Millennials in the West have graduated into or grown up in one of the worst and most prolonged recessions. Granted, this isn’t 1929, and most young people caught up in it are stuck in their parents’ basement and not on the breadline. And, with that, any notion of public sympathy is generally tossed aside and replaced with calls of “toughen up” and “get over yourself.”
Increasingly, those burdened with such sweeping statements are turning to the unlikeliest of heroes. Step up, Jordan Peterson and Marcus Aurelius. Given that both men have taken the world by storm, philosophy has shown that it is a powerful antidote to chaos. Evidently, it’s not as “dead” nor as “useless” as Stephen Hawking and Neil deGrasse Tyson would have us believe. Just ask anyone trying to squeeze out that extra rep in a decked-out CrossFit gym or clocking in an extra hour of work: they’ll tell you that their highlighted copy of The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman helped.
Yet many academic and armchair philosophers make the argument that pithy quotes for a temporary courage boost or swallowed like a pain-relief pill is not philosophy at all. And maybe they’re right. Analogously, committing to throwing waste plastic into the recycling bin is not exactly an eloquent understanding of environmental issues. But before we get overly critical, let’s take a step back to contemplate the fact that an Ancient philosophy called Stoicism and an otherwise obscure psychologist (whose most cited lead-authored paper is on acute alcohol intoxication and cognitive functioning) both appeal to disenfranchised youth as much as they offer a survival strategy to operators of Silicon Valley desktops.
First, philosophy, as this blog’s name attests, moves people (at least partially) to examine their life and the world around them. Secondly, and despite the objections you might have heard from within the academic community, both Stoicism and Peterson’s philosophy have, when used as life hacks, inspired individuals who normally would not give philosophy a second glance. Undoubtedly, they have caused them to re-evaluate their views on life, death, anxiety, personal responsibility, suffering, and pain. It is not for no reason that people look to Seneca when he says in On Providence:
God himself is beyond suffering evil; you are above it. Despise poverty; no man lives as poor as he was born: despise pain; either it will cease or you will cease: despise death; it either ends you or takes you elsewhere: despise fortune; I have given her no weapon that can reach the mind.
Words of wisdom offer comfort in a hostile world beyond one’s control. Granted, millennials might live in a less violent place than Ancient Rome, but that doesn’t mean that they live without challenges. Following the banking collapse in 2008, there was no New Deal put in place to re-establish the common good that had been eroded by corporate interests. Instead, banks were judged “too big to fail,” laws were passed to deregulate Wall Street further, and far too many impressionable teenagers and young adults were led to believe that greed was good and that selfishness, rather than selflessness, was a source of strength.
Millennials have been affected on a personal level too. They are overwhelmed when the job market and salaries continue to shrink. They remain anxious to get on the property ladder, especially when their earnings and savings pale in comparison to the deposits they are asked for. And, to make matters worse, they have been frequently shown that, even if they do land a decent wage, there is no job for life, no opportunity to mature into the role, and next to no pension pot for years of service. For many, if not most, it is a case of “take the crumbs” and embark on “an up or out” mentality.
As a millennial, lack of job security does a lot of things to you. You can either decide to invest in the story that with a blog and a few half-baked ideas, your dreams, aspirations, and efforts will mimic the lifestyle success described in Tim Ferriss’s 4-Hour Workweek, or you can force yourself, as Cal Newport suggests in his book of the same name, to be so good they can’t ignore you.
While the concept in the second book is more realistic, if not entirely more reasonable, neither trajectory is easy. Both take long hours of dedication and network building. Both require more than skill and grit. They also take that master stroke of luck. And, while some may argue that luck is only a question of probabilities, you can only ever hope to increase your chance of winning if you know the game you’re playing and can play it better than others who have otherwise stacked the odds against you. Knowledge won’t cut it. A PhD (post-higher education disorder) won’t cut it. What you need, allegedly, is the ultimate life hack. And, popularized “Silicon Valley Stoicism,” concentrated and sugar-coated, at your convenience, can give it to you—at a price.
For Stoics, life is built on the progression toward virtue, with virtue alone—expressed as wisdom, justice, self-control, and courage—being the one true good. This is because it is, according to Stoics, the only guarantee for a life that is worth living. Other goods, such as wealth and status, which many adherents to Silicon Valley Stoicism chase, are merely preferred indifferents because, while one would rather have them than not, they are not sufficient in their own right to lead to anything more than a fleeting sense of happiness.
Furthermore, to believe that wealth is good, or at least something worth chasing after, means that one’s progress towards virtue is hindered by external forces outside of one’s control. By definition, such a position is foolish, and given that the fool is the opposite of a wise person, it is also in direct conflict to the higher path Stoicism calls its students to follow. To quote Seneca again, this time in On the Happy Life:
Those things that attract men’s eyes, that make them stand still, that they point out to each other, open-mouthed, shine brightly on the outside but have no value within… Accordingly the happy life is one that is in harmony with its own nature, and the only way it can be achieved is if , first, the mind is sound and constantly in possession of its sanity, and secondly if it is brave and vigorous, and, in addition, capable of the noblest endurance, adapting to every new situation, attentive to the body and to all that affects it, but not in an anxious way, and, finally, if it concerns itself with all the things that enhance life, without showing undue respect for anyone of them, taking advantage of Fortune’s gifts, but not becoming their slave.
That said, Seneca did not mean that Stoics should disparage wealth accumulation or a work promotion. However, they should recognize that wealth and professional progression will not improve one’s morality and that one’s journey towards virtue (and therefore happiness) should not be sacrificed so they can be obtained. Cicero even goes as far as saying, in De officiis, that death and poverty are preferred to wronging one’s fellow man (or woman). This view exemplifies the Stoic ideal of preserving the rational being over the physical and why, incidentally, suicide is not just defensible or permissible but the preferred or most appropriate action, if preserving one’s own life comes at the cost of sacrificing their progress towards virtue. Indeed, many prominent ancient Stoics including Zeno, Cleanthes, Cato, and Seneca are recognized as having taken their own lives, often in the opposing of imperial decisions. Marcus Aurelius, an emperor and Stoic philosopher himself, states in his journal (which later became what we know as Meditations):
Life is warfare and a stranger’s sojourn, and after-fame is oblivion. What then is that which is able to conduct a man? One thing and only one, philosophy. But this consists in keeping the daemon within a man free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures, doing nothing without a purpose, nor yet falsely and with hypocrisy, not feeling the need of another man’s doing or not doing anything; and besides, accepting all that happens, and all that is allotted, as coming from thence, wherever it is, from whence he himself came; and, finally, waiting for death with a cheerful mind, as being nothing else than a dissolution of the elements of which every living being is compounded. [Emphasis added.]
In other words, there is no “Stoic” life hack that is going to lead to meaningful success. Rather, it is the whole virtue ethos, pursued as a lifelong active commitment to striving for the full expression of one’s humanity, that will help you to progress toward a higher sense of purpose (and happiness).
In this respect, and we are sorry to break it you, there are no Stoic shortcuts or strategies. There are just choices to be made. And, as we showed in this open access journal article, the car we buy, the food we choose to put in our mouths, the phones we place in our pockets, and the clothes we have on our backs all express our values. Such values then either inch us closer to virtue or move us further away.
The danger of Silicon Valley Stoicism is that while it may help you find that extra momentum to climb the corporate ladder or to earn enough money to put a down payment on a house, it may also distract you from a more holistic and coherent comprehension of what Stoic philosophy can offer you. It will not, for example, help you to fully understand that if we are all subject to luck/fortune/fate, then no one is deserving of anything, good or bad.
The problem with life-hack Stoicism is that one typically uses it to overcome tragedy or to aid resilience when things don’t go according to plan in the negative sense, but then fails to acknowledge the role of luck when things go better than one expects. A fuller understanding of Stoic logic demonstrates that the good things that happen to us are not fully, if at all, under our control. So over-crediting ourselves or rejoicing in the good is just as foolish as over-punishing ourselves and dwelling on the bad. This reality is, in effect, what Seneca reminds us of in Letters:
My eyes shall no more be overwhelmed by the glitter of gold than by the glitter of a sword… I shall spurn with magnificent strength of purpose the things all other men pray for and the things all other men are afraid of.
Let’s be clear that, from a Stoic perspective, there absolutely should be consequences for bad behavior or poor judgement, and Stoics should be among the first to advocate for justice when money is diverted into tax havens instead of public education and health systems. But, this activism comes down to the Stoic understanding that justice is a virtue and is not something given (or not) because someone does or does not “deserve” it.
The deserving mentality is echoed in the sweeping statement that “all homeless people are homeless because of something they did.” Yet saying and believing this is as ignorant as it is untrue. It is also every bit as absurd as using “Social Justice Warrior” as an insult when there are, for instance, many developing world environmentalists that have lost their lives in the fight against guerrilla rebels and conglomerates, who are mining, ranching, and logging in the remaining rainforests to the detriment of indigenous communities and future generations. By the same logic, self-labelled Social Justice Warriors who think that social justice amounts to campus arguments about who should have dreadlocks and who shouldn’t, or who’s Hispanic enough to open a taco shop and who isn’t, should be called out on the facts and reasoned with. After all, reason, or rational thought, has no political wing and thus neither does Stoicism.
Another important consideration, under a Stoic framework and echoing the wisdom of Seneca, is that meritocracy does not and cannot exist. Yes, the American Dream does exist in the minds of many individuals (and certainly not just Americans) because a small percentage of people are lucky enough to make it. However, for the vast majority it is the work of others, passed on in the form of inheritance—not their own hard work—that is the greatest determiner of personal wealth. This is a fact pointed out by French economist Thomas Picketty, as much as it is factually asserted by Shawn Rochester in his Google Talk. In other words, it is the luck of being born into the “right” family, the “right” country, “right” gender, or “right” skin color at the “right” moment in history that will determine your odds of success more so than anything you actually put your mind to.
Consequently, it is only after “luck” is properly considered for what it is, that the nature of the game changes. It is where we stop seeking that which simply makes us better versions of ourselves and instead strive for a version that goes beyond ourselves and seeps into the rest of the world. It is where courage is transformed from the personal into the political, and where greed is seen in its true colors: a lack of self-control. It is where wisdom abounds; where we all take steps to know, in any given situation, what to do, why to do it, and how it should be done.
Does this mean that life hacks are of no value? Well, as practicing Stoics, we can say that they hold no moral value. We can also say that a nonmoral sense of value is relative. Is it better to get your words of wisdom from Marcus Aurelius quotes or Donald Trump’s Twitter feed?
A more important question we would ask you is: “Why stop there?” The price you pay in only seeking life hacks is a high one. It might save you your job or move you out of your parents’ home, but it also means that you miss the opportunity to really make a difference in your life and the lives of others. Also consider this, life hacks represent a “little philosophy” and, if we consider Epictetus’s warning in Discourses, then we should be wary of relying on them:
God save me from fools with a little philosophy—no one is more difficult to reach.
Kai Whiting is a university lecturer and researcher based at the University of Lisbon, Portugal. His specialist subjects are sustainable materials and Stoicism. He will be speaking at Stoicon 2018. He Tweets over at @KaiWhiting.
Leonidas Konstantakos is a college lecturer and researcher based at the Florida International University. His specialist subjects are Stoicism and International Relations.
I think it’s important to USE the stoic life hacks and apply them to daily life. Utilizing them to create positive change and advancement is definitely more appropriate than only relying on them when trouble presents itself. Excellent read.
Thanks Jen. It is really important to USE the life hacks… but not, as you say, over rely on them or view them as the be all and end all of what Stoicism has to offer :). Thanks for taking the time to read and comment on our article.
Kai
Good article. I take a dim view of so-called ‘life-hack-stoicism’ myself. Not that there’s anything wrong with popularizing philosophy of course, but whenever something gets a little bit of cache in the public consciousness, out come the scammers. “Get an edge on the competition by learning THIS ONE WEIRD TRICK from ancient philosophy. Leave your email below to get on our mailing list…”
What I find particularly irksome about the misappropriation and repackaging of stoicism for the silicon valley crowd is that it plays on this popular strain of anti-intellectualism that’s out there now. Stoicism, they say, is not like those other useless academic philosophies practiced by the elites that you have to waste time reading books to understand. It’s more like going to a yoga class. It’ll fit right into your busy schedule, just 10 minutes a day. After all, if you can’t learn a concept by reading a pithy quote or a quick article, it’s not worth knowing anyways.
And then you get a lot of people going about calling themselves stoics who have an incredibly shallow or half-baked conception of what the philosophy entails. And any attempt to point out that using the ‘technique’ of equanimity to more effectively pursue the same pleasures and vanities as always isn’t particularly stoic just makes you come off as an aloof elitist who’s harping on technicalities.
Elijah, what an excellent comment! I only wish I had thought of your ideas re: email sign-ups,! You picked the perfect example my dear Stoic brother 🙂 I have noted it down for the next article 🙂
Kai
The whole situation reminds me of fad diets that may work in the short term but ultimately do not fulfill the body’s nutritional needs. Similarly, “life-hack” stoicism provides some motivational pick-me-ups, but may not fulfill the deeper human need for action-guiding meaning. I am curious to see where the movement ends up: are we looking at the beginnings of a revised neo-Stoicism, or will it simply fizzle out the way of the tapeworm diet?
Hi Antonina, Thanks for taking the time to read and comment.
Just two things I need to clarify for you:
1) Neo-Stoicism was Stoicism with a distinctive Christian theological leaning. It was popular in the 1600-1700s.
2) Modern Stoicism actually began in the 1960s and has taken until around now to really take off 🙂
To answer your question, time will tell. The difference between modern Stoicism and fad diets is that these diets tend to die down when people realise they don’t work. Maybe that will be the same for what we have coined as Silicon Valley Stoicism. I doubt its true for the deeper philosophical components.
Kai 🙂
This is an interesting article. There seems much to agree with and also much to disagree with at the same time. I appreciate that the article tries to seriously engage with the struggles facing many youths today. Yet, as this article rightly notes, these challenges pale in comparison to those throughout the majority of the world’s history (a point Jordan Peterson has made). Perhaps the proper balance is one where struggles are acknowledged as is a sense of gratitude and thankfulness (i.e. thankfulness that we are not in breadlines). Although I do wonder to whom or what, on Stoicism would one express such thankfulness?
Again I agree (and appreciate!) with how this article rightly acknowledges personal responsibility, seeking empathy, and the pursuit of virtue. Yet I think it fails to address the temptations of doing the opposite or addressing the clear inclination towards vice that humans have. For example, “there absolutely should be consequences for bad behavior or poor judgement.” We tend to feel this way for others more than ourselves or we forget/disbelieve this when confronted with temptation or the possibility of doing something and getting away with it completely free. It’s not quite clear how stoicism deals with these aspects.
I was somewhat confused by the political comments (e.g. where tax money should be spent, the new deal, the bailing out of banks, etc.). On the Stoicism here, is there a political party one must be or does Stoicism allow for a wide array of political philosophies?
Hi Ben, Thank you for taking the time to read our article and to comment on it here. Firstly, as we explain here in an open access paper:: http://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/7/2/39/htm Stoics recognise the capacity for humankind to do good. When we do bad we go against our nature and fail to see our own humanity (read the article and get back to me, if I don’t properly answer your concern).
A Stoic has no prescibed way (i.e. Step 1, Step 2) of doing something or dealing with something, other than to say promoting virtue. As we say in a Daily Stoic article: “When you decide to progress towards the Stoic virtue of justice, you realise that it is your moral obligation to question the underlying assumption that it is automatically in your best interest to add x and y to your possession. At best, x and y, if things (and not virtues), are preferred indifferents, as long as having them does not become an obstacle to your progress towards virtue and (perhaps) improves your life. At worse, x and y undermine your path towards virtue because in purchasing them you buy into the processes that created them: questionable labour practices in Asian sweatshops and electronics factories, South American rainforest destruction or shady banking deals in London and New York. That does not mean that Stoicism calls for an abandonment of capitalism. In fact, for Stoics, any dogmatic adherence to Marxism or capitalism, or an unwavering commitment to a left or right wing ideology, regardless of the nature of the opinion expressed, is irrational. This is because reason, or rational thought, has no political wing and facts belong to everyone.”
The article is here: https://dailystoic.com/stoicism-beyond-the-self/ Again if we do not answer your concerns re: politics or dealing with poor behaviour on a society level, get back to me! Also if you have any further comments, I would love to hear from you. Until then, stay Stoic my friend.
Kai
Kai,
Thanks for the feedback and the article (I read it fairly thoroughly). Unfortunately, I don’t think it really addressed the point I think I was trying to get at in my initial post. I could have been more clear, but my point was regarding the possibility of generating a heart of gratitude rather than comparison for many today who feel that they were not born privileged. Is this possible on Stoicism or is there nobody or nothing to be thankful for so such conceptions of gratitude are foreign to the Stoic framework? If not, how would it work itself out in Stoicism.
I suppose I should add a comment or two that would relate to this post and the article you sent me. As you say, Stoics recognize the capacity of mankind to do good (I would add that humanity recognizes this as well, not just Stoics and assume you would agree here), but I think there are many more issues here that are important to a culture (and may help explain why they want a life hack). Why be good? Aren’t we good by nature? If not, how can we be good?
It seems, based on your article, we are not inherently good and virtuous people, we are not sages and must continually work to be good/virtuous. Yet this seems to raise more questions. If we are not inherently virtuous, where do we get these ideas of virtue (courage, justice, prudence, and self-control) from? How did the sages become sages and where did they learn to do this?
Also, how do we know that these virtues really exist ontologically. In short, apart from the prior epistemological question, what grounds them ontologically in reality? I think these are important questions as the Stoic position presented in the article is far superior to the reductive materialist ‘scientific’ description. Yet Stoicism still seems to be incomplete here as it is not clear how Stoicism is able to fully respond to such a ‘scientific’ materialistic description of reality since many reductive scientific approaches dismiss the above questions as illusory. How does Stoicism argue that they are not illusions, but so strongly grounded in reality that one should live their life according to Stoic principles?
I think you essentially answered the politics. “In fact, for Stoics, any dogmatic adherence to Marxism or capitalism, or an unwavering commitment to a left or right wing ideology, regardless of the nature of the opinion expressed, is irrational. This is because reason, or rational thought, has no political wing and facts belong to everyone.” What is the “rational” solution to a problem is emphatically different for a Marxist and a capitalist, but you seem to be saying that a Stoic could, in short, vote for Hilary Clinton or Donald Trump. There is no bearing on one’s political philosophy in Stoicism so long as one is trying to life the four virtues to the best of their ability.
Thanks,
Ben
P.S. Best part of the article, in my opinion, was pg. 2 where you all identify that forms of tribalism (us vs them) have no place in Stoicism and that all human beings are inherently valuable. It is good and important to see this, esp. in today’s climate. I agree and for different reasons (namely the teachings and person of Jesus as I am a Christian), but it was good to see others who share the opinion but argue for it from another perspective, namely a Stoic one.
Hi Ben,
Apologies for the delay in reply. We wrote a piece (Leo and I) on Jordan Peterson and it kind of blew up. Did you see it? http://modernstoicism.com/a-response-to-how-stoic-is-jordan-peterson-by-kai-whiting-and-leonidas-konstantakos/
In answer to your questions here, I do discuss some of what we think of as whether humans are good and why they might be good on this podcast, where we delve into the nature of rationality. http://justinvacula.com/2018/05/20/episode-55-rationality-with-kai-whiting/
In addition,, Leo states the following: “Why be good? Stoicism is a eudaimonic philosophy, because we want to be happy. sages become sages (if there’s ever been one by doing appropriate actions for so long that they have a firm disposition to do this that is unchangeable. We learn the good from concepts after receiving impressions, but nature herself leads us to this as human beings with genetic dispositions to sociability, courage, wisdom, etc. Not that everyone develops these, of course. Also the virtues don’t exist ontologically unless there’s a sage right now being virtuous. This is as materialistic as it gets.”.
RE: Donald Trump, it would be hard to vote for him as he is against cosmopolitianism and does not seem to have policies suggestive of the fact that all humans should be treated fairly. You would have to look closely to see whether his policies or personal behaviour aligns with justice, self-control, wisdom and courage. The same with Hilary. In my personal opinion, the problem with US politics is that there are only two parties with no real third option to stop bi-partisan politics and spats. A better example would be the German system, which for historic reasons tends to not allow for extreme ideologies. But yes, in short being Stoic does not subscribe you to any political position other than rationality. See the Jordan Peterson piece for details.
Leo states: “Theoretically, the Stoics think that all humans should reach the same conclusion to a problem, because if a problem is rational, then it is not a matter of mere opinion and rational minds will reach agreement. However, Stoics allow that different humans have different individual natures and different social roles, and in the cosmopolis there’s room for everyone.”
Anyway, check out the podcast episode Ben and get back to me if I did not answer your concerns..
Kai
Kai,
Thanks for the response! A brief word on JP. I did not see that piece, but I have listened to a bit of JP and he certainly seems more in line with Christianity although with some *significant* qualifications (made well here: https://stream.org/the-church-the-christ-and-jordan-peterson/ ). Interestingly, despite his Jungian approach, he tweeted an article regarding historical facts surrounding the central event of Christianity, Jesus’ resurrection: https://stream.org/surprising-scholarly-agreement-facts-support-jesus-resurrection/ .
I’m sure your getting tired of responding on the comments here (lol), but I don’t really think the initial points (or subsequent one) were adequately addressed and it seems some new points were raised by you (and Leo) seem to add more problems than solutions. For example, its still not clear to whom or what a Stoic should be thankful for if they were born into a certain privileged status (or even if they should have such feelings of gratitude in the first place).
Regarding the comment: ““Why be good? Stoicism is a eudaimonic philosophy, because we want to be happy.” It seems that the reason to do good is a hedonistic one in the sense of being “happy.” Of course such an understanding could be construed in a large number of ways. More problematic is the suggestion that “virtues don’t exist ontologically unless there’s a sage right now being virtuous.” Without the ontological grounding of virtues that are transcendent, significant moral issues arise. For example, torturing animals is something that brings some people a sadistic happiness. Yet if there is no real thing as virtue, how could such actions be condemned?
Interestingly, we speak all the time as though moral laws and virtues are ontologically grounded (i.e. real things) and that there is an objective standard to which all mankind is held accountable. The comment that “not everyone develops these [virtues]” suggests that there is in fact a ontological/transcendent standard of what is virtuous irrespective of Sages. If not, then it could not be stated that people are not developing virtues any more than people are not developing the force from Star Wars since neither exist ontologically.
Maybe I am misunderstanding something here, but I would appreciate some clarity on these moral issues as it seems Stoics speak as though moral virtues are grounded, but denies their ontological existence at the same time. If they exist ontologically, on what grounds do they exist. If not, are virtues merely subjective preferences?
Thanks for the clarity on the political position component. Not so much interested in what is the best political structure, but rather can a Stoic work out their Stoicism in multiple parties and it seems you would say that it can.
I do find the notion of a universal rationality interesting. On what grounds do we have to think that the human mind is aimed at truth? In other words, how would the Stoic address the famous epistemological issue of “Darwin’s Doubt”? Of course the works of Alvin Plantinga on epistemology have really shaped the philosophical discussions lately if you are familiar with them.
If I had to sum up from reading the articles and my communication with Leo, Stoicism is in many ways seeking things that Christians are also seeking, yet Christianity is able to more fully address and ground these issues in reality while also addressing the sinful problem that confronts each individual. As I told Leo after reading the article: “I kept thinking why are these guys not Christians! That may come as a surprise, but in the areas where we have essentially have the same answers I cannot help but think that Christ provides a much more robust justification for those answers.” One need not wonder if there is a Sage or how to become a Sage or any issues related to that question. Jesus has come as a definite figure in history who said and did things to give mankind the hope of forgiveness and the grounds for this hope (ontologically, epistemologically, and existentially!).
This is likely my last comment in the thread and it seems right you have the last word anyway 🙂
Thanks again!
Ben
This is a good article and hits the major points about Stoic ethics. One area to expand on is the relationship between virtue and happiness.
In Book I Chapter 4 of the Discourses, Epictetus discusses what human ethical progress is. Virtue is a means to an end. The end is happiness yes, but more specifically, serenity and peace of mind.
Using Stoic tidbits as life hacks neglects the substance of Stoic ethics. I’ll expand on this point a bit There are natural standards to which humans must work to adhere (living according to nature in Stoic terms). A person by nature, according to Epictetus, is self respecting and faithful as he/she tries to fulfill the requirements of his or her role in society within the family, work, and political environments.
Your job as a person is to be faithful and self respecting as you fulfill your roles in society, doing your best with all that’s within your power to do and choose and not worrying about what’s not within your power to control.
It is by displaying the virtues (courage, temperance, prudence, justice) that we remain faithful to ourselves and fulfill our social expectations to our family, our friends, and yes, even our boss. This is our ethical responsibility. But it’s not ethics in a boring sense. Importantly, the essential
upshot is progress toward displaying these virtues leads to the peace of mind and serenity so many of us seek.
In short, Stoic life hacks without transforming your values in accordance with other fundamental Stoic principles end up undermining the potentially greatest benefit of living Stoically — a life of greater serenity and peace of mind. This is something many of us — whatever our age or social roles — seek to achieve.
Couldn’t agree more John! Very nicely put!
Thanks for replying. I appreciate.