https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/127280508-the-stoic-mindset

Notes

16

According to the Stoics, emotions are the result of our judgments about events. An emotion is fundamentally neither good nor bad. It’s a reflection of your judgment and your thoughts about a situation.

17

The Stoics try not to act on immediate emotion. In other words: they endeavor to not make choices based on frustration, rage, and euphoria. Instead, they try to understand the thinking and judgments behind their emotions so as to make better decisions.

18

The Stoic answers that even a wise person still feels first impressions, but they don’t convert those impressions into emotions. A wise person can be unnerved for a moment, and then gathers themself quickly. By applying a Stoic mindset, you learn to feel fear, just like everybody else, while choosing not to go along with that first impression. You don’t suppress this fear, but you take control of it by not reacting to that first impression with your thoughts. The result is that you can stay calm and act accordingly.

19

One of the basic principles of a Stoic mindset is that you consider your emotions. You can worry about the future, but a Stoic will ask themself: Why? Why are you scared of losing your job? Why are you jealous? What is the judgment underlying that emotion? Might you be angry because, in your view, someone did a great injustice to you? And what is this feeling of injustice based on?

24

One of the foremost principles of a Stoic mindset is that you can divide things into that which you can control and that which you can’t.

25

And he had a strong point: those who let their actions be determined by circumstances they couldn’t control, allowed themselves to be enslaved by those circumstances. That’s why Epictetus found the divide between what you could and couldn’t control paramount.

31

The most important successor to Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, was Chrysippus of Soli, who lived in the third century BC. He was, besides a philosopher, a passionate runner, and also studied under Cleanthes, a passionate boxer. See that? Sports and philosophy make an outstanding combination. Chrysippus was rather fanatic in his work as a philosopher: throughout his life he wrote more than 700 works. He was a brilliant thinker and expert in argumentation, with which he lay a sturdy logical foundation beneath Stoic philosophy. He was also one of the first with the ambition and self-confidence to spread Stoic thought beyond the traditional gates of the Agora in Athens. Without Chrysippus we wouldn’t know of Stoic philosophy today.

31

According to Chrysippus, a runner should do their utmost to win a race, though never by tripping another. And it’s the same in life: it’s good to strive for something, as long you don’t do it at the expense of another.

32

Absolute autonomy doesn’t exist in this sense according to the Stoics: we are all connected with one another and work together to achieve goals—that’s ingrained in our nature. Plus: What are experiences worth if you can’t share them with others?

35

Do not seek to have events happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do happen, and all will be well with you.

~ Epictetus

36

Epictetus teaches us to make the best of every situation, and not just that: he teaches us to love every situation. It’s foolish and pointless to wish things were different than they are. For a start, it’s simple logic—“wishing for figs in winter,” he calls it. We can’t deny life’s reality.

42

Let us go to our sleep with joy and gladness; let us say: I have lived; the course which Fortune set for me is finished.

~ Seneca

45

Bronnie Ware, a caregiver who worked with dying people, asked them what, looking back on their lives, they regretted, and went on to write the book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. The number one regret? “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me”—

46

GOOD STOIC RESOLUTIONS

Every year we promise ourselves to do new things, adding even more items to the long list of resolutions we didn’t get around to doing last year but now are really going to do. What would happen if we turned this around and instead asked ourselves what we wanted to do less of? We could spend more time and energy on things that help us move forward and really matter.

60

So forget for a second the meaning of purpose, which has become a buzzword. Forget describing a big goal. Forget following your passion. You’ll discover those passions and those goals after first establishing your direction. The trick is doing what aligns with your nature, is finding that problem you aren’t forced to face but above all want to wrestle with every day. Something you would also do if, at least in the short term, you weren’t paid to do it. That which we do every day determines who we become. That’s where fulfillment lies: in the work of every day.

64

Just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn’t matter.

~ Marcus Aurelius

66

Almost every one of these heroes’ good traits can be traced back to the following cardinal virtues:  Courage to overcome the fear holding you back from taking action. The guts to swim against the stream. Courage to endure illness, loss, or a pandemic without giving in to complaint or to wishing things were different. Temperance to know how much you truly need of something. Knowing when you have enough and are able to bring your life into balance and to regulate your emotions. Justice to act rightly in relation to other people. Standing up for the weaker and being equally as nice to the secretary as to the CEO. Wisdom to make the distinction between what is good and bad, what is right to strive for in everyday life and what is not.

69

We do not learn for school, but for life.

~ Seneca

71

The Stoics aren’t concerned with winning arguments, working out abstract theories, or, like scholars, searching for truth on paper. The value of philosophy lies in practice: the Stoic mindset centers on applying theory in an active life—in politics, as a parent, as a citizen, as a human being.