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/

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

So, you start by reading the message … twice.

The first time, the message will tell you what it says, while the second will tell you the … insult behind it.

By the time you reach the third, your body has joined the argument 😊. Your jaw tightens, your attention narrows like a horse with blinders and you begin composing a reply designed for one purpose only: to make the other person feel what you are feeling.

How many times, haven’t we done this? But, what we do not understand is that this is a dangerous interval in anger: although the event has already occurred, your response has not.

Of course, most damage is done here. We send the message, we make the accusation, raise our voice and involve an audience (e.g. friends) or decide that just this one act has revealed the whole character of another person. Remember, our focus has narrowed … laser beam narrow.

And later on, when the anger recedes, we may still believe that something wrong occurred. But, most of the times – assuming we have a spark of conscience within us, we will regret that we let our anger chose the timing, language and scale of our response.

Going back in time and to Marcus Aurelius. Marcus gives himself ten reminders in Meditations 11.18, not three. The diagnostic below is therefore a modern reconstruction: a practical compression of a sequence that appears repeatedly in his notes.

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Does Seneca’s financial prosperity negate the validity of Stoic philosophy or does it render every written work of his useless?

The Stoics did not believe in the “evilness” of money; nor do they say, ‘If you have no money, then you are a morally good person.’

However, there exists an insurmountable conflict between Seneca’s wealth, his powerful position of authority within an empire, and his connections to Julius Caesar Augustus (or King of Rome, which was known as Caesar Augustus) and the eventual emperor Nero. Instead of denying this conflict exists, let’s explore it further.

The most honest answer, to the question, to start with, is probably neither that Seneca was a fraud nor his wealth is irrelevant. His philosophy gives us standards by which wealth may be held; the historical record gives us reasons to ask whether he always met those standards.

Let’s the investigation begin!

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Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes not from doing too much, but from never being able to say what, exactly, all the doing was for.

A busy day starts with urgency. You have to answer a slew of messages, make decisions about what to do with the next task, reassure those around you, and complete several tasks, as well as wait for just one more piece of information. You fill up your calendar with the things you have to accomplish; you empty your inbox; then your email inbox fills again. You go to bed each night with the knowledge that you were busy, but with no sense of living. Have you felt like this?

Two thousand years ago, Seneca identified this condition. Although he lived in Rome at a time when there were no smartphone notifications, shared online calendars, or economic systems designed to harvest people’s attention, he did have a huge number of legal commitments, a great deal of political activity, wealth accumulation, a large number of clients, and a social environment where everyone needed to impress each other. Many of these are similar today, after all we are still human beings!

So, his conclusion was that while people may have too many obligations and responsibilities, it is not the quantity of things being done which keeps them preoccupied and out of touch with themselves.

Seneca, in his “On the Shortness of Life”, makes the statement that has troubled many readers over the years:

The possible interpretation of this comment can seem judgemental, yet it is most accurately interpreted as an opportunity for improvement. If you feel that your life is short, are you really lacking time, or are you letting other people’s pressure, vanity, fear and procrastination fill your time, before you have decided what it is for? To Seneca, the issue is that people do not own their time.

The full calendar is not the full life

Seneca’s critique is not a disdain of labour or effort; he had experienced first hand the pressures inherent in the imperial political system from within. He experienced exile, wrote under political pressure, witnessed a significant time of personal hardship that also gave him insight into how quickly duties requiring the utmost labour, could become burdensome with no choice whatsoever. His target was all the activity we use to substitute for productive purpose - busyness that masks purpose.

A packed calendar gives a view of the volume of work that may be considered important, urgent, necessary, or needed to be done; equally, there are those events, activities, or tasks on our calendars that only create the illusion of urgency, simply because we have never stopped to examine whether those items truly serve us. While both our level of movement and level of stillness are relevant, the primary distinction between the two is our chosen commitments and our default (automatic) occupations.

This is one reason why Seneca’s philosophy is much more stringent than a productivity system. Generally, a productivity system asks the question of whether the task has been completed, whereas Seneca asks whether that task has become muted and merely prevented you from achieving the life you desire.

Even if someone is extremely busy at work, that does not mean they are not putting off work that is important to them, such as accepting or facing a complicated or painful truth about themselves, taking the time to learn something thoroughly, not allowing themselves to develop a build-up of resentment through their inattention to taking time for self-care, restoring a relationship, fully attending to their children, or making an important decision (one that they had repressed under several layers of preparatory tasks).

A person’s calendar is not able to assist them with these questions. The only information it provides is that there has been time allocated to the respective activities.

Time is lost in more than one way

In his first letter to Lucilius, Seneca asks his friend to “gather and save” his time. He clearly distinguishes time that has been forced from us, time that has been filched away, and time that simply slips from our hands through carelessness.

This distinction is precise because not all lost time is our fault.

Some time is taken. Illness, financial necessity, caregiving, bureaucracy, crisis, and obligations imposed by institutions can claim hours that we did not freely give. If you follow a philosophy that treats every minute as a personal choice, well, you ignores the realities of unequal power and unavoidable duty.

Some time is given away. We accept a meeting because we fear seeming difficult. We answer immediately because we have trained others to expect constant access. We remain available to another person’s anxiety because we do not know how to draw a boundary without guilt. These choices may be understandable or even seen as generous. But they become costly when they occur our time by reflex rather than by judgement.

And some time simply leaks. It is dispersed through attention that never fully lands anywhere: a little resentment, a little browsing, a little rehearsing, a little comparison, a little preparation for a life that will supposedly begin once everything is arranged. This is the loss Seneca calls most disgraceful, and it is indeed, because carelessness can make us absent from the only life we are actually given! It makes sense, right? How much time we have spent in those “leaks”!

Just to clarify, Seneca’s point is not that every spare minute must be converted into achievement. He is just asking for an honest account. In other words:

Do you know where your time goes?

Do you know why you are spending it there?

Can you tell the difference between rest that restores you and activity that merely keeps you from meeting yourself?

Busy idleness

Seneca’s sharpest phrase is busy idleness.

He uses it to describe people whose days appear full even in leisure – I have been there. For example, people devoted to display, restless acquisition, elaborate consumption, trivial competition, and the anxieties of status. They may have withdrawn from formal work yet remain inwardly crowded. The reason they are not at leisure is because they are not present enough to possess their leisure, if you know what I mean.

Even if the examples are Roman, the structure is obviously familiar. Busy idleness is any activity that absorbs attention while leaving the person untouched by their own life. It can happen in an office, on a holiday, during a workout, at a dinner party, or in an immaculate routine designed to prevent silence.

This obviously does not make pleasure suspect. Seneca is not asking us to live without play, beauty, companionship, or recovery. He is only exposing a particular form of evasion: using the texture of life to avoid its substance.

You can be busy because your work is meaningful. You can be busy because another person needs you. You can be busy because a season is genuinely demanding. But you can also be busy because stillness might reveal that you have built a life around expectations you no longer believe in.

The question is not, “Am I busy?” The question is, “If the activity stopped, what would I be forced to notice?”

Urgency is not importance

The voice of Urgency persuades easily. It tells us that the newest demand is the biggest demand, that rapid response equals virtue, and that delaying reflection means we are acting responsibly.

There is also a legitimate form of urgency. For instance, when a parent is overwhelmed with responsibility and has no one available to help, then immediate support is needed. Similarly, deadlines can create consequences for those involved, and emergencies require swift action. Seneca does not recommend indifference when managing a real and immediate need.

On the other hand, manufactured urgency does exist. This type of urgency arises because an individual’s reputation is at stake. An individual worries that if they do not respond within one hour, their reputation will be diminished. Additionally, manufactured urgency can be caused by one’s habitual pattern of responding to everything received by email within minutes. Some people prefer to respond to ten small tasks rather than consider one larger question that has the potential to change the course of their lives.

Seneca does not suggest that we need to be slower in all situations. Instead, he recommends that we become more specific about what demands actually have a reason for being handled with speed.

To determine whether a demand warrants urgency, consider three key questions prior to acting.

First, would waiting result in a consequence?

Second, who prioritised the demand?

Third, what possible larger task would need to wait if I were to give in to it immediately?

These questions do not excuse us from fulfilling our responsibilities; rather, they protect us from mistaking another person’s pressure for our own judgement.

This distinction allows for proportionality. An unanswered message, while potentially uncomfortable for the receiver, is likely not consequential. A neglected conversation, on the other hand, can be both uncomfortable and deeply consequential. The sense of urgency cannot answer the question of which situation to act on, but provides clarity on which situation is best handled quickly and which situation may be left for a later time.

The life we keep postponing

In Letter 1, Seneca gives his friend a plain instruction: “Lay hold of to-day’s task, and you will not need to depend so much upon to-morrow’s. While we are postponing, life speeds by.”

This thought is an attack on the fantasy that the real work of life can safely be deferred until conditions become ideal.

We postpone the creative work until there is a clear weekend. We postpone the honest conversation until we understand every feeling. We postpone rest until nothing remains to be done. We postpone presence until the phone stops, the financial pressure eases, the house is organised, the body changes, the children are older, the career is settled.

Some preparation is wise, but postponement often borrows the language of preparation in order to avoid the risk of beginning.

Seneca’s reminder is uncomfortable because it removes the refuge of the future self. The future self will not be less frightened simply because the calendar has advanced. The person who avoids the difficult action now will usually find a more elaborate reason to avoid it later.

To lay hold of today’s task means to identify the smallest act that moves a central part of life from intention into reality. It may be sending the first message, opening the first page, asking for the appointment, declining the request, taking the walk without filling it with noise, or sitting quietly long enough to discover what the next task actually is.

The size of the act is not the point. The point is to stop using time as a waiting room for a life you have already begun to receive.

The Senecan time audit

Seneca does not try to offer an image of himself as an ideal individual with regards to time management; he states in Letter 1, “I cannot claim that I have never wasted any time”, but he does assert that he is able to establish or identify what he has wasted, why and how. This is a far more valuable benchmark when assessing one’s relationship with time as compared to guilt.

After the conclusion of any given day, take a few moments to complete an informal audit, and do not try to be punitive towards yourself, just provide a framework from which to compare expenditure to investment.

Start with the Necessary items of time management. A Necessary area will include: time spent performing your job duties, caring for others, taking care of your physical body, the time you dedicate to performing your genuine obligations, or time spent on people or things due to unforeseen circumstances. This is the framework of your life.

Next, look at the Chosen area of time management. This area will include: activities that you engaged in because of your values or beliefs, or that you have committed to or have an existing relationship, or that are part of your genuine resourcing of your life. Understand that Chosen time does not always have a positive connotation; in fact, a difficult conversation or a difficult practice may in fact reflect your strongest belief and most sincere commitment.

Next, identify what was dispersed. Where did time vanish without a clear decision? Do not reduce this category to screen use. Include rumination, performative availability, anxious preparation, resentful delay, and work extended beyond usefulness because stopping would require you to decide what comes next.

Finally, select one hour to reclaim in your following 24-hour cycle. Consider this hour an opportunity to return to a purpose in your life that is being neglected. Your purpose could be related to a project, a close personal relationship, a hobby, a big question in your life, a physical activity or a time of uninterrupted attention.

The success of your audit will be determined by the level of clarity it brings to and not the production of a perfect schedule. Be aware of this trap …

Leisure as the possession of yourself

The modern ideal of leisure is often escape: no demands, no discomfort, no one needing anything. But this is wrong …

Seneca’s idea is stronger. Leisure is the condition in which you can actually possess your attention and therefore your life.

This kind of leisure can exist in a short walk, an early morning hour, a thoughtful meal, a period of reading, a craft performed without display, or a conversation in which no one is trying to gain an advantage. It can also be absent from a luxury holiday if the mind remains governed by anxiety, comparison, and the need to be seen enjoying itself.

Senecan leisure is not laziness, and it is not the reward granted after all real work has been completed. It is the space in which we learn what work, rest, obligation, and ambition are for.

That is why the illusion of busyness is so costly. It is not that it just crowds the calendar. It prevents the kind of attention through which a person can tell whether their calendar belongs to them at all!

Seneca’s challenge is therefore to stop allowing urgency to choose the shape of a life by default. Some days will be crowded and some responsibilities will be immovable. But even within them, there remains a question that cannot be outsourced:

What deserves the next hour of the life I have been given?

By Dr Ioannis Syrigos

References

Vogt, Katja. “Seneca.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, substantive revision 2024. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/seneca/

Seneca. Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 1, “On Saving Time.” Translated by Richard Mott Gummere. Wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_1

Seneca. On the Shortness of Life (De Brevitate Vitae). Translated by John W. Basore. Wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_shortness_of_life

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

In little ways, most of us see evidence of power imbalance in workplaces.

A manager will change a target after you have finished your work, and then ask why you did not meet the revised target. A senior coworker will present your analysis and never acknowledge your part in it. Someone with power will routinely interrupt you during meetings and will describe your attempts to finish your sentences as “defensive.” You may be left out of a conversation that impacts your work, and you may receive blame for not being aware of any resolutions made.

Of course, the issue here is more than simply just a bad behaviour by another individual. This individual likely has the ability to control your work, access, visibility, evaluation, or income.

This certainly changes how you look at the problem.

If an equal status peer spoke the same words, you would likely respond immediately. However, when speaking with a person who possesses more power than you, both speaking out and remaining silent can cost you. Openly confronting the person too soon can work against you, while remaining silent for too long may indicate to the person that it is safe to “repeat the pattern.”

This is where the oversimplification of Stoicism can be dangerous.

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Yes, but not in the way a slogan might suggest.

It is true that Stoicism offers a disciplined way to think and act when a person’s power has been sharply limited. BUT, Stoicism cannot erase injustice, undo violence, secure housing for you, heal you illnesses, change a hostile institution, or guarantee a good outcome. It cannot transform someone who has no safe options into someone with lots of options. It is not a magic wand …

This distinction is important because it is the beginning of an honest Stoic answer. And honesty is crucial to any type of inner work. Because if a philosophy tells people facing poverty, coercion, discrimination, war, imprisonment, illness, or exploitation that their suffering is merely a matter of perspective, it is not philosophy any more, it has rather become a way of avoiding reality. And isn’t avoiding reality so common today?

The Stoics did not deny that there are external constraints. They asked a different, more intelligent question: when circumstances restrict so much, what remains available to human judgment, character, and action?

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Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

What an enslaved Stoic philosopher can teach us about the one territory no circumstance should be allowed to occupy: our judgement.?

Today, the word “freedom”, can often have so many definitions that it loses its impact. For example, people talk about “financial freedom,” “freedom to move,” “freedom from bad jobs,” and so on. Are any of these “freedoms” really all that important? Are they all really “free” from danger? After all, the market may change and affect us; the government can create restrictions on us; a medical condition may beat or restrict our physical body.

Epictetus, a Stoic philosopher from Greece, began his journey into philosophy in a manner that could be considered being at the bottom of the “vulnerability” ladder. Epictetus was born around 55 CE in Hierapolis (now Izmir), Greece (located in western Turkey today) and was eventually enslaved in Rome to Epaphroditus (the administrator for Emperor Nero). He later gained his freedom, learned the teachings of the Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus, and opened a school in Nicopolis (now located in northern Greece). All that we know of his teachings today is through the writings of his student Arrian, who published them in two forms: The Discourses and the much shorter Encheiridion (Handbook).

It is interesting to note how many Masters from the past were written about by others, usually their students, instead of writing about themselves..

While the above facts are quite tempting to create a comforting fable-like story about a slave who finds out he was already free and that the cruelty of the world around him did not matter, it is simply not true that this is what happened. By suggesting this is how Epictetus found out he was free, we would be betraying both history and philosophy.

Enslavement is not a state of mind; it is the result of coercion, violence, sales, separation from family, and the legal dominion of one human being over another. Furthermore, Epictetus’s teachings do not negate the significance of these realities, nor do they imply that the oppressed have merely ignored their ability to think freely.

Instead, what Epictetus provides, is something much more difficult to articulate, yet much more exact: whilst everyone ultimately possesses their freedom externally, each individual must address the question, at least once, of:

In Epictetus’s view, this question marks the beginning of an individual’s freedom.

The freedom no one can hand you

The Greek term prohairesis, means the ability to make moral choices, and is at the centre of Epictetus’ philosophy. Prohairesis means to consciously choose something before you act on it. It allows humans to assess impressions and determine whether or not to agree with them, as well as make a decision and direct their desires.

This is not to be confused with the common expression “have a positive attitude.” Prohairesis represents the centre of your judgement. Epictetus provides an initial basis for understanding the term in his Handbook (Encheiridion):

One could easily misinterpret this statement as advising one to not care about anyone or anything. Epictetus does not advise one to give up the pursuit of one’s body, possessions, or other attributes of public life. Rather, he is telling one to stop confusing the importance of these attributes with the only way in which one can act with or without integrity.

Although an event may not have been chosen by the individual and may not have led to a desired outcome, one still has the power to determine the outcome of one’s actions.

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A philosopher made under constraint

A few details about Epictetus’s life during the early years are missing from the available records; however, we know the origins of Epictetus’s limp, which is the result of an injury, The most credible evidence about Epictetus’s limp comes from Ancient Roman and Greek sources which identify more than likely, two potential sources for it: either arthritis or (most possible) physical assault while being enslaved.

The importance of not filling in Epictetus’s background is because it does not need embellishment, as his philosophy is radical enough as it is, since he placed moral freedom as the central part of his life and teachings (in contrast to status, safety, or wealth). In Book I of the Discourses, Epictetus imagines the most severe threat a man can create, ‘I will put you in chains.’

Clarity is one reason why Epictetus defined his answer carefully; chains limit one’s movement, but do not definitively exert control over one’s will. Of course Epictetus does not imply that imprisonment is not terrible. Instead, his response denies that physical coercion overrides our ability to use our minds.

That distinction is uncomfortable because it does not flatter us… and today we love flattering. Although we all have more freedom of movement than Epictetus did, we often abdicate our judgement by surrendering to other people’s negative comments, or by giving power over ourselves to an angry email or the imaginary views of others regarding us and our decisions. All of them are fear factors, such as the fear of looking foolish, the need to be admired, the anxiety of a result not yet known.

We call this being realistic. Epictetus calls it a form of servitude.

The first discipline is to challenge the appearance

The first time we see an event in our minds is called an “appearance”. The facial expression of the manager, the assessment of something, the void of silence generated from receiving something, the headline in a newspaper, and the thought that comes to us at 3:00 am all create an “appearance”. These “appearances” can be correct, incorrect, partial, or manipulated/controlled. We do not have complete control over how these “appearances” will occur. Our responses to an “appearance” constitute the beginning of our contributions to it.

Epictetus made a suggestion in his Encheiridion dated 135 AD that is simple to understand:

This is not an instruction to disregard what is real but rather a directive to slow down our reaction to what we perceive as harsh and jump to a conclusion.

Suppose we see our colleague remain quiet; what is the appearance? We might conclude, “They think I’m worthless”; that’s our conclusion based on our interpretation. If we see that there was a sudden rise in the cost of something we expected to buy, then the appearance is “my life has been ruined” or “my financial future has been ruined.” Again, that is our conclusion based upon how we interpreted what we observed.

When looking at these levels of appearance on paper, there appears to be a little difference, yet in times of difficulty, they are the “total” difference from choice to reaction.

When making any decision, always identify the appearance that you observed. Next, determine how supporting evidence exists to the story you have constructed. If evidence is minimal, you haven’t accomplished anything, however, you have created some “wiggle room” to approach the situation rather than just fleeing from it.

The second discipline is to stop demanding guarantees

The next step is more of a challenge. When we see an incident partly out of our control, we tend to spend time worrying about it. We mentally “play the tape” of our conversation over and over, imagining every possible future catastrophe, and exhausting ourselves mentally thinking that if only we could work hard enough, we could make things happen as we want them to.

Epictetus taught that what is ours and what does not belong to us can be determined by two questions: “What is mine?” and “What is not mine and what is permitted and what is not permitted to me?”. These questions seem passive until we really use them to help us figure out what belongs to us.

You cannot determine whether an application has been accepted, but you can determine whether what you submitted was of high quality with integrity. You cannot control how loyal someone else will be to you, but you can determine how honest you communicate with them, how much you look at the evidence presented, and what boundaries are yours to set. You cannot control how others will misrepresents you, but you can determine whether you respond to those misrepresentations truthfully or with the same misrepresentation.

This is not a belief that will lessen your ambition; it is an ambition that allows you to free yourself from the bondage of using it to determine your worth. You may work hard for your goal, but your worth does not depend upon achieving it. You may have strong feelings for a person, but your mind does not have to constantly focus on his or her choice, blocking everything else from your life’s journey. You can stand up against injustice, but hatred does not have to dictate how you choose to stand up against it.

Epictetus instructed his students to pursue and avoid things “gently and simply and with a lightness of touch.” What this means is not to be lukewarm, It means without the desperate inner contract that says: If this does not happen exactly as I require, I cannot remain whole.

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The third discipline is to do not sell yourself cheaply

Epictetus teaches his students about two kinds of “buying into” something:

(1) moral; (2) economical.

Every day, external things make an offer. Approval asks you to soften a truth you know should be spoken. Comfort asks you to delay a responsibility you can already see. Status asks you to become more performative, more evasive, or more cruel. Fear asks you to call inaction prudence. Anger asks you to call retaliation justice.

Epictetus does not pretend that these choices are costless. Sometimes saying no will cost an opportunity, a friendship, or a place in the room. However, he insists that the more important calculation comes first: What is this choice making of me? This is the aspect of Stoicism most alien to a culture of constant optimisation. We are trained to ask whether a choice is efficient, profitable, strategic, visible, or safe. Epictetus asks whether it preserves the faculty by which we choose at all. He is not interested in a heroic identity. He is interested in the daily practice of remaining someone who can still recognise truth when it is inconvenient.

Freedom is not withdrawal from other people

The distorted understanding of Stoicism as an emotional quarantine from the world (i.e. keep distance, mistrust, need nothing, and then label this isolation as independence) is not what was taught by Epictetus.

Epictetus provides an alternative view; he clearly understands humankind through its roles (e.g., child, parent, neighbour, citizen, friend, etc.). Freedom in order to fulfil these roles without giving up our egos is part of the purpose for the discipline of freedom. Because freedom IS a form of discipline. A parent who has control over every outcome is not acting lovingly. A friend who requires continual affirmation or reassurance is not free. A public servant who views reputation as the most important good cannot serve justly.

Therefore, freedom from compulsive judgement does not mean that we withdraw from our duties, but more accurately that we establish the foundation upon which we can act responsibly. The more we become devoid of our need for the world to affirm our private story, the more accurately we can see the needs of others, the harm done to a community and our own responsibilities.

For this reason, Epictetus’s teachings are still highly relevant today in organizations where there are high levels of risk for wrongdoing. Epictetus is not instructing us to tolerate injustice, abuse, and corruption. Instead, he is instructing us to understand what is actually happening, differentiate our feelings from the evidence, and select the appropriate response without becoming the same to that which we oppose.

The freedom audit

Epictetus’s philosophy is not complete when it is admired. It only becomes real when it interrupts a choice.

When a situation begins to dominate your mind, pause and write four lines.

1. Objectively, what happened (no exaggeration)

2. What story am I telling about the situation?

3. What is the difference between my own responsibility, authority and jurisdiction about this event, and who and what else is involved that is not mine to command?

4. What Action shall I take to maintain my integrity, even if the result is not what I want.

This exercise can be done within three minutes and, if used regularly, will have a major impact on the way we think, as well as keep our imagination from interfering with our ability to think clearly about our judgement.

Ultimately, we cannot achieve a permanent state of freedom from fears, pleasures, resentments and/or approvals through an understanding of what outside sources can offer. Rather, Epictetus describes the pursuit of freedom as a training process and he recommends that we develop this skill through practice. That includes the initial writing of the event, as well as reviewing, rehearsing and correcting.

Epictetus did not master freedom by controlling the world around him. He mastered it by refusing to let the world dictate the value of his own moral choices. The lesson is not that external freedom does not matter. On the contrary, it matters profoundly and we need to fight for it. The lesson is that without an inner freedom capable of examining appearances, no external condition will ever be enough to keep us from becoming servants of fear.

By Dr Ioannis Syrigos

References

Graver, Margaret. “Epictetus.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, substantive revision 2025. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epictetus/

Epictetus. Discourses, Book 1. Translated by George Long. Internet Classics Archive. https://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/discourses.1.one.html

Epictetus. Encheiridion. Translated by Elizabeth Carter. Internet Classics Archive. https://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.htmll

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

We have all gone through times where we need to take a major decision. And we know very well that it rarely arrives as a clean choice between one obviously good path and one obviously bad path. That would have been perfect, right?

Well, the reality is that the decision arrives as a mixture of incomplete information, competing obligations and imagined futures or traumatic past. Should you accept the position? Leave the partnership? Invest the money? Move your family? Confront the person? Commit to the project? And the list goes one …

If we watch our mind we will see that at first, the mind tries to help. Then it produces a picture of success. Then it produces a picture of disaster. And before long, we are no longer examining a decision. You are moving somewhere between fantasy and dread.

The optimistic version of the fantasy says: If I choose this, everything may finally fall into place.

The catastrophic one says: If I choose wrongly, everything may fall apart.

Neither though tells you what to do next, right?

Here come the Stoics. They developed a discipline for precisely this problem. Today it is often called negative visualisation, or premeditatio malorum. That is the deliberate rehearsal of difficulty before difficulty arrives.

We need to be careful here though. This does not mean you frighten yourself with every conceivable possible disaster. Not at all. It means looking directly at a plausible adverse outcome, removing the exaggeration surrounding it, and asking what preparation, response and standard of conduct remain within your power. Remember, you can only change what you can control.

If this practice is used correctly, it does not make you more fearful. It makes fear more specific. Because if we know the enemy then we can defeat it. Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer kind of thing…

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The answer to the question is YES, by his own standard, and he did it repeatedly.

But this is not a weakness in the story of Marcus Aurelius. It is the exact opposite, it is realistic and the reason his Meditations is still relevant today.

You see, the popular image of Marcus Aurelius is almost impossibly clean. Imagine that he was the philosopher-emperor, steady before war, illness, political pressure, betrayal, and loss. He was a man who had somehow mastered every impulse that troubles ordinary people. At least this is how he is portrayed in our minds. It is an attractive image, you have to admit. But … it is not the image we find in his own writing.

Meditations was not a polished philosophical book written to persuade an audience or make someone rich – as most of today’s books are. Meditations is a private collection of reminders, corrections, and exercises that Marcus practiced. He didn’t write Meditations to explain Stoicism from the summit of flawless wisdom. He was repeatedly bringing himself back to what he believed he ought to do, and this difference is essential.

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(Estimated reading time: 10 minutes)

Many times the fallout from our decisions do not come from a lack of information but from an inaccurate reading of what actually happened, that is early on in the decision-making process.

For example, we overinterpret a delay in response from someone as being disrespectful, or interpret a critique as an attack on our personality, or perceive any difficulties we face as proof that our future is over, or believe that someone else’s aggressive behaviours are an acceptable excuse to display angry behaviours of our own. And when we FINALLY come around to the fact of what has really occurred, we are no longer engaged in the decision process … we have already lost the battle.

Marcus Aurelius faced this issue regularly. In his writings, which we refer to as “Meditations,” Marcus did not present us with a well-defined philosophy of leadership or a theory of decision-making. Instead, he was writing notes to himself as a way of recollecting how to move beyond fear, resentment, arrogance, impatient thinking, and self-pity through identifying the elements that contributed to those thoughts. His writings help him return to the same fundamental question regarding the decision at hand: “What happened, really? What judgment did I add? What would be fair? What action remains with me?”

This kind of repeated exercise throughout the Meditations is extremely valuable today because it reveals an approach to managing your emotions as part of the process of making decisions. So, rather than providing us with some sort of “secret formula,” it reveals an internal strength of a disciplined way to comprehend the situation before emotional reaction takes over. What you will read in this book is a modern reconstruction of that discipline; it does not follow Marcus Aurelius’ order, but instead is a method for putting this series of irregular exercises into a more meaningful sequence, allowing for an organized framework to refer back to when you need to decide prior to giving way to your emotions.

First: separate the event from the story

Marcus always begins his approach with a “forensic investigation” of the situation before he begins formulating an action plan. He is interested to find out exactly what has happened and what evidence is available, rather than relying on people’s opinions of what they believe happened or were there when things occurred.

Let’s say in conflict situations, how do most people respond? They respond based on their perception of the intent of the action, the fear of the repercussions and how the event has reinforced their private narrative about themselves (their vulnerable ego).

For example, a terse email may be interpreted as terse or brusque; however, it could also represent contempt, undermining behaviour, the act of humiliating and/or creating fear/injury to the person receiving the message. In order to be able to make accurate interpretations about other people’s actions or communication, it is essential to gather and analyse evidence based on the facts available.

It is important to keep in mind that Marcus does not advocate that you should engage in “naivety,” he asks us not to let another person’s framing become our framing. He advocates that we should clear away all of the emotion that causes unnecessary confusion and certainty regarding what we think about the first impressions that were created.

When faced with a situation and attempting to determine how to respond appropriately, the first thing you need to do is to state in clear and simple terms the specifics of the event so that anyone who is not involved or has not been personally affected by it could clearly identify it – such as “the proposal was declined”; “there has been no response from the client” and “the other person in the meeting contradicted me.” The other person I trusted didn’t follow through on what they had told me they would do.”

By stating the event using simple language, you will enable yourself to see what is not present in your initial perception. Although you may still be upset and/or experiencing anxiety as a result of the event or you may be experiencing a loss of trust, you will no longer be interpreting the first impression of the event as a fact that will lead to you ultimately feeling powerless, vulnerable, foolish, or hopeless any longer as your experience will now be acknowledged as an interpretation that needs to be verified and tested.

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Second: return the decision to the governing faculty

The Stoic term for the ability to judge is the “ruling faculty.” This is why Marcus Aurelius kept coming back to this idea: There are so many things we can outsource our decision-making to, such asreputation, anxiety, habit, being with other people, or needing to get even.

Marcus Aurelius isn’t denying an injury. He isn’t saying to someone who was harmed, “It wasn’t a big deal.” What he’s trying to say is, in a very precise way, that the way that something happens externally (and this could include injuries, damage to property, damage to health, etc.) doesn’t determine the quality of your judgement or your next action. That is still your portion of decision-making ability.

In practical terms, your ruling faculty is the governing part of your life. You should ask yourself the following:

What decision am I about to make merely to escape discomfort?

Am I agreeing because I fear disapproval?

Am I attacking because I cannot bear embarrassment?

Am I postponing because a difficult conversation threatens the identity I prefer to preserve?

This is the private moment on which the protocol turns.

Third: measure the action by justice, not by relief

After reducing the initial reaction through deliberation, Marcus also examines this concept by taking a stronger test. A decision is not good merely because it is clever, advantageous, or emotionally satisfying. It must be compatible with justice and with the common good.

In Book 9, he compresses his standard into a single sentence:

Regardless of the method by which he puts his thought into practice, the order of events described in the three phases is important.

First, it is an opinion that is grounded in knowledge or an understanding of reality; second, it is a manner in which one chooses to direct their actions to benefit the society or others. Third, it includes a willingness to accept the consequences of what follows. I believe this is significant because it gives a basis to not only the person’s opinion but also to the person’s actions.

Marcus does not begin with acceptance because acceptance can be misused as a cover for avoidance. The Roman emperor’s question is not, “How can I remain personally comfortable?” It is, “What does this situation require from a person whose action affects others?”

This is why Stoicism is not indifference in the shallow sense. A Stoic may decline a dishonest advantage, correct a colleague, defend a boundary, refuse a crowd’s demand, or admit a mistake. These actions can be uncomfortable and may cost reputation or even fail. But they are still preferable to the easier action if they are more just.

When the options are unclear, do not ask only, “Which choice will work?” Ask, “Which choice can I defend without pretending I was powerless?” That question is less glamorous than a search for certainty, but it is far more useful. It moves the decision from image management to character.

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Fourth: make your judgement corrigible

Marcus was not advocating stubbornness. One of his most practical instructions is to keep two rules ready: act only on what reason recommends for human benefit, and be willing to change your opinion when someone shows you that you are wrong on grounds of justice or common advantage.

This is a formidable discipline because it denies the ego two common pleasures. The first is the pleasure of being right. The second is the pleasure of never having to revise oneself in public.

A private decision protocol therefore needs an opening for correction. Before acting, ask: What fact, perspective, or person would make me change my mind? If the honest answer is “nothing,” you are no longer examining a decision. You are defending an identity.

This does not mean that every opinion must remain permanently suspended. Decisions often have to be made before perfect information arrives. The point is to distinguish firmness from rigidity. You can act with conviction while remaining loyal to reality rather than to your first version of the story.

Marcus’s standard is instructive: revise the judgement when correction serves what is just or of common advantage. And make sure you do that not because a new position is more pleasant, more fashionable, or more likely to win praise. The protocol is not about becoming endlessly flexible.

Fifth: choose the next possible act

Though Stoicism’s practical application comes through the final discipline, it really cements the whole idea that obstacles of any nature will not keep one from doing the “right, sober and considerate” thing.” Even though an obstacle may block the ability of a person to complete one option on their journey, there are many other paths which can allow effort to be redirected toward them. Therefore, an additional opportunity for action is revealed by the fact that a person has stopped wasting all available mental energy, time, etc., attempting to fight with the reality of the obstacle being present.

This is a decisive difference. Passive resignation says:

“There is nothing I can do.”

Stoic practice says:

“This particular route is closed. What duty, option, or truthful action remains?”’

Moreover, the next possible act, when viewed from the perspective of Stoic practice, may be considered by many to be “small.”

For example, you may not have the ability to fix the whole relationship but you can take that phone call that you have dreaded making.

You may not have the ability to change a government or institution, but you can accurately document facts.

You may not have control over a market, but you do have the ability to reduce one unnecessary exposure.

You may not have the ability to force someone else to be fair, but you do have the ability to state the boundary and preserve evidence and not respond to injustice by committing further injustice.

Marcus Aurelius adds another uncomfortable thought:

This statement helps eliminate the fantasy that tomorrow will make better choices due to improved moods, lower stakes or some greater level of preparedness of the Self. The reality is in many decisions, the next responsible act that can be taken is there and clearly visible. The “reason” this next act is delayed is NOT a result of confusion; rather, it is due to the reluctance of the individual.

The protocol under pressure

Imagine that a colleague has publicly taken credit for work you completed. What would your initial reaction be? Probably anger, humiliation, a desire to expose them in return.

So, begin with the event. The colleague presented the work without acknowledging your contribution. That is the fact. “They are trying to destroy my career” may be true, but it is not yet established. “Everyone now thinks I am irrelevant” is a prediction, not evidence.

Return to the governing faculty. The urge to retaliate may be understandable, but what action are you about to take merely to relieve anger? A public accusation may be justified in some circumstances; it may also convert a correct grievance into a spectacle. The question is not whether you feel anger. The question is whether anger should draft the message.

Measure the action by justice. What is fair to you, to the colleague, to the team, and to the truth of the work? Perhaps the next act is a calm request to correct the record. Perhaps it is a factual conversation with a manager. Perhaps it is documentation. The answer depends on the situation, but the standard is steady: act in a way that could be defended as fair even if nobody applauds it.

Keep the judgement corrigible. Are you missing information? Was the presentation organised by someone else? Is there an interpretation that reduces your certainty without excusing the omission? Find out before turning an affront into a verdict.

Then act. Do not call delay “wisdom” if the actual task is simply difficult. The Stoic decision is not complete when you understand it. It is complete when the next appropriate act has been done.

Not a system for becoming invulnerable

Capturing Marcus Aurelius’ words in a mechanised manner to derive a perfect state of constant serenity is a mistake. He reminds us through his writing of those things which he needed to be reminded about, this requires repetition. Therefore, when he discusses matters such as death, reputation, anger, duty, and uncertainly, it is not because he has solved them; rather, it is because we can find that someone may lose clarity multiple times during the day due to any number of reasons.

The foundation of private discipline of Marcus Aurelius does not produce an invulnerable mind. Instead, it produces an ability to recover from all the negative experiences of life i.e. insults, uncertainty, grief, desire, fear, etc. You will still feel those things but you will be able to identify when you allow your emotions to control your judgment instead of being based on rational or logical evidence. You can return to the evidence, return to the standard, accept the correction from yourself, and take the next action based on your understanding of what a just action is.

This is what Marcus Aurelius has left for us. It is not a way to win every decision you need to make but a way to create a discipline around your decision-making so that you do not allow the temporary feelings of the moment to steal your ability to create a just decision.

By Dr Ioannis Syrigos

References

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

Marcus Aurelius. Meditations, Books 4, 8, and 9. Translated by George Long. Internet Classics Archive. https://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.4.four.html; https://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.8.eight.html; https://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.9.nine.html

I think you will agree with me that all work environments contain some … people … that create difficulties. They may be the manager who is at the top of the food chain and continues to push blame to others when projects are behind, or the passive-aggressive colleague who only communicates by way of back-door, subliminal methods via indirect comments and CC’d email. These individuals, no matter how talented, they drain a significant amount of our productivity and energy. That is that we relive their comments in our minds on our way to work, write long and angry drafts of emails to respond to them but never actually send or deliver them, and allow the unprofessionalism of these individuals to take over our state of mind.

Many of the great philosophers in antiquity actively worked to eliminate this pattern of frustration and lack of productivity from our day-to-day lives. With regards to how we look at our difficult colleague, we generally view our feelings of anger toward them to be justified as a result of their poor actions. However, the Stoics viewed this whole process in a completely distinct manner.

In his “Enchiridion”, Epictetus very directly states how wrong this mindset is. He states:

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Many people will say that the key teaching behind Stoicism is to be emotionless, unmoved, or cold towards others.

That’s not true. Let’s examine why.

In reality Stoicism teaches us to examine our responses to events in our lives in relation to what happened to us externally (i.e., events beyond our control) and what we choose to perceive about those events internally (i.e., our analysis of what happened).

Unfortunately, the way many have written about Stoicism may cause some confusion, since they have consistently told us not to let any negative feelings, such as anger, hatred, fear, etc., dictate our actions or reactions toward ourselves and others. This may lead a reader to think that the Stoic view is to suppress all emotions, appear unemotional, and ignore everything around us as if nothing mattered at all. This is not the true tenet of Stoicism. Suppression means denying an emotion that is already present. Stoic practice begins earlier, it asks us to inspect the judgment that is turning an initial impression into an overwhelming emotion.

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(Estimated Reading time: 6 minutes)

Stoicism has become quite an influential and popular form of moral philosophy in our society today. Modern Stoics have found platforms such as Substack to be conducive for developing Stoic ideals and continuing to share their philosophical ideas with others.

But, yes there is a but, as popularised today, Stoicism is commonly expressed in the way of showing no feelings, not wanting anything, and enduring whatever will happen and calling it strength.

The reason this appeal is so easy to accept is because this set of beliefs makes Stoicism look so efficient and, therefore, makes sense.

Furthermore, this perception of Stoicism turns one of the most challenging moral philosophies from antiquity into a hiding place from feeling.

With the greatest respect to the modern Stoics, this is not what Stoicism is designed to accomplish.

Stoicism originated in the early days of Hellenistic culture, specifically around the start of the 3rd century BCE by a Zeno of Citium.

Stoicism articulates a cohesive view of logic, nature, and philosophy regarding how a rational being should live in a world they cannot control. The Stoic method does not involve retreating from the reality, instead it recommends disciplined involvement in society and living life according to sound judgement of oneself.

Stoics encourage humanity to view the world as it truly exists, to carefully fashion sound judgement, and to fulfil one’s responsibilities without compromising one’s character out of fear, anger, status, or some unattainable goal. The Stoics suggest that all of the aforementioned behaviours will exist with ease and be viewed by many as complete perfection from an external perspective.

A philosophy of virtue and not a productivity technique

For ancient Stoics, the ultimate goal of human life was Eudaimonia, a state of happiness attained through a life of virtue. In their view, only virtue (as evidenced by the living of practical wisdom, Justice, Courage, and Self-Control) has strict moral value and therefore is the only true Good. I agree wholeheartedly with this view. Therefore, although Health, Wealth, Reputation, Office, Physical Safety, and even Death do have relevance/meaning, they are all viewed as Indifferent - i.e. they do not in and of themselves determine the Moral Goodness or Badness of an individual, however, there are some Indifferent things that can be reasonably preferred and responsibly chosen.

The confusion often arises from misunderstanding the term Indifferent; it does not equate with “I don’t care.” It means that “I will not compromise My Judgement, Justice, Integrity, etc., to acquire it”. Clearly, a Stoic can have a preference for Health versus Illness or Safety and Security versus risk of Danger, Professional Success versus Professional Failure. The determining factor in these situations will always be whether the way in which someone pursues a particular Indifferent will corrupt them. Isn’t this dilemma prevalent in today’s society?

Modern society’s claim that “nothing matters” misrepresents the Stoics. For the Stoics, every external outcome has value, but Virtue is the sole measure of an Individual’s Moral Value and Worthiness.

Therefore, Practically speaking, We should seek after worthy endeavours without allowing our character to be dependent upon the outcome of winning. Society insists that We “control Every Aspect” of what We do; however, Society as a whole ignores the stoic instruction to only focus Upon the Quality of Our Judgement/Choice/Action. Outcomes are not fully within Our Control; therefore, We must Prepare Extensively, Act Decisively, and Release the Need for Certainty.

In the same way that the Stoic Instruction “Feel Nothing” is Distorted, the Stoic challenge is to Nurture a Rational Appropriate Emotion instead of Experiencing Emotional Emptiness.

Practically speaking, this means that We should Notice a Feeling and then Reflect on the Story that is Associated with the Feeling and then “Act out of the Feeling”, rather than Allowing Myself to be Ruled by the Feeling.

To Suggest that a Stoic is required to “Be Silent in Suffering”, Continually Ignores the Stoic Belief in Human Duty, to One Another, and that We are All Part of a Larger Moral Community.

Therefore, the Stoic also Responds to the World By:

Speaking honestly about what you are Seeing;

Helping where you can; and

Accepting Responsibility for the next “right action” that you Intend to take.

The agency distinction is not permission to be passive

The opening of Enchiridion is a key thought often cited and distorted by some of what is known today as “modern Stoicism”. Epictetus writes in Elizabeth Carter’s classic translation:

The question you want to ask yourself is NOT, “Can I make happen the outcome I want,” rather you want to know, “What is it that I am responsible for here?”

You have NO control over whether or not your proposal gets accepted by your future employer.

You DO have control of what you do, how you prepare, how clearly you articulate your case, and how you take the decision professionally, without self-lies or spite.

You do NOT have control over the weather, economy, someone’s esteem, or historical events.

You DO have control over how you take care of your job, the truth you tell, the help you provide and what you do next.

This is the distinction of agency. It changes our efforts from destructive attempts to control the external world and redirects our efforts to the part of the situation for which we can be morally accountable.

The Stoic task is not to master the storm, but to meet it with right judgement and responsible action.

Stoicism is not emotional suppression

The Stoics did not claim to deny that emotional states like fear and sadness and anger and attraction exist, rather they made the much bolder assertion that the overwhelming emotions that we feel include involvements of judgement - an interpretation of an event and its means.

To put it more plainly Epictetus said:

This is not, therefore, a statement directing one to disregard one’s suffering or to place blame on oneself or others for their suffering. It is an invitation to discover what creates an oppressive experience of an event, the judgement that causes it.

The Stoics did not hope to make themselves “less human,” but to free themselves from distorted perceptions about that which is human. The scholarly literature concerning Stoic psychological states, differentiates between the irrational passions of man and the “good feelings” of virtuous people, which constitute rational joy and appropriate caution.

In practice, it is important to distinguish between the two. The statement “I must not feel fear” simply states that one must suppress one’s emotional experience, whereas Stoic training states that one must “ask oneself what is the judgement I am making of what is at risk? Is that judgement true? What does it require to be courageous right now?” One merely conceals one’s reaction to an event; while the other converts one’s emotional experience of an event into the next steps of inquiry and action.

A discipline of duty in public life

Stoicism is not a form of isolationism. The Stoics viewed all people as members of a single moral community, and Justice was central to their understanding of virtue. Marcus Aurelius never intended his writings to be a “feel good” philosophy. He wrote in the context of being Emperor of Rome.

In Book 5 of the Meditations, he calls himself out for wanting to stay in bed instead of getting back to work. He asks himself:

That is an intentionally provocative statement.

So you see that Stoic calmness is not the tranquillity of someone who chooses not to engage! It is the confidence and stability to act in times of extreme difficulty, against a hostile audience and with uncertain results.

A Stoic does not equate acceptance of a situation with agreement.

A Stoic can accept what has happened while working diligently to remedy its effects or oppose an injustice; defend someone else; or tell someone the truth that is hard to hear.

The first practical test

The best question one can ask to improve oneself through Stoicism isn’t “how can I improve my stoicism?”; however, it’s “what aspect of this situation calls for my most rational thoughts and my most responsible actions?”

Beginning with a description of the issue and removing any drama associated with predictions or insults, will allow you to see the issue more clearly.

First, determine what outcome that is beyond your control. Then, ascertain what options remain available to you, including having discussions, gathering evidence, setting boundaries, apologizing (crucial to take responsibility and overcome your ego), or completing your overdue tasks.

Also evaluate the actions taken against one’s character, not whether they are comfortable. Are the actions honest, fair, and show courage without being rash?

This way of thinking is closer to Stoicism than any quotation posted over a marble bust. It is not passive and it clearly is not numb. But, also, it is not easy. It requires a daily practice of meeting the world AS IT IS, while refusing to abandon the part of oneself that must choose how to meet it.

By Dr Ioannis Syrigos

Anxiety is prevalent and we cannot deny that. Almost every aspect of our life today has an aspect of anxiety, whether it comes from technology or something else. Because we are constantly “on call” through text, email and social media, we are unable to concentrate fully on one task. I am sure you have noticed that. Our ability to concentrate is constantly fractured. Why? Because we feel obligated to respond to crises in distant locations, maintain our profile on social media, and respond to emails at all times.

The problem is that this constant stimulation from multiple news sources has created a feeling of helplessness; the more we consume, the less in control we are over our mind. While feeling overwhelmed is nothing new, it has been felt for two thousand years. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus, who was a slave and eventually became successful, knew all about feeling overwhelmed by outside forces. He believed that if we attach our well-being to things that are not in our control, we will suffer in many different ways.

When we allow a news alert to disrupt our morning or allow an email to cause us to change our mood, we are consciously choosing to give away our power to that situation. And we do not want that…

The Stoics were not hermits, they were active members of their community, including senators, emperors and other influential people. They were concerned with their internal state of being at all times BUT they created a clear distinction between what was in their control and what was outside of it.

So, if we try to apply Epictetus’s concept of control to today’s world of information overload, it would mean that we need to focus less on trying to control what we see and hear, and more on how to effectively regulate how we see and hear it. We cannot control the news cycle, the ever-present corporate culture, or the way algorithms are designed to capture our attention; however, we do have control over where we are physically located, the way we fit our devices into our daily lives and the choices we make in our immediate vicinity.

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Thirty weeks have passed and we have gone back in time across five thousand years of human history. From sitting around the campfire with American Indian shamans, to walking through the marble columns of Aristotle’s Lyceum, we have explored our past by reading the Secret Texts of the Gnostics, chanting the sonic mathematics of the Vedic Rishis, and observing the Alchemist’s search for gold hidden in the darkness of the human psyche. We have walked along Carl Jung’s path into the Collective Unconscious, Rumi’s path of Divine Love’s annihilation, and the Tibetan Master’s pathway into the Terrifying, Luminous Void between Death and Rebirth.

Thirty weeks. Thirty different maps of Reality drawn by thirty different cultures and languages separated by oceans and centuries.

When you put those thirty maps on top of each other, hold them up to the light, all the borders disappear, languages begin to blend, the conflicting dogmas fade away, leaving you with a singular glowing line, a golden thread.

One conclusion appeared with great clarity after 30 weeks of Ancient Wisdom:

The Three Universal Principles

The three universal principles that connect Pythagoras, Buddha, Meister Eckhart, and Lao Tzu share a common thread.

1. Consciousness before matter (awareness is more important than the physical realm).

2. The self is a construct (the ego is an illusion).

3. Liberating oneself involves recognizing existing truths previously unknown.

Consciousness Is Primary:

Most modern materialists believe that physical matter is the most basic reality and that consciousness is merely an outgrowth of the brain. In contrast, ancient wisdom traditions uniformly believe that consciousness has always existed, and that everything else, physical matter included, exists because of, or in relationship to, consciousness. The ancient belief was that through awareness, all things would eventually manifest in space and time. Therefore, consciousness is the basis upon which the physical world is formed. You don’t possess consciousness; you are consciousness.

The Self Is a Construct:

Who do you think you are? If you take away your name, your history, your job, your traumatic experiences, and your beliefs, what is left?

To the Buddha, the self was an illusion; to Rumi, it was necessary to dissolve the self; to Carl Jung, our false selves were merely a facade; and to the Stoics, our true ruling center was different from the judgments of our ego.

All traditions throughout history have agreed: the voice inside your head saying “I’m angry, I’m afraid, I’m separate” does not represent your true self; it represents your ego; it requires survival, and it is the story that you mistake for a prison cell.

Liberation Is Recognition:

The self being a construct, and therefore consciousness is foundational, the path to liberation does not involve acquiring something new. You have to become “better,” “purer,” or “more spiritual.” You must realize who and what you already are. Through direct experience, the Gnostics achieved knowledge (gnosis) as opposed to belief; the Zen Masters sought sudden enlightenment (satori); the Alchemy masters sought to find the philosopher’s stone, which they always asserted was already within the seeker. Awakening is not something done; it’s simply taking away that which was never there.

The Problem With Knowing

If the golden thread is so clear to see, why do we continue to feel anxious, distracted, and disconnected?

Because simply “knowing” how to use the map of your life does not equal “actually walking along” that route or living that life.

For example, you may have read thirty different articles explaining the false nature of the ego; however, if someone makes a derogatory statement about you in a meeting, your ego will respond in a very reactive manner.

You may have an intellectual understanding of Stoic Philosophy; yet, even if you do know that you cannot control most outside forces, your body will still produce an excess of cortisol during economic stress.

You may agree with the teachings of the Tibetan Book of the Dead (”the things we perceive as demons are simply projections of our mind”); however, when you wake up at three o’clock in the morning, you will still experience them as very ‘real.’

The ancient schools were not places where people simply gathered together to read and discuss books; they were experimental laboratories.

For example, in order to be considered “a disciple” of Pythagorus, a student was required to spend years practicing in silence.

The ancient Stoics performed daily exercises, similar to the modern day cognitive-behavioral techniques.

The Buddhist monks had literally meditated until their knees bled!

They had a complete understanding both from the standpoint of ‘philosophy’ as well as from experience that “knowledge” without action equals nothing more than entertainment.

We have gathered the knowledge to draw our maps of the territories we plan to explore, and we have completed our first season of Ancient Wisdom; however, our journeys are going to continue beyond where we have finished this season.

The Doors Are Open: Welcome to the Ancient Origins Academy

For months, I’ve been inundated with questions from people asking, “How do I use this information?” and “What can I do with all of this knowledge to increase my effectiveness as a decision-maker?” This is something that I’ve put a lot of thought into, and today, I’m happy to announce … the answer!

The Ancient Origins Academy is now open for registration.

Unlike other online courses that just provide video resources that you can view at any time without any interaction from you (like 90% of the courses available online today), the Academy is an interactive, live lab where ancient philosophy meets modern-day lifestyle practices and principles.

The Ancient Wisdom for the Modern World program is a 6-week live cohort-based program through which I help you transform the “Golden Thread” of ancient wisdom into a “practical operating system” that you can implement into your daily life.

The 6-Week Curriculum

We have stripped away the academic fluff and distilled the wisdom into an Applied Philosophy Framework. Across six live, interactive modules, we will cover:

• Module 1: Situation Solver - Audit your current life stressors in 10 minutes using 5 ancient diagnostic questions.

• Module 2: Anti-Overthinking - A daily 10-minute action protocol to ground yourself and halt mental spiraling.

• Module 3: Misuse Guardrails - The Philosophy Misuse Checklist to diagnose emotional suppression and avoidance.

• Module 4: Modern Conflict - A swipe file of modern conversational scripts grounded in classical rhetoric and Stoic calm.

• Module 5: Gnostic Discernment - A 3-step cognitive checklist to evaluate modern information sources and claims.

• Module 6: AI & Modern Ethics - An ethical framework for navigating the unprecedented moral dilemmas of the digital age.

What It Means to Be a Founding Member

Because this is the inaugural cohort, we are offering a Founding Member tier. For a one-time payment of $97, Founding Members receive:

• 6 Live Interactive Sessions with Dr. Ioannis Syrigos.

• Lifetime Access to all session recordings.

• Executive Action Notes - highly condensed, structured summaries provided after every session (no fluff, just the situation-to-principle maps, prompt scripts, and behavioral experiments).

• 1-Year Access to our Custom AI Research Companion Tool.

• Private Community Access to connect with fellow seekers.

This is a live cohort & we will be working through real-world scenarios, answering questions, and building custom workflows together. (And if you miss a live session – even if you shouldn’t, the recordings and Executive Action Notes are uploaded within 24 hours, so you will never fall behind).

The Invitation

There were a number of ways that ancient mystery schools denied entry to new seekers; Some had no doors through which to pass.

You were an outsider, examining a building externally for thirty weeks, learning about the architecture, the carvings and the messages carved upon the walls from inside. You have studied this building and the people who constructed it for thirty weeks. You are now able to enter.

Click Here to Become a Founding Member of the Ancient Origins Academy

I will see you inside.

By Dr Ioannis Syrigos

In a secluded monastery high in the Himalayas, lit only by the weak flicker of butter lamps, a monk sits next to the body of a recently deceased man, and whispers in his ear. The monk does not give a eulogy; nor does he provide consolation to the man’s grieving family. Instead, he provides instructions to the dead man that are detailed and immediate in nature.

“Noble One,” the monk advises, “It is the moment for you to pursue the Path. You are on the verge of death. You previously have met the Clear Light through your Teacher; and now you will experience this Light in Reality.”

For more than one thousand years, Tibetan Buddhists have used this text, commonly referred to as The Tibetan Book of the Dead in Western cultures, to help guide a person’s consciousness through the trip of death, with its uncertainty and wonder. Yet calling this text the Book of Death is incredibly misleading.

This text is a profoundly comprehensive guide concerning the human mind in the broadest sense, and while the text provides urgent guidance to the deceased, it is not primarily intended for the dead. Instead, it provides guidance and direction to the living.

The Treasure of the Second Buddha

Buddhist Handmade Thangka of Padmasambhava, Guru, Hand Painted , The lotus-born master, wisdom beyond time (Source: Handmade Handicraft)

Bardo is translated into Liberation Through Hearing in the Intermediate State. In Tibetan history it is said to have been written in the eighth century C.E by Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche), a great tantric master who brought Buddhism to Tibet. Padmasambhava and his consort, Yeshe Tsogyal, recognized that people were not yet ready to understand this deep psychological understanding, so they buried it as a terma (treasure) buried either physically in the earth or mentally in the minds of people. Six hundred years later, Bardo was rediscovered by the mystic Karma Lingpa.

When Bardo was first brought to the West in 1927, it created a tremendous stir since it was translated by Walter Evans-Wentz. Carl Jung, whose work we looked at last week, was so affected by this that he wrote a psychological commentary for a later edition of Bardo. Jung understood that the terrifying demons and glowing gods in the text are not real entities waiting for you after death, but rather archetypes that represent projections from the depths of the human mind.

The Six Bardos: The Spaces In-Between

In Tibetan Buddhism, the word bardo means “intermediate state” or “gap.” We tend to think of life and death as two distinct, solid things. But the Bardo Thodol teaches that existence is a continuous series of transitions.

The text outlines six specific bardos. Only three of them occur after death; the other three are happening to you right now.

1. The Bardo of Living

The intermediate state of living exists between physical birth to death, providing a sense of permanence yet, according to Tibetan teachings, it is equally a dream. Every moment we experience, when we are awake in life, is considered an intermediate state of existence; transitioning from the past moment to the future moment.

2. The Bardo of Dreams

When individuals enter sleep, they then experience an intermediate state through dreams. During our dream periods, our minds create an entire world around us consisting of people and monsters that we perceive as reality until we wake up. The Tibetan practice of “Dream Yoga” allows individuals to develop the ability to recognize that this world of dreams is not real, to prevent them from experiencing the illusions created by death.

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3. The Bardo of Meditation

The intermediate state of meditation is characterized by a state of deep concentration resulting from meditation. In this state, we learn how to quiet the noise from our minds and rest in the state of pure awareness, which prepares us for the ultimate dissolution of the ego.

4. The Bardo of the Moment of Death

During the death process, the individual’s physical body is gradually dismantled. The elements of the body, represented as earth, water, fire and air, all dissolve into space, and, ultimately, at the final moment of death, the ego dissolves and is replaced by the Clear Light of the Dharmata. The Clear Light of the Dharmata represents the unlimited luminosity of true self. For those who recognize the Clear Light without experiencing fear, instant liberation is achieved.

5. The Bardo of Reality

If an individual does not recognize the Clear Light of the Dharmata, which is usually caused by fear created by the ego, then the individual experiences the Intermediate State of Reality for a period of 49 days, during which time they are bombarded with visions. Initially, there will be encounters with 42 Peaceful Deities, characterized by brilliance. This is followed by 58 Wrathful Deities who create terror and demonic fear in the mind of the deceased. The Tibetan teachings again warn individuals not to fear these beings because they are projections created by the deceased’s own mind.

6. The Bardo of Rebirth

For those who still do not recognize their own true nature and fall victim to the winds of karma, their consciousness will be drawn to the darkness of the seductive lights of the six realms of samsara in pursuit of finding a physical body so that escape can occur from the intense nature of the intermediate state.

The Ultimate Lesson: Recognition

The Bardo Thodol serves as an excellent example of the bridge between many of the traditions that we have looked at throughout this series. It parallels the alchemical transformation of the soul, the shamanic journey to the underworld, the Gnostic ascent into heavenly realms, and the Jungian confrontation with the Shadow.

However, its essential message is the most uncomplicated: All that you experience, be it in your life, your dreams, or after your death, is a reflection of your own mind.

When the terrifying and wrathful deities appear in the Bardo, they are just a projection of the anger, guilt, and fear that you have been keeping within yourself. When the peaceful deities appear, they represent your own natural compassion and wisdom. If you run away from the demons, they will pursue you. But if you look at them as manifestations of your own mind, they will be transformed into the Clear Light of your own awareness.

This is why the Bardo Thodol is a guide for living. You don’t have to wait until after you die to practice the teachings of the Bardo Thodol. Every time you feel a feeling of anger, jealousy, or anxiety, you are living in the Bardo. You have a choice. You can be carried away by that emotion and think it has a solid reality, or you can see that emotion for what it is: a temporary projection of your own mind. When you know that, then you can stay in the Clear Light of your own awareness.

The Journey Culminates

For 29 weeks, we have traveled across time and geography, exploring the greatest spiritual traditions of human history. We have sat with Hermeticists in Egypt, shamans in Siberia, Kabbalists in Spain, and Zen masters in Japan.

We have discovered that despite their different languages and symbols, they were all pointing to the exact same truth: the divine is not outside of you. It is within you.

Next week, we reach the Season 1 Finale of Ancient Wisdom. We will synthesize everything we have learned into a single, unified framework.

And for those who are ready to stop reading about these traditions and start living them, I will be making a major announcement. The Ancient Origins Academy is finally opening its doors.

The bardo of reading is ending. The bardo of practice is about to begin.

By Dr Ioannis Syrigos

Recommended Reading

The Tibetan Book of the Dead translated by Gyurme Dorje

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche

Nestled quietly in the small Swiss hamlet of Bollingen, sits a hand-crafted stone tower overlooking beautiful Lake Zurich. Inside the tower near the warmth of the fire, along with many alchemical texts, mandalas, and ancient texts, is a wise old gentleman with a snow-white mustache and intelligent piercing blue eyes. He is not a magician from medieval times nor a mystic practitioner of antiquity; he also happens to be one of the most important scientists of last century.

This gentleman has held on to a very big secret for many years - his secret journal bound in red leather with many detailed and beautiful drawings of a dark, terrifying and beautiful journey through the different layers of his mind. In this dark and terrible place within him, he did not discover the repressed sexual desires of his mentor Sigmund Freud, but instead he unearthed the gods, demons, wise elders and universal symbols that haunt humankind from the beginning of time.

The ancient wisdom systems studied throughout the last 27 weeks: the Hermeticists in Egypt, Shamans in Siberia, Kabbalists, Tantrics, etc. are more than just primitive superstitions; they form the road map for understanding the human Psyche.

His name was Carl Gustav Jung, and he proved that the divine is not just out there in the cosmos. It is inside of us.

Who Was Carl Jung?

Carl Gustav Jung (Source: Wikipedia)

Carl Gustav Jung was born in 1875 in Kesswil, Switzerland. He was an analyst, psychiatrist, and was the founder of what has become known as Analytical Psychology. He began his professional career by working at the Burghölzli Hospital for the Mentally Ill in Zurich, Switzerland, where he quickly developed into one of the most creative and talented minds of his time.

During this time, Jung began to receive recognition from others in the field, including the founder of Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. Freud believed that Jung would become his intellectual successor, and that he would take the new science of Psychoanalysis into the future. This relationship, however, did not last forever. Jung could not accept the insistence of Freud that all unconscious drives were sexual. Jung believed that there was something deeper than sexuality, there was a spiritual and collective subconscious that permeated human consciousness.

In 1913, Jung and Freud had a dramatic split that sent Jung into a personal crisis of epic proportions. He underwent what he termed a Confrontation with The Unconscious, where he forced himself into a trance-like state and brought forth images and ideas that were later compiled into his famous Red Book. Through this painful and transformative experience, Jung developed a new way of thinking and created a model that connected Ancient Mysticism and Modern Psychology.

The Architecture of the Soul

Jung’s genius lay in recognizing that the human mind is not a blank slate, nor is it only a repository for personal memories and traumas. He proposed a radically different architecture of the psyche, one that not surprisingly echoes the teachings of the ancients.

1. The Collective Unconscious

Underneath our personal unconscious lies our deeper layer; namely, the collective unconscious. This is a psychic layer that has been built up by generations of man and is therefore considered to be a form of psychic inheritance from our ancestors, and is believed to be the collective psyche of the human race. Just like our bodies inherit our physical traits from our parents, the universal patterns of thought and feeling have been passed down through generations. This gives us insights into why there are so many common myths, symbols and religious motifs found in the cultures of all the nations of the world. These symbols are called archetypes and are expressed through the collective unconsciousness.

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2. The Archetypes

The collective unconscious expresses itself through archetypes, which are universal images or themes that occur repeatedly. These archetypes are not memories but rather tendencies for humans to experience the same events in a similar fashion. Here are some examples of key archetypes:

The Shadow: This archetype includes the darker aspects of our personalities that we do not acknowledge.

The Anima/Animus: The unconscious feminine side of the man and the unconscious masculine side of the woman.

The Hero: The drive to overcome, kill the dragon and bring about transformation.

The Self: This is the archetype that represents “wholeness.” It is the merger of the conscious mind with the unconscious mind.

3. Individuation

According to the theory of Carl Jung, achieving individuation is the primary purpose of humanity and that the process of individuation, in itself, is an ongoing effort to combine the conscious and unconscious aspects of our mind into one complete unit (i.e. the full realisation of who we are).

Individuation involves becoming aware of our unconscious thoughts, addressing our ‘shadow-self’, and unifying our ego with our ‘higher self’. Jung believed that individuation was the same as the modern day alchemist attempting to transmute (transform) base metals into precious metals or the mystical seeker seeking spiritual awakening (enlightenment).

Practical Applications: Navigating Your Inner World

Jung left society with not only theories, but practical exercises through which to explore the shadow realm within us.

1. Shadow Work

You must go through the darkness before you reach the light. Shadow Work is the practice of finding, accepting, and assimilating all of the things you refuse to acknowledge about yourself. This includes all of your anger, self-interest, hidden desires, etc. Whenever you project your shadow onto another, you create conflict with them. By absorbing and integrating your shadow; you reclaim your lost energy and become complete. A good way to identify your shadow is to consider what kind of people irritate You the most. The characteristics you find irritating can often be traced back to your own inner workings.

2. Active Imagination

Active Imagination is a method of actively engaging in the unconscious instead of passively observing it. The images, figures, and emotions rising in your mind can all be engaged directly. You can interact with any enlightened inner figure, as well as face down a scary monster. You can work with these unconscious images to form structures and negotiate with them through conversation, or even seeking their wisdom.

3. Dream Analysis

For Jung, dream content was not random electrical impulses nor the product of an individual’s mind; they are significant messages from the collective unconscious. Dreams have symbolic meanings and can provide insight, guidance, and warning about your conscious or waking life. Keeping a dream journal and identifying reoccurring themes or mythic motifs are ways of interpreting what your dreams are communicating to you about your process of individuation.

The Bridge to the Finale

Carl Jung offers a foundational connection between our study of classical sources of wisdom, like Hermeticism, Buddhism, Kabbalah and Jungian Psychology, and the modern scientific worldview. Through his work, he has shown that the alchemical, Gnostic, and shamanistic traditions speak not only about concrete external phenomena, but they document the transformative, internal evolution of the human psyche.

In our Season 1 Finale of Ancient Wisdoms next week, we will review and bring together all that we have learned over the past 28 weeks, including the interconnections of the Hermetic, Buddhist, Kabbalistic and Jungian traditions in order to arrive at a common understanding of the spiritual journey of humanity.

Next week I will also present to you my special gift for those of you willing to go beyond just reading and now actually begin to practise these traditions. The journey is just beginning!

By Dr Ioannis Syrigos

Recommended Reading

Memories, Dreams, Reflections by C.G. Jung

Man and His Symbols by C.G. Jung

Are you ready to take the next step on your journey? The Ancient Origins Academy is opening its doors soon. Prepare to transform ancient wisdom into lived experience.