Stoicism teaches that unhappiness, negative emotions, and what we would today call “stress” are not inflicted on us by external circumstances and events, but are, rather, the result of the judgments we make about what matters and what we value. To the Stoics, the most secure kind of happiness could therefore be found in the only thing that we are in control of—our inner world. Everything outside us can be taken away, so how can we entrust our future happiness and well-being to it?
