The Little Book of Stoicism: Timeless Wisdom to Gain Resilience, Confidence, and Calmness

by Jonas Salzgeber

The Stoics argue that you can step in between what happens (dog poop), and your reaction to it (anger and f-words). The idea is to choose your best virtuous response rather than going with the default. In order to do that, you need to be able to spot your automatic impression (it’s really bad) in the first place. If you want to get in the gap and choose your response, you need the awareness to spot the first impression that arises in the form of thoughts and/or emotions. Once you see this first impression, you can step back, and question whether this impression is good to go with or not. You can look at this thought impression as a mere hypothesis up for debate before you examine it rationally. Basically, you withhold the approval of that impression and avoid rash, impulsive, and automatic behavior. This is immensely powerful and enables you to think before you (re-)act. It gives you the power to choose the best possible reaction, and what happens in the world around you doesn’t matter so much anymore. It hands you the key to your ideal behavior as you can choose to act in a wise, serene, and forgiving way—smile, clean the shoe, and move on with your life.