How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life

by Massimo Pigliucci

In reality, Stoicism is not about suppressing or hiding emotion—rather, it is about acknowledging our emotions, reflecting on what causes them, and redirecting them for our own good. It is also about keeping in mind what is and what is not under our control, focusing our efforts on the former and not wasting them on the latter.

Such “externals” do not define who we are as individuals and have nothing to do with our personal worth, which depends on our character and our exercise of the virtues.

To begin with, we make certain choices, selecting some goals (the sea voyage) and what appear to us to be the best means to obtain them (the experienced sailors). Next, we need to recognize that it does not follow from just having made a choice that we can implement a given course of action. Our preferred helmsman, for instance, may be sick on that day, or his services may be too expensive for us. Finally, some factors are entirely out of our control and we cannot even begin to influence them, like the direction and intensity of the winds.

Epictetus tells us that regret is a waste of our emotional energy. We cannot change the past—it is outside of our control. We can, and should, learn from it, but the only situations we can do something about are those happening here and now.

So should it be with persons; if you kiss your child, or brother, or friend… you must remind yourself that you love a mortal, and that nothing that you love is your very own; it is given you for the moment, not for ever nor inseparably, but like a fig or a bunch of grapes at the appointed season of the year, and if you long for it in winter you are a fool. So too if you long for your son or your friend, when it is not given you to have him, know that you are longing for a fig in winter time.

all else is “indifferent,” not in the sense that Socrates didn’t care about his friends and family (or, for that matter, his own life), but in the deeper sense that he was not willing to compromise his virtue in order to save his skin, or even to spare his loved ones suffering.

Stoics occupy the logical space in between these two positions: health, wealth, education, and good looks—among other things—are preferred indifferents, while their opposites—and a number of other things—are dispreferred indifferents. This, I think, was a stroke of genius. The Stoics made a eudaimonic life a reachable goal for everyone, regardless of social status, financial resources, physical health, or degree of attractiveness.

Better to endure pain in an honorable manner than to seek joy in a shameful one.

The Stoic compromise—their lexicographic contrast between the virtues and the preferred indifferents, coupled with their treatment of the two as hierarchically ordered, incommensurable classes of goods—brilliantly overcomes the problem, retaining the best of both (philosophical) worlds.

but self-respect, honor, constancy, a quiet mind, untouched by distress, or fear, or agitation—in a word, freedom. What are you going to sell all this for? Look and see what your purchase is worth.

that is why Stoicism is so useful: it is a major mind game centered on keeping one’s moral high ground and self-respect.

How difficult is it, really, to behave honestly in the course of everyday life, since we are not risking military defeat and the prospect of suicide to save our honor? And yet, imagine how much better the world would be if we all did display just a bit more courage, a slightly more acute sense of justice, more temperance, and more wisdom each day.

Nevertheless, you may need to reclaim it, slowly and painfully, as he did. Indeed, he saw the whole question of dealing with his disability as coinciding with his need to reclaim his agency.

you have to become good at being an agent. This, he says, requires lining up the following elements: values, preferences, goals, deliberations, decisions, and actions.

Second, we need to focus on abilities, not disabilities.

Third, we need to develop a life plan. To do this we must take a look at our entire life, make plans, and arrive at decisions “all things considered,” as philosophers say.

Fourth, we should strive for internal harmony, which is a matter of constantly attempting to harmonize the components of our (dynamic) life plan.

The Stoics attempted to do so by cultivating positive emotions and monitoring and rejecting negative ones.

Indeed, the Stoics taught that it is with mindful repetition that we change our own behaviors and even our internal feelings—something confirmed by a number of modern psychotherapies that are effective for the treatment of depression and other conditions.

first omni-font optical

you need to practice it, over and over, until you develop a habit that incorporates a rational conclusion into your instinctual repertoire. Think of practicing philosophy in the same way you learn to drive a car, or to kick a soccer ball, or to play the saxophone.

(Seneca, certainly a Stoic, used to help himself to the thoughts of the rival school of Epicurus, arguing that truth is the property of everyone, regardless of where it comes from, so I’m simply following his lead here.)

is an imposition on others in order to feel better ourselves, in a situation in which, moreover, others cannot do much more than pity us.

I always regretted the way I responded to my father’s illness—until Stoicism taught me that regret is about things we can no longer change and the right attitude is to learn from our experiences, not dwell on decisions that we are not in a position to alter.

I think of this passage as one of the most empowering of Stoic writings. Epictetus, the former slave, lame because of a once-broken leg, tells us to use every occasion, every challenge, as a way to exercise our virtue, to become a better human being by constant application.