The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

by Ward Farnsworth

If any external thing causes you distress, it is not the thing itself that troubles you, but your own judgment about it. And this you have the power to eliminate now.

Stoicism means to help us think better about our thinking, to teach the mind to understand the mind, to make the fish more aware of the water.

Suppose someone insults you. The insult is meaningless apart from what you make of it. If you are bothered, it must be because you care: a judgment. Instead you could decide not to care, and that would be the end of the insult for you.

We always feel as though we react to things in the world; in fact we react to things in ourselves. And sometimes changing ourselves will be more effective and sensible than trying to change the world.

The happy are those who think they are, not those who are thought to be so by others; and in this way alone, belief makes itself real and true.

If distress is caused by our thoughts about things rather than by the things themselves, we should try dropping those thoughts and using new ones.

Things are not that difficult or painful in

themselves. Our weakness and cowardice make them so.

then will you perceive that they who pursue pleasure most attain it least,