; to view harmful behaviour in a clear and objective manner, respond justly (with actions befitting justice), and to not allow hatred and revenge to dominate our character reference point.

This is a significant distinction that rejects two temptations: irrational tolerance or “he misunderstood” while he continues to hurt others; the second is that we imitate the dishonest, aggressive or malicious behaviours of others by being dishonest, aggressive, or malicious ourselves.

For the Stoic, there are many acts of wrong and many ways that one can cause harm to another; however, rage does not provide the clearest direction for how to respond.

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Estimated reading time: 11 minutes

Anger comes attached to a “credential” indicating that something happened that mattered. It communicates that a boundary has been crossed, someone has been wronged, a promise has been broken or a truth has been ignored. It also makes a very strong statement:

Therefore, any advice to “control your anger” can feel disrespectful or insulting. It may sound like you are being told to be less alive, less loyal or less able to resist what is wrong. Unfortunately, the way Stoicism is traditionally presented today does not help either… The typical image of a Stoic person is one who accepts injury without complaint, has no feelings and views silence as strength. BUT, this is not the Stoic perspective.

The ancient Stoics did not teach that humans should suppress every feeling that arises in their bodies. They understood that many emotions, including shock, fear and pain, as well as a sudden tightening of the chest, may arise before the individual has had a chance to reflect. What they questioned was the next movement:

The story of hurt as an insult, the judgment that the other person deserves pain and the momentum to take revenge, a feeling that can quickly turn from tempting to essential.

For the Stoics, anger is not to be bottled up as a raw force. It is viewed as a diagnostic issue. Becoming angry usually means a person has accepted a set of judgments:

I have been wronged, this injury is unacceptable and that person must be punished. Until their punishment is received, I cannot be at peace.

As soon as these judgments become accepted and unquestioned, anger becomes the directing force in a person’s mind. The task of the Stoic is not of course to act as if the injury did not occur, but to question the judgment, the proposed punishment and the underlying story about what led to the injury.

The first flash is not the verdict

The initial section of Seneca’s work on Anger outlines the form of anger at it’s most extreme:

He describes this impulse as a form of “temporary insanity.” Although, angry thoughts can appear to be rational to those who have experienced it, anger has the power to hold sway over one’s focus, reduce the ability to see reality, and take away from the clarity necessary to make meaningful change.

Seneca does not attribute it to a lack of ownership over the emotional outpouring of his anger. In the second chapter of Seneca’s On Anger, Seneca presents three elements of anger.

First, there is an involuntary response or reaction. An alarmed response, flushed skin, muscle tightness, an inner sense that there is something wrong has occurred. In more modern terminology, this would probably be interpreted as the initial spark of anger. You see an insult, read an insulting message, have someone speak over top of you, or witness a child being treated cruelly. The physical (instinctual) responses to these events occur before you have formulated your thoughts into a coherent sentence.

Second, the natural response to an insult or attack is to seek revenge, which begins with the understanding that one needs to be avenged because of their injury. To put it another way, the initial response to an insult evolves into a story:

What has occurred, what it signifies, and what one should do

The final and most damaging stage of the process of anger is the stage where the angry individual goes beyond the rational justification for punishing the aggressor, and shifts into a position where they want redress simply to satisfy their revenge.

This distinction in anger has a significant effect on how one deals with angry feelings. The Stoic does not deny that he has experienced the initial burst of anger. That is a natural instinctive emotional response, which may provide some vital information as to the source of one’s anger (fear, sorrow, fatigue, shame, or unjust). However, the first wave of anger does not give guidance as to how one should finally respond to it. And this is where true emotional intelligence comes in …

The crucial space is the interval between feeling disturbed and deciding what the disturbance means. That is where diagnosis begins.

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Anger’s hidden argument

Anger feels immediate, but is never that simple. Anger includes a logical basis for its emergence; it occurs so quickly that the angered individual will identify it as factual. This is due to the lack of self-awareness, lack of metacognition as it is called today.

As an example, someone cancels plans at the last minute. The person has cancelled, that’s a fact. However, the person who has cancelled may also be angry because they feels disrespected by the individual who cancelled, because this is something this individual does regularly, because they feel humiliated by the way they were treated, and because the person who cancelled doesn’t seem to understand that what they did caused the anger.

Now, consider another example: A colleague has objected to the proposal you submitted for approval. The colleague’s objection is a factual account of what happened. But the individual who objected may also be angry because they feel threatened that the proposer will be diminished by their objection, or if no one else speaks up against the proposer, then they will be viewed as weak.

The anger felt in either example may be true. It could also be an exaggeration, half-truth, or a fabrication. There could be many reasons behind it such as low self esteem, lack of confidence, etc. The Stoics taught that anger will make a ”decision” about someone, before fully examining the evidence or considering how to arrive at that conclusion.

Seneca provided a good example of how people form opinions about others while being angry. He cautioned that people develop anger about something, prior to arriving at a conclusion regarding whether or not the situation that caused the anger was a mistake. People may become angry as a result of suspicion, gossip, or even an interpretation of a facial expression or a smile, either positively or negatively.

A rule of thumb proposed by Seneca was to argue the case of the absent party against yourself. What he meant is, to imagine how the absent party will explain what they did, in response to you and/or your actions. It is important to realize that not every negative experience is a misunderstanding, and this exercise allows for the focus to remain on the facts, rather than seeking to assign blame.

The key to creating a strong basis for developing your personal freedom from anger is to be straightforward and truthful in identifying what happened. Rather than asking yourself what your anger wants you to do, or what action will satisfy your desire to be understood, identify what actually occurred and what you have inferred from it.

This is where you gain the first step of your freedom from anger.

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Anger is not the same as justice

A frequent defence of the importance of anger suggests that without anger, injustice would go unpunished. The Stoics disagree with this view because they believe that anger does not possess the ability to judge proportionately, which of course is true. Any action when taken through an emotional state is 90% wrong.

For a just decision to be reached, a judge must have vision. A just decision is only possible when the judge has the ability to see, to know or to determine what the harm is, what the facts are, who has been harmed, what the limit of the harm is and how to make reparations to the person harmed and impose the appropriate punishment. Anger is a means to identify an injury, but it cannot be used as a means of making a decision about the remedy to be provided because of anger’s desire to see the person who has caused the injury suffer.

Seneca argues that an act of courage or of correction can be accomplished without the emotion of anger. A surgeon may perform a surgical procedure to remove something life-threatening without having hate for the person being operated on. A judge does not require an outpouring of rage in order to condemn a criminal. A parent does not need to have an explosive outburst to protect their child. While in all situations described, a decisive action is likely to be taken quickly (without delay) and may be viewed unfavourably by the person acting, the authority of the action taken is derived from the logical reasoning behind the action, not from the pleasure derived from “getting even.”

This distinction is significant for those who have either explicitly been told or implicitly understood that to be calm is to demonstrate a lack of strength. Examples of actions that can be taken without the person wishing physically to humiliate or destroy the other are the same as the examples provided previously: speaking plainly to another, ending a romantic relationship, documenting an act of wrongdoing, seeking redress via a lawsuit, filing a complaint with an employer, holding someone accountable for their actions, denying the person further access to the grievant person’s property, and many others.

The Stoic alternative to anger is not pacifism, it is the use of rational, logical, clear-eyed, disciplined action without the addition of inflating the emotional state due to feelings of retribution, vengeance or desire to take revenge on the wrongdoer.

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Diagnosis before discharge

The term “letting it out” implies that anger builds up inside of us like pressure in a sealed up container, when we express it we think we cleanse ourselves and when we suppress it we put ourselves in danger. The common thought behind the warning against denial is true:

However, expressing emotions, makes them in the long run stronger and more frequent. In other words, it is also dangerous and bad for us. True emotional intelligence is when we observe, understand and take the power out of them.

So, Seneca’s description causes us to think in a more focused way. What feeling are we actually “letting out”? Are we to speak of a boundary? Are we to identify our grief? Are we to request security from our fear? Are we to acknowledge a humiliation? Or are we to express a desire to make another person feel less important than we feel?

These are not the same feelings and therefore they should not be treated the same way.

To diagnose our anger is not to turn it into a “thinking problem” or to make it an “intellectual riddle”. We need to give enough focus to our anger BUT as an observer so that we may discover what is prompting it. This is crucial to be an observer, otherwise you will just identify with it … again … making it stronger and loosing perspective.

Often the thing upon which our anger is focused, is not the person that currently has our anger. An interruption at work may tap into an old fear of not being taken seriously; A reckless driver may evoke a day full of fatigue; A misstep by our partner may have touched upon some expectation that we never communicated to them. Past memories, past experiences, supressed feelings, etc. are almost always behind every episode of anger.

OF course, none of this differs from the idea that there is nothing wrong with us being angry. It does illustrate that our initial target may not be the ultimate target of our anger.

In this way the Stoic pause is not a way to run from our emotions; it is a very careful way to approach the truth, the other person, and the part of us that the anger is attempting to protect.

The five questions of an anger diagnosis

When we experience feelings of anger, it can be beneficial to not view this emotion either as an aggressor or as commanding. By treating your anger as a witness, it is possible to examine, and critically assess, the testimony of this witness.

First, identify the event that occurred. You should state the observable event in a way that a neutral third party could interpret as fair. For example:

“They showed up 30 minutes late” is an observable event. “They don’t respect me” is an interpretation. When you begin with the observable event of “They showed up 30 minutes late”, the conclusion of “They don’t respect me” does not preclude your ability to draw that conclusion, but allows you to retain the credibility of the observable event and not confuse your interpretation as evidence.

Next, identify the harm. Did someone break a promise to you? Did someone cross the boundary? Were you in a compromising situation, or was there a betrayal of trust? Were you embarrassed? Were you excluded from something you needed? Once the underlying harm associated with the feeling of anger is identified, there will be less confusion about what the underlying issues are.

Third, what have I added to the story to create the story around the injury? This is to identify the issues of motive, meaning, predictability, and belief. By identifying the issues of motive, chance, and fear, you separate your interpretation from your evidence.

Fourth, what is the proper protective response to the injury? If the value you are protecting is honesty, then perhaps the next logical step is to have an honest conversation. If the value you are protecting is safety, then perhaps the course of action would be distance, documentation, seeking help, or a report. If the value you are protecting is dignity, then the course of action may be to refuse to engage in the degrading act as opposed to retaliating with a victory. The correct Stoic response is not necessarily the one that provides immediate satisfaction to the individual who’s feeling angry, but it is the response that protects the value of honesty, safety, or dignity without allowing anger to take over or off course.

Fifth and finally, allow time to elapse between when you are feeling angry and when you take action regarding the issue. Allowing time to pass will allow for more clarity regarding the action you are about to take and ensure that if there is any action taken, it is completed with a clear understanding as to whether the action taken.

The discipline of delay

Yesterday, I had a difficult conversation with someone whose recurring resentment, anger, avoidance of responsibility, and lack of accountability made a calm, constructive exchange impossible. I won’t speculate as to the causes of those patterns, nor do I need to diagnose them to recognise their effect on the conversation. When I saw the discussion beginning to escalate, I ended it promptly and respectfully. I named that the exchange was moving out of control, suggested allowing time for emotions to settle, and made clear that any further conversation would need to resume later, under calmer conditions.

Delay is one of the most underrated tools in Seneca’s toolbox. Seneca does not perceive delay as cowardice. Instead, Seneca sees that deliberately delaying a response to anger protects you from making a mistake by forming an opinion about something that you are too sure about too quickly. It gives you time for your conscience to take control and take yourself out of the control of your emotions.

Seneca states:

That means that the concept of “delay” applies to both public and private anger. Delay is not to say that all decisions need to be made slowly; nor is it to say that a person experiencing immediate danger should wait until the condition passes before acting. If you are at risk of harm, protect yourself and those around you. Get out of the situation to seek help, preserve the evidence, contact the authorities as needed, or use the appropriate channel to seek support and accountability from those in authority.

In the area of being insulted, suspected, or betrayed, delay allows the mind to regain its perspective from anger. Delay provides time for the mind to receive additional evidence regarding the anger. Delay allows the body to settle down so that you may differentiate between the force of anger and the clarity of reason. Delay allows you to formulate a response to the event, which you can look at later and still feel it was a response that you made.

A good rule of thumb is to delay revenge, but not your right to defend yourself. You can defend your boundaries without necessarily wishing to hurt anyone. You can act with decisiveness, but not make a final judgement. You can say, “I will no longer put up with this,” while acknowledging that you do not yet fully understand the reasons for the event.

What Stoicism asks of anger

Rather than simply instructing us to be more cautious when expressing our anger, Stoic philosophy ultimately teaches that fully developed anger is an error in judgment, representing our misplaced judgement about the value we place upon how others treat us. In addition, it attaches undue significance to our desire for revenge.

This conclusion may seem harsh to many contemporary readers but does offer some degree of discipline. This thought-provoking assertion allows us to consider whether we are driven by values or by the desire for retribution and/or punishment (i.e., vengeance).

The Stoic approach to addressing anger is not based on having an expressionless face or living a life quietly. Stoics anticipate us to be able to experience disruptive emotional states and then to maintain their sense of judgement based on that experience. They encourage us to actively engage in understanding what caused the initial emotional response, to search for the rationale that led to it, to find any extenuating circumstances, and finally to choose a response that does not add to our frustration for ourselves.

In the experience of anger, we learn that it is indicating something of importance. In order to discern what is important about it, we need to use reason.

By Dr Ioannis Syrigos

References

Seneca. Of Anger (De Ira), Book I. Translated by Aubrey Stewart. Wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Of_Anger/Book_I

Seneca. Of Anger (De Ira), Book II. Translated by Aubrey Stewart. Wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Of_Anger/Book_II

Durand, Martin. “Stoicism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, published 2023. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/stoicism/