Everything You Need To Know About Stoicism.

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 stoic work is to recognize what's in our control and what isn't. 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 Citium 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 over 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 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 not to give in to an impulse to eat cake, but the existence of that impulse is beyond our control. Let's not 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: "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 from it.

A fish is just flesh necessary to sustain you; ignore the pleasing tastes 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 it's 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, it would be foolish. You are the same; 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 to yourself, '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 Aurelius 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've 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 to 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.

In the city of Cyprus, in 300 BC, there lived a very wealthy trader called Zeno. While on a voyage from Phoenicia to Piraeus, 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 in 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 over 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 do 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, take 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 leads 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 toward 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 six months. He now feels he deserves a promotion, and so he walks up to his boss with this 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 and 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 did 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. 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. I made my first video on this channel in July 2017 after months of going back and forth on whether or not I actually wanted to create a YouTube channel. What would people think? What if people hate the videos and tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about? Who am I to talk about these topics? These were the thoughts that flooded my head.

If you've ever been in a situation where you have to start something or give a presentation in front of a group of people, then I'm sure you've had a similar emotion. It's the fear of being judged—the fear that keeps us in chains and holds us bound from achieving our true potential. To understand why we care so much about what others think about us, we have to go back to the beginning of human history. Man, like many other animals, evolved to be social. Our survival was dependent on close-knit communities, tribes, and clans. We would hunt together, make shelter, and protect one another from predators should they dare strike.

Being together made us thrive. So at the time, being cast out of the clan almost always meant death. Without the technologies we have today, making shelter, hunting, and protecting yourself from wildlife was almost impossible for one person to do alone. Sadly, even now that our society has evolved to a point where we no longer have to worry about predators and we have the tools and resources to provide food, clothing, and shelter for ourselves, the need to be part of a group still has been maladapted to our current reality.

Then we were scared of being left out in the cold; today, we're scared of getting canceled on Twitter because of something we said, or getting insulted for repeating clothes on Instagram, or getting hate comments on your YouTube video of people telling you your voice is becoming redundant and boring. You see, this feeling of being ostracized has worsened woefully because of social media. By creating likes and dislikes, we brought to light this need to feel validated.

In an instant, you can see just how many people support you, and that number can be addicting. It gets to the point where we stop saying what we really want to say and instead start saying the things we know will get us the most likes. Before you know it, you're posting certain thoughts, photos, and writing specific statements to get that attention and validation from others. How many times have you seen your favorite influencers and creators online suddenly sell out? Where it feels like they're no longer authentic, only doing or saying the things they know will please the algorithm.

I made a video about Unit 731 and the despicable things the Japanese government did in the Second World War. However, because it was not advertiser-friendly content according to YouTube, the video didn't perform extremely well, and that's fine. This is the kind of airiness and social conditioning that makes people fall in line and stop saying anything that might offend the people with money. It's like they tell you there's freedom of speech, but only when your microphone is turned off.

Growing up, I always felt different. Of course, I had friends and wanted to be part of the social group, but I had questions about the universe that people just didn't like to discuss. Who wants to talk about death and the afterlife on the school playground, after all? Because of that, I felt different from everyone else—like a piece of a puzzle, but from another set. And so I grew up worried that everyone would look at me as weird and different. So I tried my best to hide my existential dread to fit in like everyone else.

If you're watching this video right now, there's a high chance that you were also once a kid like me, who was so worried about being disliked that you shielded the real you just so you wouldn't be thought of as different. If you're still in that position, listen: stop caring so much about what other people think, and start living your life authentically. Yes, caring what others think is healthy; however, it becomes hurtful when we try to change ourselves just to be liked by others. You would enjoy your time on this floating rock far more if you choose to live your authentic self. And if someone rejects you because of it, you'll know that they were never meant for you in the first place.

Now, if that sounds like a lofty dream and not really grounded in reality, I understand, because the sad truth of this entire thing is that we do need to be judged fairly by others. At its core, that's what makes our society work. We agree that something is law and whoever breaks it gets judged; we agree on certain moral principles, and whoever breaks them gets socially ostracized. We're judged at our places of work, in school, and in our society as a whole. As sad as it sounds, gossip and ostracism helped the greater good of the group.

In 2014, Stanford professor Rob Willer conducted a study that explored the relation of gossip and ostracism to the harmony and functionality of experimental groups. In this study, Rob found out that groups that allowed their members to gossip and fold out underperforming members were able to sustain cooperation and prevent selfishness much better than groups that weren't allowed to do so. When we think of ostracism, we almost always see it in a bad light; however, this study proved that it does have a much more important role in preventing the weak and vulnerable from being bullied and written upon.

Have you ever been in a group for a school project only to quickly realize that there's one person who just wouldn't do anything because they know the group will pick up their slack? How does that make you feel? Now imagine you could remove these people from the group and then gossip to other groups about how bad of a team player they are. It might seem harsh at first, but because of our innate fear of being ostracized, more often than not, these people would see the reality of what they're doing and actually act better when reinvited into the group. It also prevents these selfish people from exploiting the more vulnerable people in the group and allows them to reach their full potential without fear of being taken advantage of.

The researchers concluded that exclusion compelled participants to conform to the more cooperative behavior of the rest of the group. So yes, we need to be good team players for the proper functioning of society. However, being part of a group should never be at the expense of our own individuality. We should never get so scared of being ostracized that we do not say the things that matter to us for the fear of being judged.

We need to realize that we will get to a point in our lives where we'll begin to assess everything that we've been taught as children. When you start to outgrow old beliefs and walk into new ones, do not be held back by the fear of what everyone who you grew up with would think. Caring about what other people think is necessary for the proper functioning of society, but when caring what other people think affects our abilities to make decisions for ourselves, that's when you need to pause and reconsider. You're a person with their own thoughts, ideas, dreams, and goals. Don't let the fear of being disliked hold you back from expressing that you want to drop out of school to become a comedian. What would people think? You want to start a YouTube channel? What would people think? You want to be with someone from a different culture or religion? What would people think?

This one question holds so many people back from doing what they love. It's like a chain that binds our neck and leaves us no room to breathe. We're like circus elephants held back by a rope that might only exist in our imagination. Ultimate freedom is having the courage to be disliked—the boldness to stand firm in what you believe in even when the crowd is saying something else. The courage to stand when everyone else is sitting and run when everyone else is standing. The courage to be your authentic self, regardless of what everyone around you tells you to be.

Instead, developing the courage to be disliked is not easy. Remember that it's in our nature to care what other people think. So to stray from that, even minutely, would mean going against our very own biology, and that's never very easy. But the good news is that we can actually do it. The first and most important thing to realize is that everyone, just like you, is worried about their own insecurities. When we go out into the world, we're often so consumed with our own insecurities that we feel like everyone else is thinking about us and condemning us.

But the reality is, more often than not, just like you, people are so worried about themselves that they aren't really thinking about anyone else. And when they do speak out against us, they're often projecting their insecurities on us, trying to bring us down to feel better about themselves. Don't let them do that. The difference between ostracization in early humans and what we have today is that, with the early humans, it was only your closest relatives and members of your clan that could cast you out.

However, today, because of social media, anyone and everyone can have an opinion about us, share that opinion, and we're forced to take notice of it. The problem with this is that we're taking criticism from people we wouldn't take advice from. Think about it: if you wouldn't let this stranger into your house for fear of invading your privacy, why would you let them into your head—the most private place of all? Sometimes, the people judging you and not letting you live your true potential aren't strangers; they're childhood friends and relatives.

When that's the case, we need to remind ourselves that the consequences of living outside the group are not as sinister as it used to be. You have the tools and resources to thrive away from your primary group, and in fact, you can find another group to join—one that would accept you for who you are and not try to force you into being something you're not. I know I've said some negative things about social media in this video and many others, but there are some positives as well. In this scenario where you no longer feel part of the group you were born into or grew up in, the internet offers you a community of people who are willing to accept you from all over the world.

You just have to take the time to find them. Lao Tzu wrote, "Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner." The courage to be disliked is the key that opens the prison doors and sets you free to be the person you've always wanted to be. 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' 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's 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 the 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. He acted firmly and justly, a posture that calmed an already nervous empire in times of extreme tensions. Stoicism provided Marcus Aurelius with a guideline to use when facing the stress of life, and as the leader of the most powerful empire in history, you know that his stressors were plenty.

This guideline was compiled into "Meditations," Marcus Aurelius's personal diaries—the private thoughts of the world's most powerful man, giving advice on how to be wise in our decisions, just in our judgments, brave in our actions, temperate in all of our doings—to practice self-control, discipline, and modesty. In short, "Meditations" is a timeless piece of stoic philosophy that is as relevant today as it was in the ancient days of Rome. It is a guide to the key principles of stoicism from the philosopher king himself.

One of the most prominent principles of stoicism that Marcus Aurelius continually reiterates revolves around the dichotomy of control. Despite all of his power, the Caesar of Rome constantly reminded himself that he couldn't control all that happened around him, but he could always control how he responded to those things. Flowing from this concept, there are five key and profound lessons we can learn from Marcus's meditations that are a testament to the practicality of stoicism as a philosophy, and by understanding these lessons we can lead healthier and more fulfilling lives even millennia after Aurelius's reign.

The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. It's all in how you perceive it. You're in control; you can dispense with misperception at will, like rounding the point. Serenity, total calm, is ensured before Marcus Aurelius's time. Epicetus and Seneca both wrote vast amounts on the power of perception. It's no wonder then that Aurelius echoed these thoughts, as it is one of the most essential tenets of stoicism. Our perceptions influence all that we experience.

Your car may not start before your important meeting, or your boss may not give you the promotion you think you deserve. Just like Marcus had a choice when the plague hit, you also have a choice to make whenever you are facing a troubling situation. You can choose to feel angry, scorned, depressed, or defeated, which will accomplish nothing, or you can train your perception to not be influenced by what is outside your control. It's a form of self-discipline that places the quality of your life in your hands instead of in the hands of other people or situations.

Marcus's entire reign rested on this guiding principle. As a formidable leader, he understood the power he had and always separated his perceptions from his emotions. He faced invasions from dramatic tribes and internal uprisings within his kingdom, but he knew he could not alter these situations to his favor. His true power came from within—from how he perceived these grievous situations. So instead of reacting rashly, he didn't allow these horrible negative effects to affect him. Instead, he seized his own mind and was able to make just decisions that were void of any emotional attachment, even in the face of the most troubling situations.

To refrain from imitation is the best revenge. When someone despises us, the easy thing to do is to despise them back. But what would that accomplish? When dealing with Cassius's rebellion, it would have been easy for Marcus to order his troops to seize and brutally murder him for his insurgence—to use him as a message to all who dare attempt to take his crown. Instead, he was compassionate and chose to forgive him.

People will never meet our expectations. So, instead of letting their behavior evoke our emotions, it's more prudent to resort back to what is in our control, which is being virtuous—a better Stoic and a better human. Just as nature takes every obstacle, every impediment, and works around it, turns it to its purposes, and incorporates it into itself, so too, a rational being can turn each setback into raw material and use it to achieve its goal.

Before anything, the Stoics were realists; they understood life's challenges. But instead of shying away from them, they embraced them. The truth is that struggle is an essential part of life; it builds character, develops resilience, and ultimately leads to success. Again, this principle is centered around perception. We can either perceive an obstacle as a hindrance to our progress—a knockout punch that will never allow us to recover—or as a virtue—a test of our ability to respond to adversity.

It would be foolish to go through life avoiding struggle and conflict. Instead, we should welcome them as opportunities to strengthen our character. The obstacle is never in the way; the obstacle is the way. Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart. Marcus Aurelius believed that the formula for human greatness is to accept our fate, no matter what it is.

This notion is deeply rooted in stoic philosophy. Whatever happens to you, you must love it, for it is your fate. Epictetus faced countless adversities throughout his life, but still embraced his destiny without complaining. He was tortured by a master who twisted his leg and broke it permanently, crippling him. Instead of spending the rest of his life feeling remorseful for himself, Epictetus just took control of his mind instead and said, "Do not seek for things to happen the way you want them to; rather wish that what happens happens the way it happens. Then you will be happy."

The true testament to being a stoic is wanting nothing to be different—not better or worse. Strength of a person is in accepting what the universe has in store for you and not resisting it. You could leave life right now; let that determine what you do, do, and say, and think. No one understood their destiny and loved their fate more than Seneca. In 59 CE, Rome was ruled by an insecure and unjust Emperor Nero. He was an uncaring dictator who spared no one from his wrath, including his own mother and sister.

After a failed attempt on his life, Nero gathered all the suspected conspirators and either banished or executed them. Seneca was wrongly accused as being one of those plotting against Nero's life, and even though he had served as his leading adviser, Nero did not spare him and ordered him to take his own life. Instead of fighting the hand that fate dealt him, Seneca not only accepted his fate but was stoic to the final moment of his existence, as he famously said, "What need is there to weep over parts of life when the whole of it calls for tears?" Seneca then cut the veins in his arms and bled to death.

Despite being one of the most powerful men in the world, Marcus Aurelius reflected on the fleetness of his life. Anyone in his position could very easily get drunk on power, but he reminded himself all the time of those who have come and gone, who have left behind nothing of the power they ever so greedily accumulated throughout their lives. In "Meditations," Marcus thinks of mortality as an inspiration to live his best life and let go of trivial things.

He did not see death as morbid, but rather as a motivator to live a life of virtue and gratitude for the time we have. Marcus Aurelius led a Roman Empire that went through both hardship and prosperity. He was criticized and praised, loved and hated. But through it all, he always reminded himself of the teachings of stoicism and the dichotomy of control. There are things in our control and others that are not. Which ones will you focus on? If we can learn to emulate Marcus' lessons by mastering our perceptions, accepting others for who they are, embracing the inevitable challenges as an opportunity for growth, loving our fate, and finally accepting our mortality, we can truly live a virtuous life—just like that of the philosopher king himself.

Waste no time arguing what a good man should be. Be one. The secret to financial freedom in today's economic crisis isn't found in some get-rich-quick scheme or through social media charlatans trying to sell you their latest course. The truth is the most essential principles about building wealth can be learned from the 2,000-year-old philosophy of stoicism. Whether you want to be as rich as Elon or just have enough to not worry about money anymore, by the end of this video, you'll understand what the philosophy of stoicism teaches us about how to get rich, but also why becoming rich might not be what you truly desire.

How often do you come across somebody on social media claiming they have all the answers to every financial problem you have? People claim to be expert investors, successful entrepreneurs, and economic visionaries. If you're like me, you just want to roll your eyes at these get-rich-quick schemes, but a part of you still considers it—even if just for a moment. The reason we pause and think, even when we don't believe these fake gurus, is that we all want to be rich in some way.

You might be struggling with debt, or looking for a way out, or just generally unhappy about your financial situation. You might be dreaming of lavish vacations in a penthouse with a nice view. Whatever it is, society has conditioned us to want to be rich because there's not much we can do without money. So how do we go about making it? The most fundamental principle of stoicism is to focus on what you can control.

We don't always have control over what happens to us, but we do have control over how we react to those things. This simple idea of regulating our emotions when it comes to money could be the key to the financial freedom we desire. Let's just take Warren Buffett for a quick example. He's worth $77 billion but still lives in the house he bought 59 years ago for $31,500. As he grew wealthier, he didn't let emotion and impulse lead him towards buying expensive things he didn't need to show off to people he didn't care about. He was able to stay grounded and not let the money control him, maintaining control over his finances.

One of the keys to success that most people tend to gloss over is being healthy. The saying "health is wealth" is popular because it's true. And when you're healthy, you're able to think clearly, work harder, and enjoy the fruits of your labor when they blossom. The path to wealth isn't a straight line; it's filled with challenging situations and a lot of obstacles. To succeed, you need to learn to embrace discomfort and forge ahead, even when things get tough.

So, stoicism teaches us to embrace discomfort by making ourselves uncomfortable before life does it for us. This is called voluntary discomfort. The Stoics of the past would take a few days to wear rags and eat nothing but potatoes. The idea is that if you know you can survive on the bare minimum, discomfort doesn't faze you as much. You don't have to throw away all your clothes to practice voluntary discomfort. Simple things like taking cold showers or purposely eating bland food can teach you to be uncomfortable—and not only will this prepare you for when things inevitably don't go your way, but it can also increase your gratitude.

Another way to embrace discomfort is to think of the worst-case scenario and accept it as a real possibility. This will help you when you realize that even if the worst case does happen, you'll still be okay. The lack of money is already riddled with discomfort. Whether it's the embarrassment when you can't join your friends for a meal at a fancy restaurant or when you can't find a job that pays you what you know you're worth, it seems that money can drive disappointment left and right.

If you're prepared for this disappointment, you'll find a new sense of freedom from the hold money has on you. Once you risk breaking free from that hold, you'll be more inclined to take measured risks. Risk-taking can be uncomfortable and scary, mainly because it comes with the possibility or likelihood of failure. But once you accept that failure is always possible, you can push yourself to be more entrepreneurial and innovative. Just look at the top of the Forbes list; it's filled with people who are willing to take these huge risks. Elon Musk made reusable rockets when people thought it was impossible. Mark Zuckerberg entered into a market with big players and wasn't scared to compete. Jeff Bezos popularized online shopping at a time when people thought the internet was just a fad. It doesn't have to be scary; Stoics believe it's an opportunity for growth.

How we respond to failure shapes our resilience and teaches us about who we are and what we can become. To adopt this sentiment, we need to learn to disconnect the journey to financial freedom from the ultimate result. We need to stay present. Instead of thinking about how a big specific investment might grow in five years or how amazing it must be to own a fancy car, focus on the values, actions, and habits that will guide you towards financial success.

The Stoics stress four important values: wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. We can apply these principles to our financial freedom journey. Wisdom helps us stay resourceful along the way—educating ourselves and allowing us to weigh risk versus reward of certain decisions we want to make. Courage allows us to take those risks—whether it's asking for a promotion, switching jobs, or trusting an experienced adviser to help you grow your wealth. Temperance refers to the self-control we have to find when spending money, knowing that while rewards are important, so is being frugal. And justice, the one that can elude some of us, is how we pay it forward when we get good luck and our investments pay off—whether it's by helping set your family up and friends, giving to charity, or simply educating others about how you got to where you are.

The Stoics lived by the phrase "carpe diem," which means "seize the day." To remain present, we should practice delayed gratification. Focusing on the present also allows us to tune out distractions that might take us off course. For almost everyone, wealth comes from hard work. If we can learn to immerse ourselves in deep work, we're more likely to reach our goals and enjoy the journey of getting there.

Being present, though, doesn't mean acting on impulse. Stoicism tells us just the opposite. Controlling our impulses and relying on reason is an essential stoic principle. These days, it's easy to get caught up in material things, thinking that a pair of jeans or a new cell phone will make us happy. Then, when we can afford whatever that thing is we're dreaming of, we get upset. But material things don't really bring us happiness. They give us a quick hit of dopamine that makes us think we're happy, but that chemical release quickly fades, and we're right back where we started from.

Resisting the impulse to buy something or feeling bad about being unable to is critical when it comes to financial freedom. If you really want something, make it a special treat as a reward for a goal. Plan a nice dinner after graduation or a dinner to celebrate a successful meeting at work. When making purchases, wait a few weeks to be sure you really want the item and you don't just want the feeling of getting something new. By doing this, you take the impulsive nature out of the purchase and let the actual pleasure of the material thing sit with you.

Nelson Mandela famously lived by stoic principles that helped guide his leadership style. After he was released from prison and elected president of South Africa, people expected him to execute those who wrongfully imprisoned him. But instead, he focused on resetting his country and rebuilding unity. He processed his negative emotions and kept his perspective on his ultimate goal—to create a better South Africa for everyone, not revenge.

Similarly, when you think about what your financial goals are, you need to keep your emotions out of it. Getting mad at yourself when a stock you invested in suddenly drops won't change the stock's value. Don't cry over spilled milk; just learn your lesson and move on to the next one. Markets are irrational; jobs come and go often for reasons beyond our control. The only thing we can do is try and keep a level head, and this takes discipline, because it's easy to feel emotional about money. It's easy to equate our self-worth to how much money we have, compromising our peace of mind.

Because of money, a desire to be rich isn't going to make us more money; it will only make us unhappier and less likely to keep working hard for what we want. If we find self-control on our journey towards financial success, we'll also find freedom from being defined by our wealth. And with that freedom, we can make clear decisions and feel more open to possibilities. Just as we harness our emotions in order to approach money with a level-headed attitude, we also need to stop trying to control the things we can't change.

We can't change world events; recessions or inflation. Natural disasters happen, and people get divorced. The reality is that we don't have control over most of what happens to us. The skill of accepting this reality is one of the most essential principles of stoic philosophy. It teaches us not to judge ourselves by metrics we can't control; instead, evaluate your work and success on the effort you put into a particular goal, not the outcome.

By redirecting what we value when we're working towards financial freedom, we can lead happier lives and alleviate a lot of the stress of not having money. Because making money is never entirely within our control. We can educate ourselves so that we're eligible for better jobs, we can study things we don't know in order to make thought-out financial decisions, and we can put our ego aside and ask for help if we don't understand something. But the money itself, the wealth we dream of, isn't something we can predict or plan for.

By using the guidelines laid out by the Stoic philosophers thousands of years ago, you can create a new road map for yourself. Then hopefully, you'll find what you're looking for. It might not be mega yachts or chests full of diamonds, but it'll feel better than those things because what you'll find is freedom. Financial freedom. And when you get there, you'll still have these principles to continue to live by. Because by being rich—whatever that looks like for you—it also comes with temptation.

The temptation to spend money on things just because you can. It should be wise to remember that things don't make us happier. Budgets are still necessary. Stoicism's teachings can, in fact, lead you to riches without having to attempt some get-rich-quick scheme. But what it actually teaches us is that getting rich isn't really the goal. Freedom, happiness, and contentment are. Because freedom is a way of life—a journey without an end. Rich, however, is just a destination. Rich can disappear at a moment's notice; freedom will remain. And if what you're looking for is happiness, watch this video next to find out a guide on how to actually buy happiness with money.

What is your New Year's resolution? For some of us, it's to be more productive. For others, it's to lose weight or simply be healthier. For you, it might be to spend more time with friends and family or finally write that book that you've been putting off for the past year. When the clock strikes midnight on January 1st, most of us already have a list of goals we wish to achieve—things we hope to be better at and habits we desperately want to let go of—all within the next 365 days.

There's a newfound sense of hope when we flip that last calendar page. In reality, it's just another day, but to most of us, it feels like a fresh start—a new beginning. And so, we stack up all the things we want to change about ourselves and all the goals we hope to accomplish. Yet year after year, most of us fail to achieve all or if any of these goals. There's a staggering lack of follow-through with New Year's resolutions. Most of us find it very difficult to stick to them.

We start with a bundle of energy and motivation, but all that phases as the year goes on. Gyms that are packed in January aren't back to normal capacity by March. Healthy eating habits stop as soon as a stressful life event occurs, and saving habits fade away once an emergency that requires financial attention happens. To add insult to injury, not only do we end up not achieving what we set out to do, but that failure makes us feel even less motivated to make the next goal—to pursue the next dream.

It leads us down a path that slowly convinces us that these goals aren't even worth setting in the first place. It's no wonder that the older you get, the less likely you are to create New Year's resolutions. The screams, loud bangs of fireworks, and light shows in the sky as the clock strikes midnight get less exciting with every passing year. When you think about it like that, the situation seems quite grim. But it doesn't have to be this way.

The truth is one of the biggest reasons most people fall short of their resolutions is they don't have the willpower and mental fortitude to push through the difficult situations. But by learning from the Stoics, we can better understand not just how to follow through on our set agenda for the year, but how to create proper goals right off the bat. Because while it's true that barely 10% of people stick to their New Year's resolutions, nothing says that you can't be one of those people.

Understanding New Year's resolutions from the Stoic point of view begins, like all things with stoicism, with the question of control: what is in our control? People often like to pin down very ambitious and quite frankly unrealistic goals at the start of the year. A lot of times, we end up with goals that are beyond our control, which sets us up for failure before we've even got the chance to try. Let's say your goal for the year is to lose weight.

The first step in the stoic handbook would be to figure out and acknowledge what isn't in our control. Eating healthy and exercising regularly are within our control, but other things, like how ripped we look, for example, are largely determined by how fat is distributed across our body, which in turn is determined largely by genetics. So, if our goal is to look a certain way instead of simply leading a healthier lifestyle, we are setting ourselves up for failure.

There are other more apparent truths people tend to ignore when drafting the resolutions—things like the fact that our willpower is finite. When people decide to become more productive or fight off an addiction, they fail to realize that the machinery that allows us to fight our urges isn't infinite. Every time we fend off a craving for some unhealthy food, for example, it becomes that much harder to maintain that discipline later in the day.

That's one of the main reasons people that start out strong with their resolutions don't end up following through with them to the end. At the beginning of the year, our willpower is refreshed; we're riding on the high of starting from the beginning. But as days turn into weeks and weeks into the months, that willpower is drained ever so slowly, such that the motivation that we started the year with just can't carry us any further. Stoicism preaches that we should be aware of these mental and physical limitations.

Pretending that we'll be able to strong-arm our desires is naive. A better method of sticking to our goals would be to minimize solutions where we have to use willpower. Humans are naturally wired to take the path of least resistance, so let that path be the one that you want for the year. If you want to lead a healthier life, start by giving out all the junk food you have in the house and replacing it with healthier options. That way, when you're hungry for a snack, it'll be easier to grab an apple from the fridge than drive to the store to get chips.

This is a much better approach than trying to make it from one cheat meal to the next. If you want to work out more, pay for a gym membership to the gym that's closest to where you live. Yes, it might not be the fanciest or have the best trainers, but the easier it is for you to get there, the more likely you are to keep working consistently through the year. For those who have the willpower to push through, we're usually stopped by external forces—like having a blown AC just as the heatwave of summer rolls around or a bad breakup that forces us to binge-eat as we cry ourselves to sleep every night.

The reasons these things stop us from pursuing our goals aren't because they're inherently bad, but more so because they're unexpected. It's just like rain. When we're out without an umbrella and it starts to rain, we feel bad, but we don't cry and stop everything we were doing. Because while getting drenched is a bad thing, we've learned to accept the possibility of rain, and in turn, had to deal with its consequences. We go home, dry our clothes, make a hot cup of cocoa, and get on with our day.

We need to learn to do the same in every aspect of our lives. We need to realize that bad things will happen—that's just life. We can either treat these bad occurrences like a tsunami destined to destroy everything we've built, or we can treat them like rain—just a tiny temporal inconvenience. According to the Stoics, that's the difference between experiencing a setback and suffering from it. Setbacks are a part of life; they're normal routine and we should expect them, but we must learn to not get beaten by these setbacks.

Instead, philosophy professor William B. Irvine says it might be helpful to think of setbacks as a form of flattery from the stoic gods—a chance to prove to yourself that you are more than that adversary. This removes the knee-jerk reaction of "Why me?" and instead allows you to focus more on what needs to be done to scale the hurdle and continue your journey towards your vision. Most of us think of the year as a sprint, rather than the marathon that it is.

Which is why, once we experience any setback, we often throw everything out and say that one dreaded sentence: "I'll just start again next year." By switching our minds from a sprint to a marathon, we can focus on the process without worrying too much about the end goal. Instead of saying you want to do 20 pull-ups by the end of the year and beating yourself up when you haven't reached that goal in March, it's better to instead give yourself the goal of trying to do one more pull-up. As simple as it sounds, this allows you to focus more on the process of doing a pull-up and getting better each time without worrying too much about some arbitrary end goal.

The reason we often wait until the new year to set goals is because of something called the Fresh Start Effect. Characterized by its name, we're more likely to set new targets for ourselves when we feel like we're having a fresh start. It's why you're more likely to decide to make a life change on Monday or just after a holiday. But the truth is that no particular date on the calendar is more special than another. Monday isn't better than Wednesday, and January 1st isn't any better than March 13th. The only thing special about these days and dates is the idea of worth that we've placed on them.

And while it's good to take full advantage of this Fresh Start Effect, it's counterproductive to tie ourselves so strongly to them that we don't make the changes we need until we get a fresh start. So if you've already fallen short of your goals, you don't have to wait for next year to start again, because today is as good as any to start again.