Vocabulary

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Video

 

 

Transcript

 

If I had to define Stoicism — the philosophy I’ve dedicated my life to — in just a few minutes, I wouldn’t start in ancient Greece and make my way to ancient Rome. I wouldn’t talk to you about Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. I wouldn’t read you these big books or tell you what they look like or where they were born.

I think I would start with the first exercise, which comes to us from Epictetus, a former slave. He says, “The chief task of the philosopher is to determine what’s up to us and what’s not up to us.”

And so, in a sense, that’s really the definition of Stoicism: we don’t control what happens to us, but we control how we respond to what happens to us in this life.

 

 

For the Stoics, everything was an opportunity to respond with what they called the four virtues — the touchstones of goodness, to the Stoics. They were really simple. They were courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom.

Courage: bravery, the endurance and strength, and fortitude. Self-discipline—that’s what temperance means.

Moderation, the right amount, abstaining from the things that don’t matter.

Justice—that’s fairness and honesty and good conduct.

And then wisdom — that’s the study, that’s the lifelong journey, that’s education.

That’s what Stoicism is. The Stoics believed that anything and everything that happened to us in this life was an opportunity to practice one of those virtues.

They knew stuff was going to go wrong, and stuff does go wrong all the time . . . but nothing can prevent us from using those virtues because we always have the opportunity to accommodate, adapt, and adjust.

I have this tattoo on my arm: “The obstacle is the way.” That’s a pretty good short definition of Stoicism as well. Forget three minutes — that’s five words: “The obstacle is the way.” What stands in the way becomes the way. Everything is an opportunity to be your best self, to get better, to practice this philosophy.

 

 

There’s a lot of writing in the Stoics; they wrote a lot of brilliant books. But Stoicism wasn’t about what they wrote; it wasn’t about what they said. It’s about what one does. Marcus Aurelius says, “Waste no more time talking about what a good man is like — be one.”

The only other thing I might say to someone who’s totally new to Stoicism and trying to figure it out would be that there’s a difference between what we call uppercase Stoicism and lowercase stoicism.

Lowercase stoicism is that the Stoic has no emotions, that the Stoic is closed off. Stoic, the word, is not the same as the philosophy.

The philosophy is this vibrant thing, this inspiring thing, this thing that challenges you to be better, to be who you’re meant to be.

That’s why I love Stoicism, that’s why I love talking about it.

It’s taken me 15 years to distill it down into this little block, but I hope that’s helpful to you. It’s not what happens; it’s how you respond to what happens. And you can always respond with courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom.

Hey, it’s Ryan Holiday. Thank you so much for watching our videos. Every day, I send out an email inspired by the best Stoic wisdom — Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus — all designed to help you live a better life.

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Questions

 

Thales. Stoicism is a modern way of thinking and lifestyle. Stoicism originated in New York City in the 1960s. True or false?
Parmenides. Is (the essence of) Stoicism very complex, very simple, both, neither, in between, it depends?

Socrates. Does Stoicism have one, two, three, ten, twenty, a hundred or a thousand virtues? In Stoicism, does courage mean readily fighting, going skydiving, bungee jumping or scuba diving with sharks?

Plato. Discipline means being the ideal soldier, marching in formation in a parade. Is this right or wrong? Is justice all about tracking down, apprehending, arresting, and jailing criminals?

Aristotle. “The obstacle is the way.” What does this mean?

Zeno of Citium. Does stoicism or Stoicism have different meanings?

Cleanthes. The presenter is a literature and history buff. What do you think?

Pyyrho of Elis. I studied Ancient Greek and Roman history and literature at school. Yes or no? Did you understand them? Were they interesting?

Seneca the Younger. Does Stoic, Cynic, Skeptic and Epicurean philosophy sound familiar to you?

Epictetus.. Are these well known? Are they encouraged in society, or do they contradict other ideals and values?

Marcus Aurelius. What might happen in the future?

Francis Bacon. Should Stoic, Cynic and Epicure