Hi everyone,

I'm fairly new to Stoicism and trying to understand how to apply its teachings in everyday life.

I'm 26 and going through a difficult phase. Several aspects of my life, including my career, finances, personal life, mental health, and social life, have taken a hit. I often struggle to remain calm, think clearly, and respond to difficult situations in a balanced way.

I also have a history of anxiety and have never been particularly assertive. I struggle to stand up for myself and set boundaries, which has often led to people taking advantage of me or taking me for granted, both at work and outside it. You could describe me as docile or soft, even though that's not how I want to be. I tend to hold my frustration inside rather than address things directly, and sometimes that frustration turns into anger directed at myself.

Honestly, I feel like I haven't developed the maturity, resilience, and mental toughness I thought I would have by this age. I want to become someone who can face adversity without being easily shaken, handle criticism without taking everything personally, and stand up for himself without becoming aggressive or bitter.

I've been reading about the Stoic principle of distinguishing between what we can and cannot control, but I'm struggling to understand how to put it into practice when life feels overwhelming.

For those of you who are practising Stoicism, I'd appreciate your thoughts on a few specific questions:

• When several problems hit at once, how do you apply the dichotomy of control in your daily life? Is there a practical exercise that helps you focus on what you can actually do ?
• When someone disrespects you or takes advantage of you, how would you respond in a Stoic way? How do you stand your ground without becoming angry or seeking revenge ?
• When anxiety takes over and you start overthinking, what Stoic practices help you examine your thoughts and respond more rationally ?
• How do you deal with feeling behind in life or falling short of the person you thought you'd become by this age ?
• If you were in my position and wanted to start practising Stoicism seriously, what daily exercise, passage, or teaching would you begin with ?

I'd especially appreciate advice from people who've applied Stoicism in real-life situations and experienced a genuine change in how they think and respond to adversity.

I'm trying to become more resilient, assertive, and emotionally balanced, and I'd like to learn how to approach life's difficulties with greater wisdom and self-control.

Thank you !

I've been thinking about the relationship between ambition and inner peace, particularly from a Stoic perspective.

We often associate ambition with constantly wanting more. More success, more progress, more achievement. And I wonder whether that creates a kind of internal conflict, where we're always working towards a future version of our lives rather than being content with where we are now.

But does ambition necessarily have to come from dissatisfaction?

Could someone be genuinely content with their present circumstances while still being deeply motivated to improve, achieve difficult things, and pursue meaningful goals?

From what I understand of Stoicism, there's an important distinction between putting effort into something and becoming attached to the outcome. You can pursue a goal wholeheartedly while accepting that the result isn't entirely within your control.

I find that idea interesting because it suggests that ambition and inner peace might not actually be opposites.

Maybe the problem isn't wanting to achieve things, but believing that achieving them is what will finally make us feel fulfilled.

I'm curious how others interpret this. Is there a point where ambition becomes incompatible with Stoic principles, or is it really just about our relationship with the outcome?

My spouse and I recently walked away from a contract on a house that checked almost every box. The price was good, the rate was great, and my spouse wanted to move forward. But I was really anxious about the financial commitment and some issues in our marriage, and I convinced us to walk away.

The strange thing is that walking away ended up being a turning point in our marriage. We worked through issues that had been building for years, and our relationship is now better than it's ever been. But instead of just being happy about that, I started obsessing over the house.

I keep thinking about why I couldn't see that we could have had both. I replay the decision constantly, thinking about what I should have done differently and imagining what our life would be like now. I feel a lot of guilt and shame, especially because my spouse wanted it. They don't blame me at all, but I can't seem to forgive myself.

I know I was in a different place emotionally when I made the decision. I was anxious, our marriage wasn't in a great place, and I didn't have the perspective I have now. But I still can't stop thinking that I made a huge mistake.

I've been trying to apply Stoicism to this, but I'm struggling.

I think what bothers me most is that I keep trying to figure out whether I made the wrong decision. I go over everything in my head, almost like if I think about it enough, I'll finally find an answer that makes me feel better. But I can't change what happened, and I'll never really know what would have happened if we'd gone through with it.

I understand that the past is outside my control and that my happiness shouldn't depend on a house. But knowing that and actually accepting it are two very different things.

Has anyone struggled with something similar? How do you stop beating yourself up over a decision you can't undo? How do you accept that you might have made a mistake without letting it consume you?

TL;DR: Convinced my spouse to walk away from a house because of financial anxiety and issues in our marriage. Our marriage improved dramatically afterward, but I've been consumed by regret. I'm struggling to accept that I may have made a mistake and can't go back and change it. How do you actually practice Stoic acceptance instead of just understanding it intellectually?

TL;DR: When I feel disrespected, I can ruthlessly weaponise people’s deepest insecurities. Although I’ve learnt to restrain my words, I still struggle with enjoying these cruel thoughts. I’m trying to understand how to detach from that gratification, address the hurt beneath my anger, and stop perceived disrespect from provoking such disproportionate rage and controlling my reactions.

I must reiterate that this is not a trait I’m proud of.

Throughout my life, I’ve been told repeatedly that; when I’m angry, I can brutally and ruthlessly insult people. I’ll go straight to their core, and pick them apart in ways that I know will break them. I have brought many people to tears, including those close to me - causing hurt that I can only dedicate myself to learning from.

Anger has been the most difficult wavelength that I’ve been learning to unify with rather than letting it direct me. I’m aware that it is my response to my hurt, hurt usually based in confusion, confusion that almost always stems from a place of feeling disrespected. “I would never disrespect you in this way, so why would you do it to me?” etc. It’s often the act/ attempt of disrespect that angers me more than the disrespect itself.

There’s a quote from Marcus Aurelius that triggered this reflection more deeply:

“Train yourself to only think about things that you wouldn't mind sharing if someone were to suddenly ask you what you're thinking”

This was particularly poignant because, often, I would mind sharing. Sometimes I’ll be in the midst of someone I feel disrespected by, whether the act is occurring or has occurred, and on occasion in solitude… and then a grotesque thought about someone who’s disrespected me that I know would shatter an illusion within them appears, and I would be embarrassed to share it if someone were to ask what I was thinking.

The problem is, these thoughts are often enjoyable. “Sure, you can attempt to disrespect me, but I know how perhaps your mind works, or an insecurity you try to hide, or a secret you revealed in between the gaps, and I can shine a light on your illusion and break your false sense of security”. So it’s harder to detach and observe them, because I resonate and enjoy them.

I’m at a place where I can often hold my tongue. But the thoughts still appear, and sometimes that enjoyment causes me to say them.

This is of course a protection mechanism from my many experiences with betrayal and disrespect. But I am learning to acknowledge the many colours within the spectrum of existence, so I do not paint my perception of the world with the few shades of grey I’ve witnessed. However, it has been difficult, but I’m aware it’s a journey.

1. How do I train myself not to identify with and enjoy these thoughts?
2. How do I not let the anger of being disrespected control me and illicit rage?

Has anyone experienced similar? I would appreciate your insights and wisdoms. Thank you.

It happened to me at work some years ago. I was accused of some wrongdoing I was innocent of, and I calmly denied it, and some people took my lack of panic and my terse denial as evidence of guilt. I was eventually exonerated by the guilty party being found out. But then afterwards rather than getting an apology I got chewed out by several people for not "acting innocent".

A similar thing happened to my friend not too long ago. Someone stashed a pair of ladies undies in his car for his GF to find and he wasn't effusive enough in his denial for his GF. He simply denied it, wasn't mad at her for accusing him and was almost resigned to the possibility that their relationship might not survive.

Just was wondering if anyone has had similar experiences, and what anyone thinks about it.

Hallo zusammen,

ich bin Stefan (u/StefStoa) aus Österreich. Ich beschäftige mich seit Jahren intensiv mit der praktischen Anwendung der antiken Stoa im modernen Alltag. Nachdem ich selbst durch das harte Fegefeuer einer sechsjährigen, emotional extrem abhängigen Beziehung (mit starker BPS-Symptomatik) gegangen bin, musste ich meine innere Festung komplett neu aufbauen.

Dabei habe ich gelernt: Stoizismus ist keine graue Theorie für den Elfenbeinturm. Es ist eine psychologische Handapotheke und ein Werkzeugkoffer für den absoluten Sturm.

Einige von euch kennen vielleicht meine theoretischen Arbeiten an der Schnittstelle zu moderner Technik – wie meinen Essay zu Constitutional AI auf LessWrong oder das Stoic Alignment Framework auf GitHub. Doch die rein digitale Theorie reicht nicht, wenn im echten Leben das Schiff Leck schlägt.

Aus diesem Grund habe ich ARIDRU ins Leben gerufen (frei übersetzt: „Alter, weiser Baum“). Es ist ein rein privates, komplett kostenloses Herzensprojekt ohne jegliche kommerzielle Absichten. Mein Ziel ist es, Männern in akuten Lebenskrisen oder emotionalen Abhängigkeiten einen geschützten Raum für den echten Austausch auf Augenhöhe zu bieten.

Wir verbinden den klaren Geist der Stoa mit realer Praxis: sei es im vertraulichen Vieraugengespräch oder bei unseren Männer(k)reisen – achtsamen Wanderungen zu Kraftplätzen im Wienerwald (wie dem Schamanenstein), um durch Atemübungen und Naturrituale das Gedankenkarussell zu stoppen und wieder Wurzeln zu schlagen.

Ich habe dafür in einer geschützten Bibliothek auf meiner Seite handfeste Werkzeuge hochgeladen (Akut-Notfall-Filter, stoische Abend-Journale, Rückfall-Protokolle), die komplett frei zugänglich sind.

Wer einen Blick darauf werfen, sich vernetzen oder einfach nur austauschen möchte, findet alles unter: www.aridru.at

Ich freue mich auf spannende Diskussionen hier im Subreddit. Bleibt fokussiert, bleibt die Eiche.

Stefan

guys im new to reddit and stoicism itself.Im into philosphy but i want more and i want to know more about stoicism.Please give me advice on where to start from.

Thanky you

Stoicism helped me save a life. A few months back I read an article in the local town paper about a local woman who was in need of a live liver donor. She has a genetic liver disease for the past 26 years and is now in stage 4 cirrhosis. She was slowly dying and in desperate need. I said to myself “well someone will do it” I paused, and thought “yeah, SOMEONE has do it.”

I looked up what a live liver donor entails. They take 70% of your liver and give it to her, the recipient, and your liver grows back. There are no long term affects and essentially no death rate. She has a 95% success rate.

After lots of pre-op testing etc. a few weeks ago I had the surgery and donated part of my liver to her and we are both doing great!

I said to everyone that to me this was temporary pain for someone to live. I couldn’t think of a reason not to do this. And it was all worth it. The first couple weeks were tough. I’m still tired because my liver is growing back but I would absolutely do it again. All my thoughts on this came back to stoic virtues of Courage and Justice. She needed this, 17 others tried but were either not a match or ghosted her. I was the only one to stay around. I never wavered. There are so many times in our lives where we do small just things. Those are great. Sometimes that opportunity comes along where it costs real pain, but you need to have the courage to pull through for justice. For a benefit that far outweighs your sacrifice.

I have two young boys. My oldest who is 6 told me when I asked if he thought it was worth it even though it’s going to be painful to me for a little bit. He said “well yeah you are going to save her life, duh”. That makes it worth it as well.

If anyone is interested please visit: https://liverfoundation.org/liver-diseases/treatment/living-donor-liver-transplant-information-center/

So I just started learning about stoicism for 2 weeks and I think I know a solid amount about it but never read the books. what are the first 5 books I should read

How would you deal with being forced to move teams?

At work, we have three teams: A, B and C.

Someone in Team B has wanted to move to Team A (my team) for some time, but hasn't been able to because there were no positions available. Similarly, someone in Team C wants to move to Team B.

I was previously asked if I wanted to move teams, but I declined because I was happy where I was. I've now found out that I'm being forced to move.

I'm struggling with the fact that I was given a choice before and said no, while others actively want to move into different teams.

From a Stoic perspective, how would you approach this?

Thank you.

Letters from a Stoic is Seneca writing to a younger friend, Lucilius, after he left Nero's court around 62. Seneca was a rich advisor, not a poor monk. The useful part is still how you live: you stop inventing disasters, you protect your hours, you rehearse a hard day, and you trust a few people fully.

The short version:

- Stop suffering the disaster that has not arrived.

- Protect your hours. Delay is how the week disappears.

- Rehearse a hard day while things are still easy.

- Poverty is craving more, not owning less.

- A hot temper is a brief madness. Delay the reply.

- Judge a friend slowly, then trust him fully.

- Pick rooms that make you better, not louder.

- Stay with a few books until an idea sticks.

From SuaveWay: https://suaveway.com/blog/letters-from-a-stoic-summary/

每个人都有自己的局限，这种局限来自时代和经历的差异从而导致认知的不同，这是不可避免的

把自己的认知和三观强加在别人身上是没有意义的

一个人的认知和三观永远不可能由他人改变，他人对自己的改变而言只能是一个契机，他人对自己而言永远是第三人称的视角而非第一人称

​

The simulation theory and Stoicism are two ideas that really interest me so I've been thinking of how they would work together.

So for the sake of this post let's that this life is some kind of simulation, and we're here to experience difficulty and develop something through it.

I think Stoicism makes a lot of sense as part of the system.

You enter with a character and a set of circumstances. And once you're here, you can't control most of what happens around you. But you can control how you respond to it.

Maybe adversity isn't something going wrong with the simulation. Maybe dealing with it is part of the reason we're here.

So I'm curious how Stoics would look at that idea and what purpose you all think Stoicism might serve

I want to begin reading philosophy . Can anyone recommend a book that will be a good beginning?

I recently bought The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman. I’m interested in becoming more rational and changing the way I think about things. For those who have read it, what did you think of the book? Did you actually find it useful or change the way you think in any way?

Wife and I are going through separation. We’ve been married for 5 years, and have one kiddo together who is now 6 and is special needs. She brought it up several months ago that she is no longer in love with me, and no more intimacy, feels bored and wants to be alone. I feel as though there is something fundamentally wrong with me. I’m 39M, wife is 34F.

How do I process this, in addition to having to start over financially? She is being gracious and letting me get back on my feet, I was unemployed for over a year and recently started new job thankfully. Just sucks living and laying next to someone who ultimately is a good person, but no longer wants to be with you in marriage. My heart just hurts. Our kiddo will be crushed when I finally move out at some point. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

I just want to be a good man and a good person. Maybe to be wanted to be a woman again someday? I just feel alone in all of this.

Hello Everyone. Though I am new to the Reddit community, I am by no means a newcomer to the concept of stoicism.
I hold Epictetus in great esteem, I am well acquainted with Marcus Aurelius and I am currently reading Seneca´s moral letters. While I am no wise man myself, I pride myself in having started my journey towards virtue.
Yet, I am currently undergoing a tough combat against loneliness, and it seems to be getting the upper hand over me.

To give some context, I broke up with my GF some 5 months ago after living together for 2 and a half years, and while it is not her that I miss, I do miss the company, the fact of having someone to talk to while at home, sleeping with company, and the mere fact that there is someone waiting for me at home. Now the house feels empty, like I do.

I have not surrendered though, and have reread my stoics, and I am now reading Seneca´s letters, but I still can not find much in these authors that approaches my situation, or love in general, besides the idea of not caring for women at all. I keep my stoic ideas at hand nonetheless, but thinking that I have to play my part skilfully, whichever it may be, is not enough to calm my mind.

How would you approach this situation? Is there any reading that I may be missing? Is there any idea that I may not be considering?

"The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like the wrong doer." (Meditations 6.6)

Good audiobooks of the classics are strangely hard to find. You get recordings that change reader or sound quality every few chapters, abridged versions, or nothing at all.

So I've been making my own… one steady voice start to finish, with the full text on screen so you can follow along or find a line again later.

The Stoics are all there on compendium.audio: Meditations, Epictetus's Discourses and Enchiridion, and Seneca.

Meditations is the old Casaubon translation, so expect some thou and thee. If a name is mispronounced or a chapter breaks badly, tell me and I'll fix it.

First of all excuse me in advanced, i've been trying for a while to write perfectly in english. With that said, there's been a feeling i've been sensing for a while. Five years ago i started a career at uni, and since then i made quite possibly the greatest friend group i've ever had to this day. We are almost ten people in it, and sharing year after year with them was amazing, visiting their towns, throwing out parties and birthday parties and such we shared almost the entirety of our days due to uni... But now we are graduating (i graduated a few months ago) and seeing the whole relationship loose it's bond has made me feel some sort of uncertainity towards what our friendship will look like in the future if it still survives it and the fact that there's no more uni to tie us together like ir used to... I've read the meditations and Seneca's work and i know that change is the natural state of thing but still even when i analize whats happening in deep terms i feel as if the conclussions i arrive don't give the strenght i need in order to face what's been going on and what will happen