Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Of course you want the promotion. The salary would definitely help (especially today), the responsibility is of interest to you, and you have worked hard enough to make a serious application, right?
Then the opportunity begins to occupy more than your working day. If someone praises you, it feels like a threat, then you may consider taking credit that belongs to a colleague, and slowly the question quietly changes from “Would this be worth pursuing?” to “What would it say about me if I did not get it?”.
The Stoics had a framework for this change, a framework that allows ambition, but refuses to let an external result decide the value of the person pursuing it.
They called certain things preferred indifferents. The phrase sounds contradictory but there is a practical distinction:
Seek what has real value, without treating possession of it as proof that you are living well.
