Stoicism Explained: How to Become Undefeatable

We're all pretty used to rain. We're either prepared for it with an umbrella or raincoat, or just get wet. Rarely does it genuinely upset us.

But what about when it rains for days and the streets flood so you can't go outside? Or when you realize you can't afford the interest rate on that home you want to purchase? How do you react when your investments plummet in value or you're laid off without severance? These are genuine modern problems that plague us at every turn. Problems that haunt our nights with nightmares and fill our days with despair.

But it doesn't have to be this way. We can learn to remain grounded despite all the problems plaguing our society today. This is how to become stoic in the modern world.

Stoicism is, of course, an ancient Greek philosophy that aims to take us from being vulnerable to the chaotic nature of the universe to being calm and indifferent to it. It's a way to fortify yourself for lasting peace of mind. But as with every practice that involves changing your attitude or disposition, work is involved, and often sacrifice.

The Stoics's work is to recognize what's in our control and what isn't. And the only thing in our control is our reaction to what happens, not the event itself. Obviously, we can influence what happens, but nothing is entirely in our control. Misfortunes are unpredictable and often inevitable.

The stoic philosopher Zeno of Cidium used an analogy of a dog being tied by a cart to clarify the stoic position. When a dog is tied to a cart, if it wants to follow, it is pulled and follows, making its spontaneous act coincide with necessity. But if the dog doesn't follow, it'll be compelled. So it is with men, too. Even if they don't want to, they will be compelled to follow what is destined.

The cart represents anything beyond our control; all the various happenings of the universe. A leash attaches us to this universe. Our options are to run with it or to resist and be dragged. To become stoic is to run with the cart.

Imagine you're at work and your supervisor informs you that the espresso machine you rely on is being removed. Your free daily coffee is suddenly gone. For most of us, this would be pretty devastating. Your reaction here is what's up to you. You have no control whether the machine is there or not. You can either run with the cart by accepting that the change is beyond your control, or wallow in the misery of no more free coffee. You can be dragged.

The ultimate goal is to improve upon your inner self, as relying on external things for happiness leaves you at the mercy of a turbulent universe. A universe that is outside your control.

Stoic philosophers subscribe to a semi-deterministic worldview, or compatibilism. Everything that happens has a cause, but sometimes we can't control that cause, only the action we take. For example, we can choose to not give in to an impulse to eat cake, but the existence of that impulse is beyond our control.

That's not to suggest we shouldn't try to improve our external circumstances, but that we can't rely on desirable outcomes. If we want the result of fixing our car, we still have to pick up the phone to book an appointment. It's not going to fix itself. Still, we can measure how much effort we're putting in because that's what is in our control. If the mechanic happens to be a charlatan who runs off with your car, you shouldn't blame yourself. That was beyond your control.

Discussing the ancient philosophy of stoicism is one thing, but what about tangibly implementing it into our modern lives? After all, at the time of its conception, stoicism was for everyone, from slaves to the emperor of Rome. So why not today?

Most of us get caught up in material things and we expect them to bring us joy. We tell ourselves that the next purchase is what will finally make us happy. A new car, the latest smartphone, the expensive watch. When we're unable to get these things because, well, we can't afford them, we feel bad, like the universe is opposed to us being happy and that there's nothing we can do about it. But the truth is that material things only bring temporary happiness. Your car will break down and your phone will eventually freeze up. And even when our possessions still work perfectly, hedonic adaptation steps in and we start to want something newer and shinier. It's a never-ending cycle.

To escape the trap of consumerism, we need to adopt a different attitude towards our purchases and the dopamine hit we get from them. To do this, you can practice what the Stoics call voluntary discomfort. This is when you subject yourself to discomfort in something you typically enjoy. The most common way people do this is by taking a cold shower instead of a warm one. But you could also hold on to your new phone until it's no longer usable. Suffer through the cracks and lags and let each new phone launch pass you by. If that's too much, start small. Next time you go to the bathroom, leave your phone on your nightstand or your desk or wherever. Sit with your thoughts on the toilet instead of trying to amuse or torture yourself by doom scrolling. Driving somewhere on a hot day, roll up the windows and drive with the AC off. Or better yet, walk.

Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome, was a practitioner of Stoic philosophy. He ruled the empire from 161 CE until his death in 180 CE and was widely considered a great philosopher king, although that may be a historical exaggeration. As a leader, he wrote down his Stoic-influenced meditations, likely as a way of assuring himself while handling significant responsibilities. They were intended for his own use and not meant to be published widely. But fortunately, we have access to them today. The collection is called Meditations, also called the Inner Citadel. In it, you can see how Marcus Aurelius applied his learned stoicism to his daily life as emperor. Here are some of those quotes that might be able to help get you into a stoic mindset.

"Thus we should employ the mind in all parts of life. When things occur which at first seem worthy of high estimation, we should strip them naked and view their meanness and cast aside these pompous descriptions of them by which they seem so glorious."

Marcus Aurelius would routinely reflect on the nature of his food as devoid of the pleasures and sensations he instinctively derived of it. A fish is just flesh necessary to sustain you. Ignore the pleasing taste and satisfaction of filling up. When you bring your favorite lunch to work, break it into its most basic components. The salad is just leaves and the fruit of a plant. Croutons are just wheat smashed into flour and combined with yeast to make bread. Bread is then cut into pieces and dried in an oven. By doing this, when you're stuck with a lunch you don't love or the waiter gets your order wrong, you won't be as burdened by the thought of eating it or feeling the absence of something more delicious. Lunch is just raw materials to give you energy.

Marcus Aurelius wrote a great deal about how we interpret and interact with others. He adopted the metaphysics of stoicism as a way of thinking about our interactions and emotions. For stoic philosophers, the universe is made from an intelligent design. Humans too are part of that same intelligence. It doesn't make sense to hate the same intelligence in another because the same intelligence in you. It's similar to the Hindu concept of Brahman, the deity that permeates everything.

"I can't be angry at my kinsmen or hate them. We were naturally formed for mutual assistance as the two feet, the hands, the eyelids, and the upper and lower rows of the teeth. Opposition to each other is contrary to nature. All anger and aversion is in opposition."

We may think of ourselves as in competition with others. We compete for better grades at school and put down others to get a leadership role at a company. But that's a surefire way to live a life of envy and malice. If you see everyone as part of the same intelligence, trying to put others below you would be foolish. You are the same and treating others as lesser is contrary to nature.

"Seldom are any found unhappy for not observing the motions and intentions in the souls of others, but such as observe not well the motions of their own souls or their affections must necessarily be unhappy."

This reminds us to focus on what is in our control, our attitude. Trying to analyze others will often lead to misery. We spend too long considering why people behave the way they do. In a state of resentment, we question their motives and success. Most of us know someone who can't stop complaining or gossiping about others at their job. They're obsessed with what their co-workers have and never seem particularly happy. Their time would probably be better spent addressing their own mind, as the minds of others are outside of their control.

"Let us, as I said, be on our guard without suspicion or enmity."

Aurelius is cautioning himself to be prepared for any attack or betrayal while at the same time not presuming that others have bad intentions. Again, we shouldn't dwell too much on the intentions of others. But we shouldn't blindly assume that no one will mean harm. As any experienced student knows, when working with peers on a group project, be prepared for someone to not pull their weight. At the same time though, you should never assume and judge that someone won't. You can needlessly cause dysfunction in the group while allowing others to occupy too much of your mind. But seriously, if you're working with three others, one or more of them statistically won't do their fair share. Be prepared for it, but without suspicion or hostility.

"When you are angry at the mistakes and wrong actions of men, for all are carried toward what appears to them their proper good. But say you, it is not their proper good. Well, instruct them then and teach them better and don't be angry with them."

Basically, we can disagree with others knowing with near certainty that we're right. But getting angry with them invites more pain and is an ineffective mode of persuasion. They have what they think is the right way in mind. So, we shouldn't think poorly of them. We should try to educate them rather than show our frustration. This quote from Aurelia speaks to the ongoing culture war. Both sides have an idea of what's right and allow themselves to get angry and insult the other party. This isn't to suggest that both sides are correct, but that especially on social media nowadays, genuine attempts at persuasion have taken a backseat. There are plenty of attempts to educate in the culture war, but they often come dripping with condescension and likely serve a purpose other than genuine persuasion. They seem more about scoring likes, shares, and validations from existing believers than extending an olive branch. If we treated others like parts of an intelligent design, we wouldn't feel the need to mock them. We would try to help them see the right way forward.

With these mental tools, stoicism can guide you through the pain of life so that you face it with a temperament people would describe as stoic. Regardless of what the universe has in store, your goal is to remain emotionally indifferent. You have reinforced your inner citadel and are prepared for both good and bad fortune.

Now, stoicism isn't a philosophy to take ourselves off the hook for the problems we can influence. But it does acknowledge that so much is beyond our individual control. We can only judge ourselves based on our effort. If we consider the world's biggest problems, the solutions are far out of reach for the average person. We can only do our part, make moves where we can, and judge our efforts. We can only change what is in our control.

If you're wondering why bother with any of this when the universe itself doesn't make sense, click the video on your screen right now to understand the philosophy of absurdism. Life is meaningless.

Marcus Aurelius was exceptional; a true philosopher king who ruled over an empire that stretched from Britain to Egypt, commanding legions and shaping the lives of over 70 million people in what was the largest and wealthiest superpower in the world at the time. He led his people through a devastating plague that wiped out millions, constant wars along Rome's borders, and even a betrayal that led to the death of his co-emperor. Yet through it all, he remained calm and led with justice, patience, and wisdom. He created a legacy so powerful that 2,000 years later, people still can't stop talking about him.

To figure out how he was able to achieve all this, I wanted to put myself in his shoes. So, for the next 7 days, I'll be living like Marcus Aurelius. And honestly, it challenged me way more than I expected. I'm obviously I'm not a Roman emperor. I'm He didn't have TikTok. People might get mad at me for things.

Stoicism has completely taken over social media. Scroll through TikTok or YouTube and you'll find everything from AI Marcus Aurelius whispering meditations to fitness influencers deadlifting in silence with memento mori tattooed across their arm to the manosphere twisting the philosophy to justify its toxic ideas on masculinity.

"Stoicism is not not feeling emotions. It's feeling the emotion and going okay."

We made a documentary on stoicism and while working on that project, a different question kept bothering me. What if you strip away all the noise, the fancy edits, the influencers, the medallions and just go back to what stoicism actually was? Do these ideas even work in the modern day? Or is it just another ancient relic being force-fit into a world that it was never built for? These ideas come from men who lived 2,000 years ago. After all, even religions from the same era are losing their cultural relevance. But maybe that's exactly why we need stoicism now more than ever. In a world filled with noise, overstimulation, and existential dread, a philosophy that's rooted in control and calmness might just be what we all need, but only if it still works. Yeah.

So, what's your plan for creating this routine that you're going to follow? Cuz like from everything I've read, I don't think Marcus Aurelius was creating day-in-the-life videos like your favorite fitness influencer today.

No. No. Um, that's pretty true. So, Marcus Aurelius never really wrote about a specific daily routine. He never directly mentions a proper routine, but he nonetheless had a very regimented routine. We know this from the huge volumes of his meditations, of his journaling that he did. Uh, so what I had to do um was go in, give them a pour over and then from there I managed to just reconstruct what his day looked like, what his routine looked like.

Take 10 minutes to go to a news publication and skim the stories. When one of those stories provokes an emotional reaction, remind yourself that it is beyond your control. Say it to yourself until that feeling dissipates.

Good morning. It is day one of my 7-day journey through the daily life of Marcus Aurelius. I really wanted to perform this exercise as um a supplementary material to my studies in stoicism. Uh, I've been researching it for a video or two and I wanted to flesh those out by doing this and uh, these video logs will be a big part of supplementing that material. Something about Marcus Aurelius is he was an avid journaler and that was part of his stoic practice. He journaled everything from the morning, the afternoon, and the evening. And that was all wrapped into helping him be a better leader and a better stoic. So, I'm going to be recording these video journals. I just because of the realities of my work, I don't know if I'll be able to do a morning, an afternoon, and an evening. Um, if I can, I will. But otherwise, I will be checking in at least once a day uh with my findings on certain parts of this experiment, and I'm really excited to try it out.

This step is like a warm-up for reacting calmly regardless of what comes your way for the rest of the day. It's the most important goal for Marcus and the Stoics, and it ties deeply into their understanding of the universe. For the Stoics, the world is organized based on a rational principle that governs the universe and everything in it, including us. It's controlled by an all-pervading force referred to as logos.

Yeah. Um I've heard that word logos before. Isn't that the name that Jesus is referred to as in like the the Greek New Testament?

Yep. Uh that is that's true. But here we have a totally different interpretation. Um logos isn't godlike in the Bible. It's more of a a spiritual power or an intelligence that underlies all things. Um it has been referred to separately as uh nature, the universe or even the divine. Um but it's it's a rational design that connects everything and it can also take on different forms and different things. So for instance in humans the logos comes in the form of our faculty to reason as human.

Oh that's pretty interesting. So, it's kind of like, you know, the chi that you have in in some Asian cultures. And actually, funny enough, in EU culture where I come from, there's also a very similar concept that also has a very similar name, just a slightly different pronunciation. So, we call it chi, while they say chi. Uh, but it's it's roughly the same thing. So, it's just very interesting to see that, you know, these different ideas kind of show up differently across different cultures.

That's fascinating. Thanks for teaching me about that. Yeah, it it's a very similar force to chi. Uh, it's an impersonal power that kind of governs the universe, keeps the wheels moving. Um so the Stoics understood the universe to be causally determined by this intelligence. And since it's rationally designed, everything that happens works towards a greater good or kind of an end state. Uh even if it doesn't appear to us that way in the moment, even if everything kind of looks random to us. The causal chain of events is believed to be completely unbreakable and beyond the control of any one being.

While what happens is not in our control, for the Stoics, our reaction to what happens is very much our responsibility. We can use our reason to control our emotions and react calmly when things happen to us. We can suspend judgment on what appears to be a tragedy, acknowledging that what happens is beyond our control and ultimately for the good.

In Meditations, Marcus reinforces this belief by preparing himself in the morning to react to the universe with tranquility and without emotion. The second chapter opens with such a reminder. "When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself, 'The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative or hate him.'" Doing this first thing in the morning is an attempt to reinforce this idea in our minds. Like Marcus, we will prepare ourselves for the inevitable hardships of the day by reminding ourselves that they are beyond our control. By reading news stories and practicing our calm reactions, we are reinforcing this idea in our minds. These global issues may seem terrible, but they are ultimately beyond our control.

But I mean, forgive me for asking, why Marcos Aurelius? Like amongst all the philosophers, why him?

Okay. Um, that's a great question. When I started researching for this, I was looking into it from the mindset of if you're going to take life advice or if any human being, if our viewers are going to be taking life advice from any historical figure throughout time, who would it be? And you know, I I put a lot of thought into it and I asked a lot of different people what their opinions on this would be. And you know, five times out of 10 people would say Marcus Aurelius. That's entirely justified in my opinion. He was a great ruler who wasn't just powerful but also incredibly wise. There's a concept that I learned about way early on about the philosopher king. And it was fascinating to my teenage self. It's this idea of an intelligent leader who's also a philosopher but also wise and compassionate and capable. But Marcus wasn't even just a philosopher king in the academic sense. He was something even more rare. So when we think of philosophers, we imagine people who develop new schools of thought like um well Epictitus who developed stoicism in in a way or um Kimu or Nichi or people like that. But Marcus Aurelius didn't spend his day trying to develop this new idea. Instead he just lived that philosophy. Uh he took these teachings seriously, not just in theory but also in practice. Every single day he lived by these and as the emperor of Rome but not only the emperor of Rome as as a father, as a regular human being like the rest of us, he tried to embody those values that he believed in and he lived them 100%. He took philosophy almost as seriously as a devoutly religious person would with the only difference being that he was ready to accept truth wherever he found it. Unlike most religions today, Marcus wasn't bound by dogma. Though he considered himself a student of philosophy in general, by his writings, we can tell that he had a strong foundation in stoicism and was most inspired by the works of Epictitus, a stoic philosopher in the more traditional sense. That said, Marcus didn't limit himself to just one tradition in Meditations. He often quotes Plato and Heraclitus, both of which are powerful figures of Greek philosophy, but he doesn't put their ideas against stoicism. Instead, he integrates them by following the common threads. At the time, philosophy wasn't about factions. They weren't as obsessed with divided lines as we are today and were more interested in where their ideas overlapped. And stoicism itself didn't start in Rome. Like so many Roman customs, it was imported from Greece. It began with Zeno of Citium, a merchant whose shipwreck left him nothing. That loss led him to Athens, where he stumbled into a philosophy bookshop and then into a whole new way of thinking. From there, stoicism evolved into a major school of thought and when Rome conquered Greece, stoicism became one of the most influential philosophies in the empire. With the Roman stoic Epictitus, the ideas became more grounded and practical. And Marcus took that practicality even further. He cared less about grand theories and more about how to live well. His concerns were deeply ethical and metaphysical. Why are we here? What is the right thing to do? How do we live with integrity? This is exactly why Marcus is the perfect subject to emulate if you want to live a better life because he didn't just think about how to live, he documented his attempts to practice it. And that result was in Meditations. It's often called a self-help book, but that undersells what it really is. Meditations wasn't written for an audience. It wasn't a manifesto or a guidebook. It was more like a journal or a personal academic notebook where you write all the things you want to remember for the test. Only that his test was life.

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Turn notifications off on your phone and try to use it only when it contributes to your main goal, such as finding your way to a meeting.

So, that was actually perfect. I um I had a phone alarm go off and it completely broke my focus. So, this is actually something that uh it's it's great that this happened when it did. You know, Marcus Aurelius didn't live with phones, but we do. Uh, what I want to try doing is a an experiment for this. I'll check my phone at the start of the day. I'll talk to whoever I need to and then I'll turn it off. I I will turn my phone off wholesale and I won't turn it back on unless it's work-related or unless I finished all my other work. And I want to see what that does for my focus. Um, again, he didn't have TikTok. He didn't have to correspond through his phone. So, he didn't have that constant distraction in his face. So I want to bring things as close to parody with my daily routine as with Marcus Aurelius's. So no phones after uh the very first part of the morning.

This step shouldn't be surprising to anyone. Your phone is the sworn enemy of concentration. Focus was very important for the Stoics and especially for Marcus Aurelius. The emperor frequently reminded himself in Meditations to concentrate on his own mind and the important goals at hand.

"When it allows its action and impulse to be without a purpose, to be random and disconnected, even the smallest things ought to be directed towards a goal. But the goal of rational beings is to follow the rule and law of the most ancient of communities and states."

Allowing ourselves to be distracted takes away our focus from important goals and our own minds, which are the only things under our control. By allowing distractions, we let external events dictate our thoughts and feelings. Marcus routinely reminds himself to not take random actions and to treat your ability to control thoughts with respect. It's with this respect for my ability to focus that I said goodbye to phone notifications. I even made sure to keep my phone out of reach so I would not be inclined to check it. Unsurprisingly, I got more work done. According to a study from the University of California, Irvine, it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to a task after you've been distracted. If you multiply that by the number of distractions in a day, you end up with a shocking amount of wasted time. While Marcus obviously didn't have access to a phone, such a finding would no doubt revolt him, or I should say, he would calmly describe why you should not let yourself be distracted that way. I also felt calmer in general. Phone interruptions can really add a layer of chaos to your day. There's nothing like trying to put down an idea on a Word document and then seeing that an earthquake just killed thousands of people or that government neglect led to a thousand more unnecessary deaths during that same earthquake and suddenly you're in a news rabbit hole that is making you miserable. Just to be clear, stoicism does not suggest that we ignore the suffering of others, but that we do not let it impact us emotionally. We can have empathy while still being emotionally grounded.

Another important way to avoid distractions is to be present, which leads to our next routine. Practice mindfulness meditation for 10 minutes. It's known to help you focus, especially with regular practice.

Hello. This is day three of going through Marcus Aurelius's daily routine. And something that I have recently become aware of while going through this routine is the value of taking time to do things that are grounding. But taking time to do things that are grounding in a in a mindful and meditative and a uh in a productive way. One thing that Marcus Aurelius made note of in his journals that he wrote to himself is that life is always going to be hectic and busy and you're going to be dealing with people you don't necessarily want to deal with or you're going to be dealing with events and things in your life that are unpleasant and that will shake up your life necessarily. And he emphasized the importance of finding moments to yourself, finding moments in stillness, finding moments doing things that not only ground you and and keep you sane, but also these are things that you can enjoy and you can do and they're productive. Uh, for instance, Marcus Aurelius was very into boxing. He really enjoyed hunting and horseback riding and he was actually an avid raider as well. And while I go through this routine, I found a lot of joy and a lot of I'll say wholeness in taking time to do the things that I enjoy, not just for entertainment, but as a way to kind of bring myself back at the end of the day. Uh, I like gardening. Um, I keep a garlic patch. I just harvested it and I was just slowly going about it. I wasn't speeding. I I had a long day. It was very very busy. Very productive. My productivity has gone through the roof. And to an extent, my stress level has as well. Now, we're getting into how that gets managed. But I found that while I was tending to my garden and especially pulling up that garlic, um that I was just taking time to breathe and I wasn't really thinking of anything in particular. It was very very still and very calm and and meditative. And it was through that process I I was so incredibly thankful that I had this opportunity to just kind of get back to me. There wasn't any noise or or interruptions. It was it was really perfect. And I was thankful I was thankful not only for that beautiful moment of stillness. It was so quiet. None of my neighbors were making any noise, which is frankly rare for me sometimes. But I was thankful to myself for just taking this time where I wasn't doom scrolling on my phone. I wasn't watching TV. I wasn't in any conversations. I was just grounding myself and getting back to myself and giving back to myself. And I can see that would have helped a busy and important individual like Marcus Aurelius. But I also have started to come to understand how that can help honestly anyone. Now, I'm obviously I'm not a Roman emperor. I'm not protecting my nation. I'm not trying to get them through plagues or natural disasters. I'm just recording a video blog for people who are interested in philosophy like myself.

One point that Marcus often returns to is the idea of being present. You don't need to worry about tomorrow. It's out of your hands. You only have control over your reactions to what comes now.

"Stop being jerked like a puppet. Limit yourself to the present. To direct your thoughts is to what is said, to focus the mind on what happens and what makes it happen."

How can we be calm about what happens in the present if we can't even live in the present? This attitude is a nice way to address the anxieties that prompt us to look too much towards the future. We often neglect the people around us and the things that we have to do by mentally escaping the current moment and worrying too much about what's to come.

To develop a routine for being present, we looked even further back than the Roman Empire. Around 5th century B.C.E., Siddhartha Gautama, known widely as the Buddha, developed a practice called mindfulness meditation. It was a way to quiet the mind by being present, focusing on things like one's breath only. Similar to Marcus Aurelius, the Buddha wanted you to be more in the moment so you could focus more on what's important. For the Buddha, this meant meditation further on suffering, its cause, and the way out. For the emperor, it was to focus on your mind and primary goal. It's a method that's still widely used today and well supported by modern wellness programs. I myself have practiced mindfulness meditation in the past, but I have been a little spotty in keeping up with it. This was a nice opportunity to enforce that daily meditation and I have been very happy with the results. Generally, I do feel more present each day that I practice meditation. I don't find myself as vulnerable to distractions or anxiety.

It is very easy to recommend when you experience chronic pain such as a pinch in the lower back. Remind yourself that the mind does not need to focus on the pain. It has more important things to do. I chose noon for this exercise because that's when I usually start to feel a pain in my lower back. I do a lot of writing during the day and after a few hours that pain begins to creep in and becomes very distracting.

In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius addresses pain on several occasions. He was in the last decade of his life when he wrote this book and was undoubtedly experiencing a lot of aches himself. Marcus borrows from Epicurus, a hedonist whose philosophy he generally disagreed with, to suggest that pain is always bearable and temporary, even when chronic. As Marcus explains, "Unendurable pain brings its own end with it. Chronic pain is always endurable. The intelligence maintains serenity by cutting itself off from the body. The mind remains undiminished and the parts that pain affects let them speak for themselves if they can."

This passage implies that we have control over our reaction to pain. We can separate ourselves from what we experience and choose not to pay it any attention. However, this is one that I suffered for and not in a good way. With all the writing I do and all the research I do, you know, and there are deadlines and I love my job. It's it's the coolest job in the world. I get to talk to you interesting people about interesting things and I love going down into the comments. But that's the front end of things and the back end. It's a lot of hard work. And you know, regardless of how much you enjoy something, eventually it will start to take its toll. Um, one thing that I'm keeping an eye on with how much I write for Aperture is I spend a lot of time at the computer. So, I want to be aware of and just monitoring my levels of back pain because I'm I don't have the best posture when I'm at my computer. I tend to be kind of bent over, my shoulders are forward, but also um my wrists, you know, I I I want to be careful about RSI, repetitive strain injuries. And one thing that Marcus Aurelius said was, if you have a goal in mind, you can focus on that instead of the pain. Let pain speak for itself, but don't let it become what drives you. I haven't formulated my opinions too much because I'm only on the third day so we'll, you know, withhold judgment. But so far that's been a little difficult, but I'm not saying it hasn't been successful. I'm able to kind of push through and get the work done, but I don't know if that's going to a great place.

Marcus teaches that if we focus on our goals, we can forget about pain more easily. But ask anyone who lives with chronic pain and you'll see that's not really possible. I used to play soccer when I was younger and there were times my toe would literally burst open and I'd keep playing and I wouldn't feel any pain until I was done. But that wasn't because of focus. It was because of the adrenaline that was pumping through my veins. It's in ideas like this that we see that not everything Marcus Aurelius believed in is still applicable today with the advancements in science and technology that much is expected.

Yeah. You know, I think it's in it's in periods like this where you kind of have to, you know, take the advice with a grain of salt. Um because while, you know, some of these things sound good in theory, you know, that's just not how the body works. that, you know, with the better science that we have today, we just know that, you know, that's not how the body works.

Absolutely. Um, things have moved on quite a bit since, uh, since the good old Roman days. Uh, scientific progress, for instance, has taught us that pain isn't just something that you can fight away with a strong mind. It's a lot a lot more than that. Uh and especially for people who suffer from chronic pain. You know, this isn't something you can wish away. This is something you experience almost every moment of every day. And it's way too simplistic and really, really not helpful to say, "Oh, well, just fight through it." It's a disease that requires treatment and not just mental toughness. Even though it can be beneficial to a degree, you won't solve the problem that way.

Bring to mind a person you know of or are aware of who you don't care for. Now think of a virtue of theirs and spend 5 minutes writing about it without any negativity or with any praise.

Hey everyone, this is me Cole in the middle of day four. I was going through my routine and I thought um I'd let you in on something but also tell you about how Marcus Aurelius's routine is actually really helping me out with something personal. Now you may have noticed I have a different backdrop right now. Um what's going on is I am out of town for a family member's wedding actually which you know it's it's a day of celebration. So, I'm going to bring that in as context and tell you something a little bit of something about myself. You know, I've been on this earth for a little over 30 years now. So, I've found ways to deal with it to an extent, but I have been I am and I'm going to guess in the future I have some social anxiety. Uh, it's I don't think it's crippling, but it can add up and it can get really nasty sometimes. You know, I I shouldn't be complaining about a wedding. It's it's my family is going to be there. Uh, but so are a bunch of strangers. And sometimes that can be scary. Uh, and I you know what? I'm sure I'm not the only person on this earth who has social anxiety who struggles with that sometimes.

There's a quote when I was researching this that I read and I had to kind of push myself away from the computer. Uh, I'll read it to you now. It's one of Aurelius's meditations on people. "When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself, 'The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly.'" and and for someone with with um you know a moderate amount of social anxiety, I read that and went, "That doesn't help me at all. What's that supposed to do? How is that supposed to help?" But he goes on to explain that that meditation isn't meant to be pessimistic. And that line has been studied a lot. Um it's not pessimistic. It's not assuming the worst in people. It's preparing you. So, it's it's realistic in a way, but it's also it's a bit of a mental exercise. It's something I've been thinking about a lot today because I'm going to have to I'm going to have to smile like I mean it. I'm going to have to meet a lot of people I don't know. I'm going to have social encounters that don't go my way. People might get mad at me for things where I don't feel like I've done anything wrong. People might be having a great time. Uh people might be hard to deal with, people might be easy to deal with. These are all things that will happen to me and will happen to everyone who goes out and and meets people and and is around people. But I think the more I've thought about it, the more I've meditated on it, it sounds very negatively focused, but it the line goes on to say, "These are things you can't control. You can't control how people are going to perceive you. You can't control how people are going to first see you, what kind of mood they're going to be in, uh what they're going what they've already gone through in their day, what they're going through in their month, their year. They can have any number of things that are going to give them a negative view of you or or that are going to cause you some grief in your day."

It's one thing to react calmly to the hardships brought on by the natural world, but it's entirely another to deal with other human beings. In his book, Marcus put a big emphasis on other people and humans as social animals. He even considered people to be our proper occupation. This attitude towards others likely stems from his stoic beliefs and of course his responsibility as the co-emperor of Rome. For the Stoics, we all share the same logos. To hurt others is to harm the same divine intelligence in us. Rational beings exist for another. As Marcus says, "Everything is connected to the logos and that includes us. Things push and pull on each other and breathe together and are one." Modern society is especially connected. What we do impacts everyone else, even if only in a small way. What happens in one country impacts many others. Writing something scathing online, for example, has the potential to influence and cause harm to many others. Meanwhile, we all share a lot of the same goals and desires. We want to love and get along for the most part. But at the same time, we shouldn't depend on others for our happiness. We have to be indifferent to how others act towards us. Remember, what happens is all part of a determined universe; it it is still beyond our control.

When we help others, we can't expect them to be lifted and thrive. Like the archer in Epictetus' example, we can only shoot the arrow with the best knowledge we have at hand. Once it leaves our bow, it's out of our control. To avoid resenting others, Marcus takes to admiring the strength of others. "Nothing is as encouraging as when virtues are visibly embodied in the people around us." To practice this attitude, I thought I could think of virtue similarly, but to throw in an extra challenge. I would think exclusively of people I don't like and consider their strengths. This wasn't easy, but it did help calm my animosity towards those people that I wrote about. When I thought about them again, I wasn't immediately overwhelmed with anger or disgust. I felt more indifferent than before.

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During dinner, take a moment to write down an objective description of your meal. Describe your meat as a dead animal, your vegetables as dead plant matter, and your fruit as a vehicle for delivering seeds.

It's meal time, which is a great opportunity for another stoic-inspired routine. We all have our food preferences. For some, that can mean we react poorly when we have to eat something we would not choose for ourselves. Pleasures in general can inspire attachment to things being a certain way. Marcus considered this a problem to overcome. That's why he drew on the Stoics's theory of perception to analyze things more objectively. The Stoics believed that when we perceive something, we often distort the sensory data with emotion. We may even add value judgments suggesting that something is good, bad, or even evil. But these judgments are false. If your house burns down, for example, it is just a wooden object exposed to heat and undergoing combustion. It's not objectively a terrible tragedy, and you don't have to accept that interpretation. The Stoics suggest that we must maintain an objective perspective, not allowing our feelings and judgments to cloud our perception. Remember, this event is beyond our control and serves the ultimate good.

Marcus Aurelius reminded himself routinely to take on a more objective perspective of the joys and the displeasures of life. This is well characterized in the following passage. "Always to define whether it is we perceive to trace its outline so we can see what it really is; its substance stripped bare as a whole unmodified and to call it by its name the things itself and its components to which it will eventually return."

Here's an example of Marcus practicing this process specifically in relation to food. "Like seeing roasted meat and other dishes in front of you and suddenly realizing this is a dead fish, a dead bird, a dead pig, or that this noble vintage is grape juice and the purple robes are sheep wool dyed with shellfish blood."

Marcus's guidance on this routine is straightforward. I took out a pen and wrote about my meal using objective terms. I described my pizza as dead plant matter, specifically dead ground wheat and active yeast. Bits of rock salt crushed dead tomatoes, cow fluid intended

Hello, this is going through Marcus Aurelius's daily routine. Of course, started on day one, and I've been chewing on it a little bit over the course of the past 3 days. And I think now I'm ready to talk about it. It's not something I wanted to go into halfcocked. It's something I wanted to ruminate on a little bit. And this is a big principle in Stoic philosophy. And that is the momento mori or remember that one day you are going to die. It's something that charged a lot of Marcus Aurelius's work.

Fact about Marcus Aurelius to anyone who doesn't know is with his wife he had 13 children and by the time Marcus Aurelius passed away only five of his children had survived. A regular part of Marcus Aurelius's routine was as he was going through tucking his children in, going over the last of his work, thinking about the day that had passed, he would remind himself that this day had been a gift, that he had made it through, that his children and his wife and everything he held dear had made it through the day. He woke up and everything was still intact.

It was a gift, not something that was given, but something that was earned, something that he could and should be grateful for because this is something that we aren't as connected to nowadays, but back then, uh, mortality was just around the corner. It could be a plague. It could be any number of things. Uh, a nick or a cut that you get on a Wednesday. Could be a fatal infection by Friday that they just couldn't treat. So Marcus meditating on how close mortality, how close death was was a part of his daily routine. And it was that constant facing down of death that looking it straight in the eyes that founded a lot of principles of stoic philosophy. You know, be aware that every day that you have is a gift. Be grateful that Belgos, the the divining force of the universe, has allowed you another day on this earth. And it's what allowed him to undergo a lot of his trials as emperor and as as a father and as a husband and as a person with this strength, with this sense of purpose because you might not have tomorrow.

We live in lives of relative comfort. Most of us do nowadays and it's not something that feels as present today as it would have back then. You know, we have medicine. The advances in the medical field have been leaps and bounds. And the things that could kill you back in Marcus Aurelius's day are treatable within minutes. So, we are a little bit more detached from that grim looming spectre, that momento mory. But I think we can all benefit from going into and coming out of a day just reminding ourselves that death comes for all of us. And regardless of what our station is, what our affiliation, who we are, how much money we have, how much money we don't have, we all end up in the same place at the end of the day. Um, and it that gives you perspective and I hope it it gives you a sense of gratitude for what you have. As things get hard or as I'm looking back at what I've done during the day, it has been incredibly useful for me and incredibly gratifying for me to look back on that and say, well, you know, anything could happen. But it's that perspective that ultimately has you wake up at the start of the day and say, you know what, I'm still here. Let's let's make something happen. Let's do something. Let's push this forward because again, as Marcus Aurelius has correctly put, we might not be here tomorrow.

I do actually want everyone to try this because it is has been so monumentally helpful. It's not something that I've put into thought this much since I started this program. Um, you know, I I'm again starting my day, ending my day, just giving quiet thanks. It doesn't have to be an hour. It doesn't have to be part of your meditations, but just take a moment, say, "Okay, I'm still here. In spite of everything, I'm still here."

In meditations, the Roman emperor often recommends embracing the transient nature of life. Change is the only constant in life after all. This is where Marcus Aurelius is drawing on some non-stoic philosophers such as Heracitis. Heracitis is best known for the supposed saying you cannot step into the same river twice. In his view, everything in our lives is characterized by change. Similarly, the Buddha suggested around the same period in time that nothing is permanent. The most significant change in our lives is death. Death is an inevitable part of living. And just like any other change, it is beyond our control. It is an inescapable part of nature. Marcus believed in accepting death no matter the outcome. As he expressed in book three of meditations, "You boarded. You set sail. You've made the passage. Time to disembark. If to nothingness, then you no longer have to put up with the pain and pleasure or go on dancing attendance on this battered crate. Your body so much inferior to that which serves it."

For this routine, writing about a big change in objective details helped me feel more detached from it. I chose some events that were painful to me, including death, and wrote down the bare descriptions. And I enjoyed this process a lot, and I think I'm going to keep it up. Write down a moment in which you received a lot of congratulations and describe what that will mean in the distant future.

>> Yeah. So, how was your experience? Do you feel more a week now than seven days ago? Like just how do you feel?

>> Uh I I certainly do actually. Um I came away from this with a newfound appreciation for stoicism as practiced by Marcus Aurelius. There are things that didn't gel. His approach to pain management just wasn't for me. And I think on a more humorous note, his approach to food really didn't work for me either. you know, I'm I'm a bit of a foodie. Um, but I think in regards to stoic practice on a day-to-day basis and especially just task management and priority and focus, yeah, I I think the Stoic teachings as practiced by Marcus Reles have been hugely helpful to me. um uh I'm going to be carrying those with me uh for a long time until you know until something better comes along until a new method comes along that I can integrate with my lifestyle. But I don't think I would catch flak from Marcus Aurelius for saying that because that's what Marcus Aurelius himself did. He integrated what worked and got rid of what didn't.

>> That sounds amazing.

>> Marcus often humbled himself by observing the transient nature of life. Everyone dies in the end, whether they are remembered in the history books as great people or whether they lead a solitary life in the hills. Here's a passage that I enjoy a lot. Alexander the Great and his mule driver both met the same fate. In his writing, Marcus often rejected the pursuit of praise and applause. If everything perishes, what does your reputation matter? you'll ultimately be forgotten like fallen trees and old fruit. It's funny to think of Marcus Aurelius writing this when he's very much remembered now and will probably be remembered for a long time still. Eventually, however, he will be correct and he will be forgotten. Our pursuit of attention can often get in the way of doing what's best for others and even ourselves. In the social media age, how many of us degrade others for the chance of getting likes and reposts or comments that praise our epic takedowns?

For this routine, I decided to think about the heat death of the universe. No matter what we do, we'll not only be gone, but even planet Earth will be utterly irrelevant and for no one and nothing to bear witness. To be completely honest, I found this exercise kind of depressing. thinking in this way made everything feel kind of irrelevant. And while I do believe pursuing praise too much is obnoxious. We live in an age where our livelihoods often depend on publicly recognized achievements. To get good employment, it's better to have a presence online, especially on platforms like LinkedIn. I can't say I enjoy the modern demand to show our W's at every turn, but it's hard to ignore the reality of our importance in pursuing meaningful work.

At the end of the day, write down an emotionally trying experience that you had and how you reacted. It's now time to take stock of my progress as a practicing stoic philosopher. Life is always going to be hectic and busy and you're going to be dealing with people you don't necessarily want to deal with. These are things you can't control. You can't control how people are going to perceive you. And regardless of what our station is, what our affiliation, who we are, how much money we have, how much money we don't have, we all end up in the same place at the end of the day.

The ultimate goal of this exercise was to see if the meditations of Marcus Aurelius are relevant enough today to impart calmness and tranquility as they possibly did back in his time. Or as Marcus says, to be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over. It stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it. When I look over the end of the day notes I made documenting my daily progress, I do see some notable changes. By halfway through the week, my reactions genuinely seemed calmer. I started to feel more at ease when a few problems popped up. Things like controlling my emotions to the news, meditation, and daily reflections have genuinely elevated my life and made me a much more peaceful person and I will definitely be sticking with them moving forward. I do however have a fairly big hesitation in recommending a full embrace of this routine.

I just wanted to shoot this quick agenda video. Um, probably won't be very long, but I wanted to just say a little bit more about Marcus Aurelius's approach to his own physical health and how different situations are now in our modern day. It goes without saying that we have come to understand a lot more about the human body uh and health and what we need to do to properly maintain these bodies. And somewhere where Marcus Aurelius and I differ is in a view of the longevity of our bodies. Um Marcus Aurelius passed away I believe in his early 50s. You know, we now expect a longer life in our day and age. And part of that comes with respecting our bodies and respecting our health. And I think there's some virtue in understanding when it's time to stop. You know, when when it's getting to be too much for our body. We can push super hard, burn ourselves out, and have some serious problems by the time we're in our middle age. Or we can slow down a little bit. And as much as it seems like we're doing the irresponsible thing by stopping and slowing down and taking stock and making sure we're healthy, I think there's a providence in um making sure that over a longer time span you're able to work more efficiently, but also more safely. Our life expectancy is now into the 80s. And if we take our time and really make sure that we're taking care of ourselves, we can be healthy and capable and a a functioning part of society well past when uh people would have been passing away back in the days of Roman civilization.

Because to be quite honest, I found it a bit depressing. Being objective about the joys and pains of life really neutered my responses all around. But hey, maybe that's the price to pay for being a stoic. Ultimately, I don't think that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make right now. At least not completely. But I do believe that's something Marcus Aurelius would be proud of because as I said earlier, he's not one that was bound to one specific way of thinking. He was a big proponent of taking what works from one philosopher and infusing it with another, which is exactly what I'm going to be doing moving forward. And to answer the question we had at the beginning of the video, can stoicism still help you live a happier life 2,000 years later? The answer to that is no. Definitely not happier, but more peaceful? 100% yes. And I think peace is a more worthwhile pursuit than happiness.

Are you a practicing stoic or is there anything from this routine that you do regularly? Share your experience with us in the comment section below. We would always love to hear your thoughts. And you can click this video next to watch our documentary on how the manosphere has co-opted stoicism and turned it into a billiondoll scam. Stoicism is changing.

>> No, I've been reading Marcus Aurelius's meditations. Wow. Um I listen to it in the sauna. It's really intense because you're thinking the these are the the writings, the direct writings that we have from a guy who lived 2,000 years ago and was running Rome.

>> Stoicism.

>> Stoicism.

>> As someone who has covered and studied stoicism for years now, I've noticed something strange happening. If it was just another celebrity trend, then it's whatever. But what's happening is much worse than that. This ancient philosophy that was once a guide to living a good and fulfilled life has been co-opted by the manosphere and turned into snake oil. Sold as the magic pill of fame, fortune, and everything in between.

>> Andrew, you need to be more misogynistic. This woman just spilled my coffee, [ __ ] Bring some paper towels. We're doing a [ __ ] podcast. Stoicism is not not feeling emotions. It's feeling the emotion and going, "Okay, stoicism. Stoicism is stoic." My question is why stoicism? Out of all the other philosophies out there, why this one? In fact, why philosophy at all? Why do a bunch of macho men who laugh in the face of intellectualism cling on to the most intellectual ideologies? To find out how stoicism became this billiondoll scam, we interviewed experts, took a stoicism course, and watched more AI generated stoicism videos than I'd like to admit. What I found out is that the rabbit hole goes far deeper than you could ever imagine.

>> For example, you see you see a woman getting killed, for example, and you are stoic.

>> The purpose of broicism isn't to educate, inspire or enlighten, but rather to trick and exploit impressionable viewers.

>> Men are being conditioned to be weak. And you know, you're being told, yeah, it's good to be emotional. Young men should be emotional. But it should show that if you want to become successful masculine, if you want to make a lot of money, if you want to date or sleep with a lot of girls, being emotional is not going to help you at all. Be stoic.

>> With the ultimate goal of making some very questionable characters, famous and filthy rich.

>> The Matrix has attacked me.

>> While on a voyage at sea in 300 BC, a wealthy trader called Zeno was shipwrecked along with all of his cargo. Instantly, this wealthy man lost all that he had. After losing everything, Zeno learned that we have very little control over what life throws at us. However, what we do have control over is how these things affect us. He realized that although he couldn't control the weather or the sea, he could turn his loss into something positive by using his experience to teach others about how to overcome difficult situations. In doing so, he created the philosophy of stoicism. Stoicism grew quickly across all segments of Greek society and beyond. From Zeno, who many believe was a foreigner with roots in modern Lebanon through thinkers like Epictitus, a former slave, Foria Katonus, the first female stoic, all the way to Marcus Aurelius, a Roman emperor and a skilled and insightful writer whose personal diaries known as meditations have become an entry point to the philosophy for centuries of Stoics up to the present day.

In the centuries following Marcus Aurelius's death, stoicism largely disappeared because of Christianity. As the Roman Empire made way for the Holy Roman Empire, everything in the Holy Gospel was treated as, well, gospel. And just about everything else was regarded as primitive pagan nonsense at best and at worst the express lane to hell. All of that changed in the midentth century thanks to largely a handful of unrelated characters. a psychiatrist, a psychologist, and a soldier. But before we get to that, while working on this video, we dispatched four members of the Aperture team to explore the endless variety of stoic tools being shared and sold across the internet. Of course, all the classic stoic writings from Zeno through Marcus Aurelius have been in the public domain for thousands of years and are freely available with a quick Google search. some of the other stuff. Well, as you're about to see, that will cost you.

>> Okay, so for the next 7 days, I'll be learning everything I can about stoicism and trying to apply it into my life using only free resources.

>> All right, so this just came in. I received my stoicism uh game card, 50 prompt cards that, you know, contains pretty much a lot of insights and sayings from the great Stoic. All right, for my stoic journey, I'm going to be talking to a stoic coach, but not just any coach. He's just some guy that I found on Fiverr for like 30 bucks. So, don't expect anything crazy. I'm not expecting much from this, but hey, he's selling a service and I'm going to purchase it and immerse myself in some daily stoic practices. I chose to go to the number one stoic superstore on the internet, Ryan Holidayiday's daily stoic.com. I went ahead and selected a course called Taming Your Temper, the 11-day Stoic Guide to Controlling Anger. Every day, beginning with today, I get an email, I get a video, and most importantly, I get an activity to do to try to manage and control anger in in keeping with the Stoic tradition. My day one activity is something originated by Abraham Lincoln, something called burn letters. You write down some things that you carry around with you that make you angry over and over. You write them down. You fold it up. You set it on fire. And in doing so, you literally start to unbburden yourself of these things that you know we're carrying around for no reason. So, here we go with day one.

During the Vietnam War, US Admiral James Stockdale survived seven unimaginable years as a prisoner of war in the infamous Hanoi Hilton. He was shackled and tortured. His leg injured during his initial crash landing in enemy territory was cruy and repeatedly rebroken. He was paraded around and humiliated for propaganda purposes. After his release, many asked him how he was able to survive such a gruesome experience. And his answer became what is known today as the Stockdale paradox. It goes something like this. In Admiral Stockdale's experience, prisoners of war who held out hope that a release was always just around the corner eventually grew discouraged, gave up, and died. Stockdale believed he along with his fellow survivors were able to endure only because they didn't hold out hope for freedom. Instead, they made peace with the life even in the most brutal and dehumanizing circumstances. Instead of waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel, they embraced the darkness within it. And not surprisingly, throughout his ordeal, he took direct inspiration from history's most famous slave turned stoic, Epictitis. Stockdale, a Medal of Honor winner and later a vice presidential candidate, published a celebrated book entitled Courage Under Fire, testing Epictitus' doctrines in a laboratory of human behavior. And suddenly, James Stockdale became the most famous stoic in over a millennium.

Meanwhile, stoicism was also enjoying a renaissance in the emerging world of psychotherapy. And this is Masimo Pigluchi, philosopher, biologist, and author of how to be a stoic. The history of modern stoicism really started with the invention of cognitive behavioral therapy in the 1950s and early 60s. That's because the major people that started that uh that approach to psychotherapy you know like Beck and Albert Ellis were directly inspired by the ancient stories especially Marcus Aurelius and and Eictus. So there is a connection there and that connection is important because since cognitive behavioral therapy is arguably the most the best evidence-based uh psychotherapy available today. So in other words it works. Uh, it also indirectly shows that stoic techniques work.

>> Ellis went so far as to say that the best way to sum up the spirit of CBT was a quote from Admiral Stockdale's favorite philosopher, Epictitus. Men are disturbed not by things but by the views which they take of them. Although giants in their field, neither Albert Ellis nor Aaron Beck were celebrity gurus by any stretch. If Instagram had existed back then, put together, they wouldn't have been as popular as a single picture of Danville Bilzerian's boat. But thanks to them, seeds had been planted that would bear unexpected fruit 40 years later.

>> The other thing that happened was there were already millions of people around the world who read the meditations of Marcus Aurelius and Red Synica.

>> This is Donald Robertson, a cognitive behavioral psychotherapist and author of one of the most influential books on stoicism of all time. How to think like a Roman Emperor. But they didn't hang out together. They didn't talk to each other. They didn't congregate in little groups. This is Jules Evans, a historian and author of another influential book, Philosophy for Life.

>> And that changed in the 1990s with the development of the internet.

>> The internet allowed this kind of diaspora of Stoics around the world to form online communities and that's how it it developed into a movement in a way that it was never able to before. It was in this renaissance that Marcus Aurelius became a character in one of the most iconic movies of the last few decades, Gladiator.

>> Russell Crow is really into Marcus Aurelius and he wanted to feature more of his philosophy in the movie, but Rachel Harris depicts Marcus Aurelius in the first act of that movie. There's little kind of tantalizing glimmers of Stoic philosophy in it referenced actually. Um, and lots of people went out and read the meditations after they they saw that movie.

As the Spaniard was seeking gladatorial glory on the big screen, the internet age was coming into full bloom. Silicon Valley, some formerly sleepy San Francisco suburbs, suddenly became one of the epicenters of human civilization. Society altering innovations, email, e-commerce, e everything were emerging regularly. Vast sums of wealth were seemingly created overnight. People were interested in what made this brave new tech world tick. The Silicon Valley life philosophy is embodied by a bunch of smart people who look at everything as a system or as a machine, including themselves. For every problem in life, there is a life hack. Why read a book when you can listen to it double time? Why get a good night's sleep when you can chug a coffee, pass out for 20 minutes, and then get back to work after a refreshing and restorative napino? to the Silicon Valley mindset. Worrying about things like finding angel investors is a bug in the system that needlessly eats up processing power. And so to manage that, they turn to cognitive behavioral therapy, the ultimate brain hack, and its unexpected traveling companion, stoicism. The phenomenon of Silicon Valley CEOs jumping on the bandwagon in some ways is is kind of some sometimes it's sincere, but sometimes it's this kind of superficial thing of stoicism is trendy and I want to be a part of that or I like stoicism because I saw this cool quote on the internet which is perhaps completely fabricated and not something that an ancient stoic ever actually said.

This stoic revival might have just been another here today gone tomorrow Silicon Valley fad like hyperloops and juice machines that really just squeeze packets of juice for you were it not for one of the major characters in our story Ryan Holiday. There are entrepreneurs who've done incredibly well just repackaging stoic maxims. When I brought out my book in 2012, my publisher said, "Why don't you bring out a book of stoic maxims?" And I said, "That sounds boring. What an idiot. I could have I could have made lots of money doing that." And others did. Holiday found bestseller success with his stoicism self-help book, The Obstacle is the Way. The Obstacle is the Way was published with help from Holiday's friend, Silicon Valley angel investor, and celebrity lifestyle influencer Tim Ferrris. It's hard to imagine a more potent duo than Holiday and Ferris for popularizing stoicism in the mainstream. Who knows how many thousands, even millions of people have been exposed to stoicism because of these two. Credit where credit is due, the obstacle is the way is a solid starter kit that has launched many readers on a path to genuine stoicism. I am familiar with, you know, Ryan's work and I know Ryan and I've read The Obstacle is the Way and I thought it was quite basic, but that's its strength. I mean, he he he pitches it at a certain level at a certain sweet spot which really carries. And I I don't know what percentage of his millions of followers go from his work to buying Marcus Aurelius's meditations or Epictitus' discourses. I would think it would be very high. I mean like I wish I was as good as at marketing as him.

>> The issue is that the obstacle is the way also launched an empire in which a bunch of millennia old wisdom was now somehow for sale. That and a bunch of shiny and some might say tacky stoicism swag. Does he sell plastic skulls or

>> I'm not sure.

>> One thing I found interesting was that before becoming a full-time promoter of stoicism, Holiday's previous jobs had all involved helping big corporations sell stuff. His previous book was called Growth Hacker Marketing and the one before that, trust me, I'm lying.

>> Look, our job is to do anything that grows the business. And Holiday did indeed grow his business, opening up shop through his website, dailystoic.com. Honestly, at times it's hard to tell how much of Holiday's drive comes from a sincere desire to share stoicism with the world and how much is just a world-class salesman making a book.

>> There is a distinction to be made there between, you know, sort of selling in general and selling and merchandising. I think merchandising is a particular type of selling. Uh it's selling of things that you don't actually need for the exclusive purpose of making money. So to buy a medallion that says that has a bones and you know a skull that says momento mori you know remember you have to die that's not useful to anybody that's just a way to make money.

>> Business at the Daily Stoke is definitely booming. Ryan Holidayiday's net worth is estimated at between5 and $10 million. And with that growth hacker mentality that number is only going to keep rising. Holiday professes a sincere devotion to stoicism going back to his college days. And we don't doubt that he's telling the truth. But scrolling through the store at daily stoic.com, one can't help but wonder, what would Zeno think? Influencers and other online entrepreneurs took notice not only of Holiday success, but also of how his brand was infiltrating the professional sports world. Copies of the obstacle is the way became as common in US pro locker rooms as sneakers and ice packs.

>> If you're for instance a member of a competitive sports team, sure what people call life hacks are going to be useful. Yes, they are. But that's not stoicism. Those are just the techniques. Then you get these entrepreneurs who are millionaires and billionaires and that's massive high social proof saying stoicism is fantastic. And so that spreads out. People say, "Well, if this NFL quarterback is is using it, that sounds good to me." So, so men look to very successful men and say, "What makes them great? Is there anything that I could take on board?"

>> Gwennneth Paltro hired a kind of interior designer or something to advise her on what books to have on her bookshelf, not to read, but what ones to have in her living room. And they they recommended stoicism because it's trending. So that's how trendy stoicism has suddenly become.

>> Even the mainstream media was getting in on the act. More and more people were coming to the same conclusion. If stoicism was good enough for proathletes, Bill Gates and even Hollywood actors like Michael Douglas. Maybe it was the missing cheat code separating regular guys from achieving everything they wanted in life. So we have a lot of authors now, podcasters and YouTubers and so on and so forth who tell you things like, "Oh, you want to succeed at sports, embrace stois. You want to become rich, embrace stoicism. You want to be successful, embrace stoicism." The Stoics will be stunned uh by all of this because all of those things I just mentioned, success, money, fame, and so on and so forth, are classified by the ancient Stoics as indifference. meaning that they do not make a difference literally to the only thing that matters which is your character.

>> As awareness of stoicism grew, it became even more watered down turned into a bunch of maxims and life hacks to fix whatever life problem you had.

>> The so-called life hacks are techniques that are that are useful in order to practice stoicism to incorporate stoicism as as a way of life. Okay. But that's all they are. They are crutches in a sense. They're they're kind of useful techniques uh that um that allows you to stay on track, but the important thing is the track, not the technique.

>> I mean, life hack's an odd phrase, isn't it? It's not really one that the the Stoics would use. Other stoic life hacks.

>> It's very accessible. It's very DIY. And that makes it kind of attractive in the age of the internet. Somewhere along the way, the true message of this ancient Greek philosophy got drowned in the sea of life hacks. When it washed up on the other side, it was a mutant offspring. Something so far removed from its origins that if Marcus Reelius was alive today, he wouldn't even recognize it. Stoicism became groicism. Do I remember when the manosphere started to become a thing? In all honesty, I was a kind of Johnny come lately. every other people were saying, "Are you concerned about the stoicism being hijacked by people in the manosphere that are distorting it?" And my initial reaction was, "What are you talking about? I've I have no idea. Like, I've never seen that, you know." And I was surrounded by people that are interested in stoicism. I organized and spoke at many conferences, you know. I I thought I had my finger on the pulse of uh how stoicism was being appreciated, but I didn't know about the red pill movement and the manosphere until um much later really. Although I guess in retrospect I'd seen traces of it. So I I'd seen books earlier and articles by people who portrayed stoicism in a way that seemed quite odd to me.

>> It was around the time that my book Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations came out, which was in 2012. And some I got contacted and invited to be on a podcast to talk about stoicism and um I looked into the podcast and it was a white supremacist southern secessionist podcast. Um one of the podcast hosts was actually one of the organizers of the Charlottesville um white supremacy march. Uh and I was astounded. And I was like, h how did these people get into stoicism? Ricism in its simplest terms is stoicism that has been hijacked and manipulated to fit the narrative of the manosphere and red pill community. It's stoicism for the bros. For the uninitiated, some quick background on the quote unquote manosphere, a term, by the way, coined by a former porn star known as Ian Ironwood. The manosphere is synonymous with the red pill mentality borrowed from the Matrix movies. A mentality notably disavowed by the people who actually made the Matrix. Conceived as backlash against the general perception that feminism had gone out of control and that girls were no longer going wild in the way that real men could get behind. The manosphere, as the name implies, became a catch-all term for a network of male ccentric online communities. Everything from alpha males and pickup artists to involuntary celibates aka incelss to the alt-right, the far right, and beyond. for reasons we'll do our best to explain. Soism, or rather rowism, is now running rampant in the manosphere, causing a surprisingly contagious philosophical brain flu. Just listen to Taylor's call with a supposed stoic leader. All right, so it's been about 4 days uh since I purchased this uh stoic course on Fiverr, but uh so far I'm getting ghosted and I paid like 50 bucks for it. So yeah. So after nearly a week, my stoic coach decided to finally respond.

>> You are you are fat, Miss uh Johanna, for example. There is no reason to feel sad. Why are you telling me this? People are calling me fat. Yeah, but you are fat. And I'm going to ask you another thing, Miss Johanna. Do you want to continue to be fat or no? No. Okay. Can you take control of your diet? Hey, it's hot. It's this. It's that. Yeah, but can you actually do it? For example, you see a woman getting raped and you are a stoic. Like, you can pass through one faced if you want because that's your choice.

>> And although the rest of our crew didn't experience the same terrible lectures, you can tell that you really can't buy stoic teachings.

>> This is my day three check-in. I'm doing the Ryan Holiday Stoic.com taming your temper daily guide to controlling your anger. Every day I get something to read, I get a video to watch, and I get a physical activity that I'm supposed to do. Yesterday, day two, the instruction was to look in a mirror and make angry faces. Personally, I would say my experience looking in a mirror mean mugging felt more silly than anything. Today on day three, the instruction was uh drawing on the life lessons of the Adam Sandler movie Happy Gilmore was to learn to find your happy space. I would say I was expecting at this point something a little bit more substantial from from Stoic Content, but it's only day three. We got four more days to go. It's currently day three and after watching the videos on the first day, I started reading the classics. I've been reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelios and it's honestly such an eye opener. And the best part about it is that the book is in the public domain. You don't have to spend a penny to buy it. There are also writings from Epicurious Senica and even Zeno. So you can learn directly from the founding fathers of Stoicism without paying for any course or anything at all.

>> All right. So it's been 3 days now and uh I made it a little routine for myself. So every day I'm picking a card, reading the quotes. Uh they're mostly from Marcus Aurelius and Senica which I have to say has been a very interesting way to just um you know take 10 minutes a day doesn't take too much of your time and uh still a good way to change your perspective a little bit. So let's continue.

>> So if we had to define broicism in its pillars so to speak. Yeah, I would agree that one of them is certainly the acknowledgment that that we only control our intentions and the actions that we initiate, not the outcomes. And that is in fact consistent with stories. That's real stoicism. That's what Epictitus says right at the beginning of uh the of his manual for a for a good life. And that actually is a very healthy way of thinking about things. That's also the basis of of certain versions of cognitive behavioral therapy. rational emotive behavioral therapy for instance studied by Albert Ellis which is a type of CBT uh starts out precisely with that that kind of acknowledgement. So that's fine. But the second thing that the seem to believe is that they need to suppress emotions that they cannot afford to to be seen as weak. That is not stoicism. That is a distor that's a fundamental distortion of stoicism.

>> Too many men are being conditioned to accept weakness. You know, some of my stoic writings are used or misused in the in the manosphere and by by the the broics, the red bill stoics. Uh, and I've seen that and it's like it's, you know, you cringe and you say, "Oh, I guess I should explain myself better the next time." Unlike genuine stoicism, broicism is rarely presented as a process for becoming your best self. Like a get-rich quick scheme or a workout routine promising instant abs, bro.ism is all about results. Once unleashed in the manosphere, broism became a one-sizefits-all answer to all questions of the alpha male variety.

>> But like everything, it becomes trendy. And now what you'll find is more people become interested in stoicism because they've read articles or read podcasts than because they've actually read the Stoics. So with that, there's a risk of dilution is many of the articles contain generated content, fake quotes and things like that. So you're you're definitely now entering a phase where you get um a lot of people becoming attracted to stoicism but getting a really inaccurate uh representation of what the Stoics said. This is the unpredictability of how culture evolves and memes evolve in uh in unpredictable directions. Um someone wrote a book about using stoic techniques to win a poker championship. You know there was a stoic dating app. Let's take money. So stoicism in that sense with the dollar sign or the the Silicon Valley stoicism is a distortion because it replaces the actual stoic value which is your character, your judgment with things that the stoics themselves were very clear in saying they don't matter. Broism invariably presents overly simple solutions to complicated questions. One of the perks of broism is that it can be easily twisted into just about anything an opportunistic influencer wants it to be. It's an example of the Barnum effect, a psychological phenomenon in which vague and general audience appears to be tailored to a specific individual when in reality it applies to a wide range of people. It's like horoscopes, fortune tellers, psychics. In other words, charlatans who make a living preying on people's fears and insecurities by telling them vague nonsense masqueraded as knowledgeable insights. What prompted us to make this video in the first place is that we saw a resurgence in the popularity of our stoicism video. And when I first made the video, it did really well, don't get me wrong, but in the past year or two, it's gotten way more popular than I could have thought. In fact, right now it's the most popular video on the channel with over 11 million views. The problem is that the more popular the video got, the more comments you started to see from people who seem to know more about heroicism than stoicism. People who wanted to learn how to get rich the stoic way, how to get over a breakup the stoic way, how to turn off their emotions the stoic way. And if you're watching this and you had those questions, I want you to know I'm not judging you at all for that. I've had these questions myself, especially when I was younger. The sad reality of today's world is that there's many young men who don't have a steady adult male role model in their lives. So when male influencers who have the money, the women, the power, and the luxury these young boys dream of, it's easy to see why they get drawn to them. And the message of broism is also very attractive to these young boys. The promise that you can will yourself to become completely self-reliant, powerful, and wealthy is obviously appealing because young men are are often quite vulnerable uh and insecure about their masculinity. Um so they tend to look towards things that they think can fill that gap in their life. And if they think being tough and having a stiff upper lip is symbolic of masculinity, that that's something that they can become quite attached to as a philosophy of life. and they associate it um rightly or wrongly with with stoicism and Marcus Aurelius and guys like that.

>> Men are not into therapy culture, but they're very into stoicism and stoicism is basically therapy with gladiator metaphors. Stoicism, the ethos is quite tough love. If you read Epictitus, it's quite tough love. And I think that appeals to to men. Jules Evans believes the modern world has unwittingly created an opening for broicism to move in.

>> I think western culture has moved to a different kind of model which is blame your environment. If if you're feeling bad, blame your environment. Blame your uh economy. Blame the actions of other people. Blame a systemic injustice of some form or other. In other words, you are right to be miserable. That's kind of that that's a a very caricatured version of a certain type of left-wing argument. Um, if you make an extreme version of that argument, um, you are going to leave a a real opening for people on the right to just put forward this very basic idea and win followers. The very basic idea being stop blaming other people. Stop behaving like a victim. Stop complaining all the time. That's weakness.

In fairness, we do live in challenging times. People are looking for answers and they don't have much faith in institutions like the church or government to catch them if they fall. There's a growing sense that it's every man for himself. Some have argued that as organized religion has faded, people are looking elsewhere for a new rule book to guide them. And just like the Bible, roicism can be whatever you want it to be. It's been widely noted that many people who believe in the divine authority of the Bible have never actually read the Bible. In the same way, many devotees of broicism are too busy scrolling through their phone to actually go read classic stoic texts. That means Manosphere influencers can claim whatever they say has roots in genuine stoicism. And the odds are none of their followers will call BS. Although one does have to wonder if stoicism as it's packaged and sold in the manosphere isn't actual stoicism, why even bother calling it that? I think there has always been an audience for a certain kind of male self-help, which is maybe less geared towards healing and relationships and more geared towards like success and being a man of power, being a kind of great man. And that kind of genre I I think has has always kind of look for older traditional sources of advice whether that's you know samurai or whatever. There is a widespread problem of of this this this kind. Not only certain communities embrace anti-intellectualism and embrace certain values that are shall we say questionable at least, but they want to use cultural references, which is kind of ironic considering that these these communities tend to be anti-intellectual. But they they feel the need to have a some kind of pedigree that justifies uh their position. Once a tradition has established itself as respectable uh for whatever for whatever reasons once it had become has become particular you know sufficiently popular that people recognize it and they say oh yeah Marcos Aurelius oh yeah these are this guy or that guy then inevitably somebody tries to uh to co-opt it.

So if it's not the actual genuine content of the philosophy, what is it about the brand of stoicism that makes it so sellable in the manosphere? For starters, I think we can agree that the word just sounds kind of cool in common parlance being stoic means the strong silent type. Needless to say, this image plays well to would be alpha males. The problem is that being stoic and stoicism are two very different things. There is a difference between what sometimes we call capital s stoicism and little s stoicism. So when you when you hear somebody saying oh that person was is being really stoic usually they don't mean he's following the philosophy of stoicism what they mean mean is oh he has a he's putting a stiff upper lip. He's he's not reacting to the situation. He's he's trying to control his emotions. Uh he's trying to sort of tough it out basically. That is a psychological attitude which turns out there is now fairly good empirical evidence is actually damaging. It's not a good thing. Uh it's it's bad for your mental health if you try to be stoic with a little S. Stoicism with a capital S on the other hand is the philosophy. Although the term stoicism is often misused and misinterpreted, the basic principles of capital S stoicism are fairly easy to grasp at least compared to other philosophies. Ancient stoicism lends itself to easy to remember and highly marketable catchphrases. The phrase momento mori, a reminder of man's mortality, literally meaning remember you must die, appears to be one of Ryan Holiday's bestselling medallions. But still, why

Hasism succeeded where other formerly trending philosophies like, say, Buddhism, have not? It can't just be because people think Roman centurions look awesome and that *300* was a sick movie, can it? So, why are people in the manosphere drawn to Roman stuff? Like, why? Like it's like that, um, trend recently about how often do men think about the Roman Empire? That kind of trope. Um, is there something about it? Yeah. Like, gosh, I mean, Rome was a militaristic society. Um, it permeated Roman culture and symbolism. Um, it was, uh, autocratic. Um, and I think if you're going to exploit adolescent boys, um, which is something people have done throughout history, um, the the go-to way of doing that is to accuse them of being unmanly and drive that message home to them and then offer to solve it for them. And then, you know, you're going to refer to autocratic societies and strong leaders or despots.

Perhaps broism outshines Eastern philosophies because Buddhism, Taoism, and the like have been tainted by associations with 1960s counterculture and its modern offshoot, the touchy-feely New Age movement. It's further been suggested that the chauvinism that taints so much of the Red Pill alt-right movements is also at play. Positioning themselves in opposition to a caricature of woke liberals, bowing to the exotic superiority of Eastern wisdom. Western chauvinists insist that the great forces which have civilized and elevated man uniformly originated in the West. Perhaps that has helped drive the rise of broism.

Donald Robertson disagrees. "In my own case, I immersed myself in reading, uh, like Asian philosophy when I was a a young guy. I read like the Gita, the Upanishads, Zhuangzi, like all that kind of stuff, right? And I loved it. Um, but then when I found Stoicism, I connected with it in a different way. I don't think because I idolized Western chauvinistic values, but because I had a kind of, what I would describe as a déjà vu experience. I thought, 'Some of this stuff seems kind of familiar to me. You know, I've heard some of these concepts in our own culture.'"

"Other observers are more skeptical." "You can see that, um, kind of there's there's also a kind of traditionalist, uh, school or or kind of camp who say, like, we should go back to, you know, Western civilization's the best. Uh, we, you know, we should we should teach like the greats, we should teach, uh, the Stoics in high school and in universities, uh, and so on. That kind of, um, chauvinism, and you even see, kind of, Stoicism being taken up by by white supremacists."

It definitely doesn't hinder broism's appeal that one of the leading names in Stoicism is Marcus Aurelius. If you're going to absorb the life lessons of an ancient philosopher, might as well think like a Roman emperor, right? If I'd written a book about how to think like a Roman slave and it was about Epictetus, maybe we can test this one day. But I don't think anyone would have read it. Um, or you wouldn't, I don't think it would have sold many copies. I think a lot of people, uh, picked up *How to Think Like a Roman Emperor* because they thought Roman emperors seemed manly and powerful.

In reality, Marcus Aurelius was a skilled military and political leader. But between running an empire and writing his *Meditations*, he probably didn't have as much time to hit the gym as it sometimes appears in the manosphere. In thumbnails for videos touting the virtues of broism, Aurelius often appears to be on some heavy-duty steroids. And, come to think of it, the beard looks suspiciously modern, too.

"Yeah, maybe I'm guilty of a kind of bait-and-switch strategy here, like, but unapologetically, right? So we kind of lure them in because they want to be like a Roman emperor, a powerful, autocratic figure. And then, then when they get there, they realize it's different at the top. And Marcus Aurelius wasn't particularly autocratic, right? And he, because he'd seen through the illusions of of power, you know, and actually, I think that's a very compelling strategy."

Clearly, whoever's in charge of the algorithms on YouTube and social media knows this stuff sells. Click on a bunch of broism links for a couple of days, say, because you're researching on a documentary on the subject, and in our experience, your suggestions feed will be dead for weeks. And it's not an accident. The stuff sells. Powers that be at YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok know it, and they're all feeding in on it.

So, what exactly does broism get wrong about Stoicism? For starters, calling Stoicism a Greek philosophy, that might get you some funny looks in Greece.

"Well, there's kind of interesting trivia about the early history of Stoicism, lots of things, but probably one of the main ones is, you sometimes occasionally you'll hear people criticizing Stoicism as being a philosophy of dead, rich, white dudes or something like that, and that couldn't be further from the truth. Certainly Marcus Aurelius is a dead, rich, white dude, but he was the last famous Stoic. The founder of Stoicism was not even Greek. He was Phoenician. Um, so the Greeks saw him as a foreign immigrant, and, uh, so Stoicism was seen as an immigrant philosophy, I believe, for to begin with."

And as for the whole stiff upper lip, strong silent type thing? "It is not the case that ancient Stoics don't talk about their emotions. In fact, as, as the philosopher Martha Nussbaum said to me, 'No one talks about their emotions more than the Stoics in ancient philosophy. The Stoics, it's all they talk about: emotions.'"

Let's face it, no philosophy makes it into the mainstream without getting watered down and distorted in the process. And let's not even get started on religion. But nowadays, some online alpha male influencers have drunk so much Kool-Aid that they've convinced themselves that they're the actual experts. I've been told, and several of my colleagues have been told, several times by Red Pill so-called Stoics that we don't know what we're talking about when it comes to the interpretation of the Stoic texts, as opposed to people who just read one translation in English of that book and they think that they understood it. It's a very interesting phenomenon psychologically, sociologically, in and of itself.

The differences between Stoicism and broism. Let's start here. To the Stoics, both ancient and modern, like Admiral Stockdale, obstacles were just that, obstacles. Life was full of them, and to think that you could will reality to change was setting yourself up for failure and unhappiness. You needed to accept the inevitable and train yourself accordingly. In more modern parlance, you needed to learn how to be comfortable being uncomfortable. But to Ryan Holiday, to quote the title of his book, *The Obstacle Is the Way*. The way to what? In the world of broism, pretty much anything you think will make you happy.

This leads us to probably one of the most dangerous elements of broism. The broics have a third pillar that seems to be recurring in their writings or their discussions every time that I spend some time in that in those quarters, and that is a profound degree of sexism bordering on misogyny, and I don't use the word misogyny lightly. So these are frankly weird people who are into hyper-masculinity and tend to be seriously on the sexism/misogynist side of things and so on and so forth. One can make an argument that the ancient Stoics talk in a way that we would consider sexist. Seneca and Epictetus, from from time to time, say do say things like, you know, "Don't behave like a woman," "Don't be, don't be womanly," uh, that sort of stuff, right? And, you know, sure, that's, those were people who lived 2,000 years ago. They were a result of their own society, and we cringe today when we read that kind of stuff.

How did Stoicism ever get so far off the rails? On what basis does broism justify rampant sexism or even worse? The best explanation the manosphere can offer mostly comes down to a bad translation.

"When you ask them where the hell did you get that? Usually the answer is, 'Oh, well, the the word virtue.' Remember I said that that Stoicism is a virtue, a type of virtue ethics. Virtues are character traits, right? Things like generosity, courage, and so on and so forth. And so these people, the the bros, the Red Pill Stoics, say, 'Well, the word virtue in Latin is *vir*, and *vir* also meant men.' So, you know, again, manly men. And this is baffling because *virtus* itself was actually a translation by the Romans of the original Greek *aretē*. *Aretē* is genderless. It doesn't have anything to do with with genders, and it just means excellence."

What does broism get right? Not much, really. The goal of Stoicism and of life in general is *eudaimonia*. There's no direct translation for *eudaimonia* in English, but the closest equivalent might be well-being: basically, an extended and consistent state of peace and acceptance with both the ups and downs in life. The goal of broism is almost the complete opposite of that. It's the idea that you need a steady stream of success and external validation to feel good about where you stack up in the pecking order. The big issue isn't just that broism gives Stoicism a bad name. It's by that misrepresenting what the philosophy actually is. The exact people who could really use Stoicism are being baited and switched and fed dangerous nonsense instead.

Donald Robertson says, "If you squint, you can see a sliver of hope in the spread of broism. One thing I'd say about social media is, I think, you know, the people say dumb things not entirely seriously sometimes. It makes it seem sometimes, I think, that these views are more prevalent than they actually are. Like, I get, I'm, I'm optimistic. I give people a little bit more credit, um, than the internet. I think of Stoicism in a way as like a Trojan horse, you know? Like, people are attracted to it because they're looking for something that makes them even more manly than they are already, or even tougher than they are already, you know? Um, but inside it, what they find is a bunch of tools and concepts that resemble those found in modern cognitive behavioral therapy. Once you discover broism and then seek to learn more, like all the new visitors in the comment sections of our Stoicism videos. Hi, by the way. You start on a journey that, with any luck, can lead you to actual Stoicism. And if you think this might apply to you, then we're happy to have you because you're the reason we made this video. If you've only encountered Stoicism as practiced in the manosphere, the truth may surprise you. And speaking of using Stoicism in our lives, let's check in with our team one last time and see how the rest of their week as practicing Stoics panned out."

"All right, I just got out of my call with the, uh, Stoic coach. And like, I think when we think of broism and what Stoicism has become, I think this dude is a pretty good, like, representative of it in a way. Just the examples he used were bizarre. Like, it was always violence against you, violence against women. As someone who, like, doesn't have a ton of knowledge in it, this kind of made me want to stay away because I'm like, if this is the community potentially, if this is the people running courses, then why would I want to do this? Yeah, I think overall that call was just not successful, and I had to pay like $30 for it. So, not, not that fun."

"All right, so this is day seven today. We had a check-in with the team last week, and I was very curious to hear from my colleague's experience with this online course, and I decided to book it for myself as well. I have to say, I'm super curious to see whether or not it's going to adapt his talking points, um, also because I'm a woman, so I'm, I'm going to be paying attention to that and and see if my experience is any different from my colleague, and, uh, we'll see. So I just finished my call with V. It's the Stoic course. Overall very simplistic, nothing, no deep learning, no, no real human connection, like going deep into the subject. Nothing controversial, contrary to my colleague. Like, he didn't, he didn't go into anything completely outrageous whatsoever. So he definitely, I think, adapted to his public, which was me in that case. Yeah, just, uh, mixed feelings. I would not say that was a waste of my time, but I don't think it can provide any useful tips or life advice to people. And, uh, there are so many other resources that are actually much more interesting than that, but it was worth trying."

"This is day seven, my final check-in. I've completed the *Taming Your Temper* course from Ryan Holiday's Daily Stoic. And overall, I would say, um, I wasn't expecting a ton from this course, but I'm, I'm a big believer you can find some words of wisdom just about anywhere. But look, obviously Ryan Holiday knows that if people want to rigorously study real Stoicism, there's better places to do that than his website. That's not who he's pitching this at. And I'm sure he'd be the first to tell you, if you have like a real anger issue, it's going to take more than a 7-day email course to fix your problems. But all in all, this felt like something if you were going to set up a a program for school children to learn some basic Stoic life lessons, this would be a good course for for little kids more than grown-ups. I think I wasn't expecting a ton, but all in all, I would have to say I was somewhat underwhelmed in general by my experience with the *Taming Your Temper* Daily Stoic course, especially considering it cost $50 to get all these emails."

"Okay, so it's the last day of the challenge, and I honestly can say I've learned so, so much. Everything you need to know about Stoicism is available to learn for free. I've learned so much, and there's still so much more that I haven't even touched. We'll be leaving links to the best free Stoicism resources in the description down below."

In conclusion, the contrast between the original Stoics and the manosphere influencers claiming to be Stoics is pretty striking. Really, the difference is night and day.

"The goal is to become a better person. Better person is defined as somebody who actually cares, gives a crap about other people, and does something about it, as opposed to just talking about it. And it emphasizes the idea that our character is more important ultimately, in terms of our the meaning of life and our quality of life, than external goods like wealth and reputation."

Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, rejected followers who urged him to give the movement he started his name. He wanted to focus on the ideas, not himself, and he rejected the pursuit of personal glory as poison for the soul. Although no doubt flattered to be acknowledged by a powerful man, Zeno is said to have declined an imperial invitation to visit Antigonus, the Greek general who succeeded Alexander the Great. It was said that Zeno avoided large social gatherings, preferring quiet study, and that he disliked verbose and elaborate speeches. Although he had known the pleasures of life as a wealthy merchant, Zeno refused to make money from teaching philosophy and instead lived a spare and ascetic life.

So what would Zeno think if he could see the world today? What would his advice be for people who wanted to follow his virtuous path? They might surprise many of the people who invoke the name of the philosophy Zeno founded in their pursuit of fame and profit. Unlike many in the manosphere, he would reject far-right nationalism. After all, Stoics coined the word cosmopolitan, which literally means citizen of the world.

"Stoicism is about cosmopolitanism. It's about considering every other human being on the planet as literally your sister and your brother."

"We're all part of one cosmic city, the cosmopolis. We're all cosmopolitans. Therefore, we should treat people, whatever culture they're in, you know, fairly and justly as a brother or sister."

He would fight inequality in all forms. The one thing that Zeno and early Stoics in particular thought was toxic was this idea of becoming alienated from our fellow brothers and sisters in the human race. So racism, sexism, you know, all these kind of prejudices and isms, you know, really fly in the face of the the fundamental goal of of Stoicism, which is achieving a a sense of harmony and unity among mankind.

And what of the manosphere itself? What do you think? What is the goal of Stoicism? A hint is that it probably doesn't have anything to do with girls in bikinis.

"To put it more simply, it's to achieve your innate potential as a rational, self-aware, thinking being."

Zeno arrived at the principles of Stoicism when a disaster outside of his control forced him to make sense of life in a new and deeper way. He was able to do so not by rebuilding his lost wealth and recapturing his former glory, but by developing a philosophy that would allow him to be satisfied with nothing. In the same spirit, Marcus Aurelius, during his lifetime the wealthiest man on earth, gladly parted with a substantial portion of his fortune to aid his fellow Roman citizens, saying, "The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth that you've given away."

Other recent real-life figures provide shining examples of the value of true Stoicism amidst the worst life could ever throw at us. Not just Admiral James Stockdale, also fellow prisoner of war turned senator John McCain, and Holocaust survivor turned author Primo Levi. These worthy examples of Stoicism didn't seek glory, fame, or wealth. They simply did the hard work of surviving life at its worst and coming out the other side permanently stronger. That is the way of the Stoic. And always remember, be wary of anyone who is too eager to tell you the way you should live. For in the words of Zeno himself, "We have two ears and one mouth. So we should listen more than we say."

In the city of Cyprus in 300 BC, there lived a very wealthy trader called Zeno. While on a voyage from Phoenicia to Pereas, his boat sank along with all of his cargo. Because of that single event, an event that was entirely out of Zeno's or anyone's control, this very wealthy man suddenly became poor in an instant. Imagine you were Zeno. How would you react to your entire life's work getting flushed down the drain by the sheer force of nature? What is the proper reaction? Would you be angry, sad? Would you feel life has cheated you? For most of us, these would all be normal reactions. But not for Zeno, the father of Stoicism. One small change lasts an eternity, and one small reframing of your mindset can cascade into larger and more impactful changes later down the line.

The core of Stoicism is the very definition of acceptance and indifference. After reading the works of Socrates and other great philosophers, Zeno created and taught Stoicism. According to Zeno, although we don't have much control over what happens to us, we do have control of how it affects us, and we must use this control to great effect. Rather than crying over spilled milk, or in this case, drowned goods, Zeno focused on maintaining his composure over the situation, remaining calm and neutral despite his predicament.

Today, people inadvertently view Stoics as people who cannot be broken, people who don't often linger to the emotional extremes, going through things like fits of rage or bouts of anxiety. But the original idea behind Stoicism was much more than that. Rather than just a way to describe people who are unemotional, Stoicism was a way to view, describe, and understand the world. It was a way of life. And that way of life has lasted for centuries. Stoic philosophy can be applied to situations today the same way it was applied thousands of years ago, and its benefits are just as impactful. Stoicism allows us to process these negative emotions from negative experiences and turn them into the thoughts that give us a unique perspective of the world. Perspective is everything, and everyone in the world has different experiences and thus different perspectives on things.

Since the Stoics gathered, discussed, and taught philosophy in a public place, their general philosophy was widely known. They believed that the Stoic principles could greatly benefit anyone and everyone. And so, it didn't make sense for them to hide that knowledge behind the four walls of a school or of the palace courtyards. As a result, everyone from slave to emperor could learn and become a Stoic. And they did. Some of the world's most notable Stoics include Epictetus, which translates to "acquired," as he was once owned as a slave; Seneca, who was a well-renowned statesman; and Marcus Aurelius, a Roman emperor and one of the most powerful men to have ever lived.

The early Stoics practiced what they preached, avoiding all forms of segregation and leading the fight against inequality. They even invented the word cosmopolitan, which literally means citizen of the world. When people hear that word now, we think of cities like New York, Toronto, Dubai, and London because of how diverse they are. This was the type of unity and togetherness that the Stoics preached. Even at a time when it wasn't popular, women were allowed to freely learn about Stoicism and become Stoics themselves.

So, why did so many people adopt Stoicism as a way of life? In a world full of unexpected turns of events, our emotions can tend to get in the way of things. In reality, we don't really get sad because bad things happen to us. We get sad because unexpected bad things happen to us. Rain is a good thing. It helps to water our plants, provides water for livestock, and keeps the temperature cool and humid. But the truth is, when that dark cloud catches you outside without an umbrella, it's never a good experience. So, why don't we start crying once it starts to rain? It's because although the situation is bad, we've learned to expect rain. It's something that is unavoidable. We can't control the weather. Although it sucks, the rain passes, and the light returns. Stoicism teaches us that in the same way, we should expect that everything bad that can happen will happen. Picture the worst outcome and be content knowing it could happen.

One of the Stoic exercises is known as voluntary discomfort, an exercise aimed at increasing feelings of gratitude. Sleep on the floor of your kitchen, taking cold showers when you normally take hot ones. Eat nothing but potatoes for a few days. Things like this. This exercise helps you to understand that no matter how hard it gets, you'll still survive and potentially thrive if your mindset is right. By being able to withstand these uncomfortable situations, we indirectly prepare our mental for future misfortunes.

With the current state of the world where advertisements are constantly being shoved down our throats, we're made to believe that if we don't have the next best thing, look a certain way, or make a certain amount of money, that we will never be happy. This message is more important now than ever. We enter the world not knowing much of anything. We grow up being taught things at home, in school, and by observing the world for ourselves. The thing is, a lot of times all three of these sources of knowledge teach us in different ways. The question is, do we need to internalize all of this knowledge? If we do, we could unknowingly be setting unrealistic expectations for our lives, leaving us ultimately disappointed and unsatisfied in the end. That's no way to live.

We should instead focus on improving ourselves for ourselves. We should do things for ourselves and only for that reason. Attaching any external hope or secondary attachments to the actions we take almost always lead to disappointment. Most of the time, we end up trying to fulfill that emptiness with external things. Blowing all your money on a fancy car, a house, or even starting a family. Sometimes we do all of these things for their external value and not their internal value. But Stoicism teaches that if you approach life this way, you place your happiness in the hands of external forces. Forces that can always fail. Cars almost always break down. Natural disasters wipe away entire cities, and divorce rates climb higher and higher each year.

But even the free things in life come at a cost. The cost of space, both physical and mental. As Seneca once wrote, "Learning to live with less will create space in your life for the things that truly matter to you." Instead, we must place our happiness on our intrinsic value as humans and on nothing we have or can physically acquire. We must choose to do our best to keep a cool head, regardless of what life throws at us. Because regardless of what it is we want, at the end of the day, we don't have any control over the majority of things that happen to us. But we do have all the control over how we react to those things. That is the dichotomy of control, the most important principle in Stoic philosophy.

Stoics teach that we must learn to separate what we control from what we cannot control. We need to determine our value not from things we can't control, but from the things we can. Striving towards goals is a good trait, but breaking down when those things don't go your way is, in a Stoic's point of view, useless. Making YouTube videos is, well, a lot easier than being a Roman emperor, but it can still prove to be challenging sometimes. First, you must form your idea, which takes forever. Then research that idea, scrap it because it sucks. Start over, script the video, create the video, edit it, make the title, thumbnail, and everything else before you hit upload. Everything up until the point where you click upload is all up to you. However, once you click that upload button, the power shifts to the YouTube algorithm. Still, a lot of people judge the success of their YouTube channel or Instagram account based on how many views and subscribers or followers they have. Metrics of which, for the most part, are beyond your control. Stoics teach that instead you should judge the success of your work based on the amount of effort you put in and not on the outcome of your external hopes. Trust the process.

Think about a person who has been working hard at their job for the past 6 months. He now feels he deserves a promotion, and so he walks up to his boss with his performance report. The boss says, "Thanks," doesn't grant him the promotion, and he goes home thinking he must suck at his job. He doesn't consider that the boss might have simply woken up angry. Someone else might have been better qualified at the time, or maybe the company was just losing money and couldn't afford it. He doesn't know the reason, but he's still upset. If he simply placed his value on the quality of the performance report he turned in, kept doing what he was doing to earn the promotion he wanted, he could have been much happier overall. With the right perspective, his goal wouldn't have been diminished, but just postponed.

It's this reframing of your mindset that is crucial. A true Stoic does not view their successes based on the financial gain of their ventures, but is comforted by the fact that they can live a comfortable life without all the things money can buy. These are the four main virtues of Stoicism: wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. Wisdom is being able to separate between what is internal and what is external, and the ability to choose our reaction to the things that happen to us. As Viktor Frankl said, "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. And that space is our power to choose our response." Courage: two words, persist and resist. Temperance, or moderation, is what I just stood there. Doing more with less, saying more with fewer words. While Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are fighting at the top of the Forbes list, Stoics believe that the limit of wealth should simply be having what is essential and then having what is enough. Justice is the most important of all the virtues. It instructs that no one should do harm to another because we were all born for each other to do good to one another and not to ourselves.

Nelson Mandela was one of the most famous African leaders in the world. While he was fighting against apartheid, he got sentenced to life imprisonment, where he stayed for 27 years before finally being released. When he was released from prison, he was elected president of South Africa. And thus, many people thought he was going to brutally punish all the people that had anything to do with apartheid or his imprisonment. But of course, he did not. Throughout his time in prison, Mandela read the works of Marcus Aurelius and learned many of the core values of Stoicism, all of which he practiced throughout his life. Instead of calling for the heads of the wrongdoers, Nelson Mandela urged his people to instead seek the opposite, to relax and rebuild. He stressed that the past was now beyond their control, and that the only thing they could do was find a way to move forward and build a better nation. This is the way of the Stoic.

In modern-day medicine, Stoicism is at the core of procedures like Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy and Logotherapy. REBT helps patients to identify negative thought patterns that might be causing emotional and behavioral issues. It allows you to challenge the reasoning behind all these negative thoughts with logic. And when you realize that many of them are unfounded, you can then replace them with more productive and healthier beliefs. Logotherapy, on the other hand, is based on the Stoic principle that humans are driven by purpose. Even in the darkest of situations, we can fill our lives with meaning and happiness by simply finding out what that purpose is. As many of us know, though, this is easier said than done. It's a process, much like everything else. We have to rewire the way we think. Out with the old, in with the new.

To fix our problems with happiness, we must practice self-worth. By redirecting our definition of value to the things that we can control, we can stop getting fixated on the things we cannot control. And overall, we can lead a much happier and more fulfilling life. Stoicism helps us steer through past and present storms into calmer and more peaceful waters. And if our ship sinks and we all drown, we can take peace in the fact that we lived a good life, albeit not as long as we had hoped. Because remember, everything has an end.

In the year 165 CE, a black wave of death rose from the east and quickly spread across the globe faster than anyone could have ever imagined. They called it the Antonine Plague after the reigning Roman emperor at the time, Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, lasting throughout the time of his rule. This plague claimed upwards of 18 million lives and nearly destroyed the Roman Empire that entire armies could barely scathe. But it didn't. Under Marcus Aurelius's rule, the empire thrived despite the economic crisis, the numerous invasions, and the grueling pandemic. It is precisely during times of distress that true leaders are tested, and the Caesar rose to the occasion every single time. Aurelius was a philosopher before anything else. Regarded as the last of the five good emperors of ancient Rome, a term coined by Niccolò Machiavelli in the 15th century. It was his Stoic philosophy that differentiated him from his predecessors.

During the plague, he set his ego aside and broke the mold surrounding himself with talented and experienced public servants instead of aristocrats and nobles. He listened to advice and empowered those around him to make decisions. He hired the best physicians to lead the battle against the disease decimating Roman populations and to give him the opportunity to focus on the growing economic crisis. He canceled debts, sold imperial effects and possessions, and confiscated capital from Rome's upper class to keep the economy afloat. At a time when fear infiltrated the empire, Marcus practiced self-control and inspired his people to remain calm.

As if things couldn't get any worse, late in his reign, Marcus received news that an old friend and former general, Avidius Cassius, had staged a rebellion and declared himself Caesar in an attempt to overthrow him. Marcus' response was unusual considering the circumstances, but as disciplined and Stoic as he was ever known to be. Instead of getting angry and immediately setting out to destroy the man that threatened the Empire, his family, and his legacy, Marcus waited to give the defector a chance to come to his senses. When he did not, Marcus demanded that Cassius be captured but not killed. In true Stoic fashion, he said concerning the matter, "Forgive a man who has wronged one, to remain a friend to one who has transgressed friendship, to continue faithful to one who has broken faith."

The last of the five good emperors was a student of Stoic philosophy. He was greatly influenced by the writings of Seneca and Epictetus, as evident from his personal reflections during campaigning and administration. He didn't get angry. He didn't allow his emotions to guide his judgments, and he didn't despise his enemy.