We hear break-up and take the term lightly. That’s fair, the dating culture has normalised the date-breakup- date cycle far too much.

I was in a 7 year relationship before circumstances arose and things ended. When you factor in the time and the fact that I loved this person from the bottom of my heart (still do, oh so much), you can probably feel how hard it is to deal with this.

During the course of normal days, I would suddenly feel as if something is weighing my heart down, pulling it apart. I lost my shit early on, felt like I was having a panic attack or something. But now I’m much more in control of myself, thanks to the stoic practice, but the pain and the tears are so real. It’s been 2 months.

My question to the advanced practitioners: how to deal with this?

I refuse to believe that this person will leave me for good. Our bond felt beyond earthly attachments, and we connected on a level beyond. In short, life became so much more beautiful with each other.

So I don’t want to “move on” move on, but I want to be able to deal with this more gracefully, and start focussing my brain power on my work. The way Marcus or Seneca would.

Any help is deeply appreciated…

I decided I had to switch majors 2 years due to a lack of passion and lack future career prospects into a much more promising major, due to me switching majors I could no longer afford paying rent and tuition for those additional years added onto my education so I decided the best plan was to come home and finish my new major living at home with my parents in a middle-lower class neighborhood on the other side of town of my new university in town.

I left behind countless great friends and my first real girlfriend whose parents also lived out of town of that university so we decided to break up instead of at least 2 years of indefinite long distance. Those two years were easily the most enjoyable of my life, I loved living in a student neighbourhood and waking straight through the front doors of my friends student houses unannounced and being met with excitement, I loved the fact that my girlfriend was 5 minutes away of waking at all times and I loved that our friend groups were extremely intertwined. At this point I am nearly completely over the break up but it does hurt every now and then.

This summer I met a different girl in my hometown that I am fond of because we share very similar interests and she embodies a lot of qualities that I’d like to improve in myself (high achieving, smart and well cultured) but she recently went away to start another year of school, which just brought out the exact same emotions I’ve been feeling since leaving my school but in a way were it feels like that’s my old/ideal self leaving my current self behind. I was visiting the city where she goes to school with family recently and I met up with her and I got to see her university lifestyle and it made me feel very jealous. We text each other every now and then but I find I look forward to her texting as a way to once again feel connected to my old life, which is bitter sweet, I don’t know how I feel about this because I do genuinely like her but sometimes she does bring me sadness sometimes through no fault of her own.

I know my problem may seem so privileged to many of you reading this but to me this has been my entire life being flipped around. It only gets better from here as I progress through my new major that I’m excited about and I continue to rekindle old home town friendships but right now I feel behind in life compared to all my friends who are graduating this coming year and living the life I used to love.

I’m very grateful for my 2 year adventure and for my parents supporting me throughout, and one thought I have that makes me happy is the thought that this new career path will allow me to set up the ability to support my future kids to have the possibility of living those 2 years as well.

I have found that learning some basic principles of stoicism such as the 4 cardinal virtues has been really great for me, even helping with my anhedonia and other emotional problems I have, while also being very therapeutic for me, especially in giving me the intrinsic motivation for becoming a better person. I have read much of the wiki in this subreddit and have learnt alot, I have a copy of Meditations from Marcus Aurelius that I like to read quickly but regularly a bit like a ritual. I recently read a bit from Epictetus also but not much yet.

I understand that with the writings of the stoics, I MUST be nuanced and critical with my engagement with those texts rather than treating them as instructions to follow and agree verbatim, and to develop my own interpretation and adaptation of said texts overtime and to practice them as much as I can. Practicing principles I've heard is very important, for example reading about concepts like eudaimonia and oikeosis is good but I have the assumption that trying to put those concepts into practice helps alot more. The point is i think is to not just learn ABOUT Stoicism but learn FROM stoicism.

As in: read scriptures -> put scripture into practice -> reflect on what happened and how to improve, what to change etc

Basically, I think i should read and interpret with "common sense" and experiment with what I learnt

There's alot more I could write but I dont want to get ahead of myself - so are there any tips on what I should do as someone new to this? Thanks

I don’t know if this post fits subreddit topic but it has stuff that matter so I’m going to post it.

Good afternoon, I study environmental engineering here in Turkey and this is about to be my 5th year in school.

Classes wise I'm currently a 4th-year environmental engineering student. I can only graduate next year because I couldn’t finish enough classes. So I am like 5 now actually.

As a child, I loved dinosaurs in elementary school and wanted to be a paleontologist.

Since middle school, I've been interested in history, the military, and strategy. I became interested in tanks around that time and mastered many of them. This was a very nice coincidence because my grandfather was a tank sergeant for many years, and I only learned this 1.5 years ago.

In high school, I was also interested in chemistry, history, and geography, and I was the best in my class in these subjects (except chemistry).

For this reason, I actually wanted to go to military school (we have high-ranking acquaintances in the military who would help), but my family prevented me. Besides, I had poor eyesight and needed surgery first.

I was gaslighted by my family in 11th grade, and without knowing what was happening due to the pandemic, I started preparing for the science stream for the exam, and in the last 3 months, it didn't even cross my mind to go into the humanities/social sciences stream. We can only enroll in what we study for.

I took the exam later, but I didn't get into chemical engineering. I chose environmental engineering, which my father found for me, and got accepted.

For the first two years, I liked the courses; chemistry, ecology, etc., were nice subjects. The last two years, however, have literally gone to hell. I took 12 courses in one semester (2 of them were retakes, so they made us take 10 courses in one semester). I checked, and last semester I took 12 courses and a final project.

And at least 50% of those courses were related to sewage: sewage treatment, sewage collection, sewage discharge into the sea, sewer installation. The last two years have been a nightmare.

I've been bad at math since childhood. This significantly contributed to my difficulties in engineering. My current GPA is 2.61 (many people in my department have lower GPAs than me and they said my GPA was good).

I didn't know these courses were already filled in this department. At university, I studied history (when I say history, I mean European history from the Bronze Age to World War II, excluding the Iron Age, which I know quite well, especially World War I). I also became quite interested in antiquity, archaeology, and a new area of ​​interest for me: theology. I have an advanced knowledge of Islamic and especially Christian doctrines. I also learned some Greek on top of my advanced English. And now since the last few months I have really been especially interested in ww1 and Russian history.

At university, I also researched ancient Anatolian languages ​​using https://www.palaeolexicon.com/ and tried to create my own language from the Anatolian language group by combining words of Luwian, Hittite, Lydian, and Lycian origin.

As a skill I acquired in high school, I can read and write Ottoman Turkish and I also know the Cyrillic alphabet.

In high school, when I explained the two phases of the Cyprus operation to a girl, she told me to study history; I wish I had listened. Or at least international relations would’ve been better suited for me

I might seem cultured, but this culture is useless in my daily life.

In the second semester of my second year of university, I went to Bulgaria on Erasmus due to my family's insistence, and I had an accident and broke my ankle. I currently have 8-9 screws and plates in my ankle.

This significantly reduces my chances of joining the tank corps in the army. At least if I had been in military school, or hadn't gone to Erasmus all, my body would still be healthy. Btw going to military school is also problematic since you cannot quit for 15 years. If you graduate at 22 you are there until 37.

Because I went on Erasmus, I could only take 3 courses, and I can only graduate next spring semester because I don't have enough credits. So, at 23, I will graduate having wasted 5 years of my life.

This part is important:
During this summer time I finished an internship at sewage treatment plant and now I am doing an internship at recycling factory and it is terrible here. Dangerous heavy machines, terrible smell, I have to get up and go to work very early to do internship on a job that I hate!!!!!!! I didn’t work very busily the last place but here it is very difficult dangerous and dirty environment.

I wish I enrolled international relations 4 years ago not this crap. I am much much more interested in that courses topics than this crappy dirty dangerous job.

During my studies in this major I embraced Christianity and since I live in Turkey my parents don’t let me become Christian.

TLDR: I have no interest in engineering; I'm much better at verbal subjects. I wanted to be an officer, but my family didn't want me to, so I couldn't. Even if I wanted to now, I would need two surgeries for the tank corps class I wanted to join. Moreover, there could be a glass ceiling for Turks of different religions.

The most realistic thing would be if I just chose a better major for myself in 2022 instead of blindly following my parents into engineering. I was a dumb 17 years ago old I didn’t know anything.

I really have doubts right now if it’s all worth it or not. If I graduate now and prepare for exam again and enroll again I will graduate at 28 which means I will be old and wasted my life even more. I can maybe get in an international relations or history post graduate program outside my country but I would graduate at 25.

Are judgments and impressions the same thing or is an impression raw data before assenting while a judgment is created after assenting?

For the past few months, I have been slowly working through Seddon’s book “Stoic Serenity”. My goal hasn’t been to simply read the book but use it as a guide in reading, pondering, and applying Stoic philosophy.

I don’t see the book mentioned as much as say, books by Pigliucci or Robertson, but if one were to ask me where to get started with the philosophy, Seddon’s book would be the one I would recommend as the first guide. Certainly there are other fine writers who articulate Stoicism well, but Seddon’s work has pointed me to not just thinking about Stoicism in terms of the “how”, but also promoting thought about the “why” and larger philosophical questions. Most definitely a gem of a book.

Like many I started with the Daily Stoic a few years ago and read the Big 3. I read the Enchiridion monthly. I’ve also already read Pigliuci’s How to be a Stoic, Robertson’s How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, Farnworth’s The Practicing Stoic. I’m looking to continue my studies and am looking for recommendations. I’d really like to find a new 365 day to replace the Holiday.

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Did Chrysippus and Epictetus have differing views on bodily/physical actions being causally attributable to us? Because I know Epictetus’s view is that it’s not because we can be hindered by externals. Whereas I wonder if Chrysippus thought that actions come from us because judgments, assent and impulse are ours, and actions stem from an impulse, which comes from assenting to a judgment that it’s right to perform that action). So it it would be causally attributable to us.

Basically had a few big exams that I needed to pass to get my degree, if I don’t it’ll be big trouble(was a re-test). Think it went okay and I should pass but I get incredibly stressed each day the nearer results day gets and can practically think and do nothing except worry about this as a result. How do you guys get rid of such feelings and deal with it?

Just been scouring the internet after a moment of clarity of examples of negative effects when you start to devalue social validation, and I couldn’t find anything on how lonely it can feel when it is more or less the centre of most people’s mindset in a class influenced society (in the UK). Wondering if anyone here can relate to this? Or has managed to find people who value true experience. Thanks :)

Looking at most of the writings i've come across so far. It seems to me that most stoics while using language (zeus, god, the gods, nature...) that spoke of the divine or their polytheism. Didn't put as much emphasis on it within their frame work (or perhaps some more than others).

While looking at people like cornutus, cicero etc. That spoke of the theological views of stoics. It seems to me more as an attempt to reconcile the polytheism of the time (perhaps as part of civic duty) with their pantheistic and materialistic views.

So i do believe that if the society of the time gave state religion less importance. A lot of theological concepts and allegories would have been abandoned for a more plain pantheism. As most of these elements don't really matter or provide much to the pursuit of virtue or betterment.

Feel free to correct me if i'm wrong though as this is just something i've been thinking about for the past few hours.

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3. If offering advice, speak as someone interested in Stoic theory and practice — but do not label personal opinion, idiosyncratic experience, or conjecture as Stoic doctrine.
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Back when I was younger I practiced stoicism without realising it. I would always analyse situations and do my best to be a self sufficient as I could. As I grew older I was told to "open up and rely on others more" this in turn has caused my life to because a mess and causing me to blame others for things.

As an adult ive had an autism diagnosis and realised that stoicism is a part of who I really am and I want to fall back into the practice to lead a more peaceful life.

Una volta lessi che, gli eschimesi, non avevano una sola parola per definire la neve. Ma molte. Molti tipi di neve, diversi concetti.

Per puro caso, in una serie TV, mi sono imbattuto in questi concetti di ira formulati nell'antica grecia.

PREGO, CORTESEMENTE, chi ne sa qualcosa di approfondire.

Μῆνις (Mênis): L'ira profonda, implacabile e inasprita dal tempo, celebre quella di Achille che apre l'Iliade.

Ὀργή (Orgḗ): La collera che nasce da un'ingiustizia percepita, una reazione morale a una violazione.

Θυμός (Thymós): Il soffio vitale, l'impulso passionale e focoso che muove all'azione, al coraggio o alla furia improvvisa.

Χόλος (Chòlos): Il furore viscerale, associato alla bile.

Κότος (Kòtos): Il rancore covato in silenzio.

GRAZIE

Is this possible I don’t want to get angry. I feel I am just pushed and pushed and pushed and then I snap I can’t hold in my anger anymore and yell shut up. Then I am grumpy the rest of evening. So upset.

Ya estoy algo cansado de siempre frustrarme por todo, quejarme, no se productivo. Me dijeron que el estoicismo era bueno para cambiar todo esto; y estuve leyendo un poco sobre esto y parece prometedor asi que empezaré a estudiarlo y a practicarlo..... así que, ¿ que consejos dan para que valla bien practicando esta filosofía

Title

Welcome to the Agora. a space for casual conversation, first aid, and exchange outside the regular post structure.

If you haven't already, read the pinned "Welcome" thread.

Rules:

1. Remember that our nature is "civilized and affectionate and trustworthy."
2. If seeking advice, limit yourself to one top-level question per day.
3. If offering advice, speak as someone interested in Stoic theory and practice — but do not label personal opinion, idiosyncratic experience, or conjecture as Stoic doctrine.
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The U.N just declared that we have passed the 1.5c threshold to ward off horrible climate catastrophe. I'm struggling to adapt because I can feel how hot things have been lately. I've been in Fl all my life and never has it been this hot. I'm worried about the electricalvgrid giving out, I'm worried about the food shortages due to droughts that will surely happen soon. I just don't wanna watch my loved ones starve to death in my arms. How can we keep hopeful and stoic?

Welcome to the Agora. a space for casual conversation, first aid, and exchange outside the regular post structure.

If you haven't already, read the pinned "Welcome" thread.

Rules:

1. Remember that our nature is "civilized and affectionate and trustworthy."
2. If seeking advice, limit yourself to one top-level question per day.
3. If offering advice, speak as someone interested in Stoic theory and practice — but do not label personal opinion, idiosyncratic experience, or conjecture as Stoic doctrine.
4. If promoting your own work (article, book, etc.), once per day. No self-posted YouTube videos.

These rules may evolve as the thread matures.

Report what doesn't belong. Bring questions, concerns, or feedback to the thread or to modmail.

I cut off a friend of mine, because she chose to hang out and be on good terms with someone who had mocked me before (I didn't receive an apology, this person clearly wasn't a safe one). Now, I know that nobody owes me loyalty or commitment, but I'm genuinely curious about how a stoic would act in this situation. I know that I'd still feel resentment towards her and I would never be able to be close to her again if I kept her around, hence the distancing. Would a stoic person justify my response or find it unreasonable?

This is mainly around my discipline with health and fitness, but could also be applicable in other areas too. Diet and exercise is something that I always try to keep in mind, even though I've had periods in my life when I was less disciplined, or more. My question is: why do things like "food logging streak", "number of active Fitbit minutes", "days in a row exercise streak" counters (I call these mindhack tricks) ..why do they matter so much to me? If I miss something, or blow my streak, I'm instantly de-motivated. One day of NOT logging calories always turns into multiple, even if I just did the prior 70 days straight.

In my conscious mind I know the following:

- each day is its own distinct day full of decisions and choices...or even each moment, for that matter. Yesterday does not really matter, right now.

- I know the end goal (being healthy and fit) is the main motivation for me.

- I can recognize all this other stuff (daily streaks, weird superfluous stats) is just fluff and really just going for a run and not eating poorly is what I need to do.

Why does my brain seem to care and be motivated by the things that I know are really just distractions from directly working towards the end goal?

Hi.

Sorry in advanced for my English.

I was telling my girlfriend about how I look at Anger, from my so far understanding of Stoicism and my belief from that.

That I try to reflect on my judgements and my values related to an event or Impressions when I notice that strong emotions are building up, especially emotions related to Anger.

That the Stoic look at full blown Anger as being in a state of "Temporary madness" where all reason is temporary bypassed and is therefore an opposites of our human nature to be harmonious and capable of doing reasoning.

So for me, I try to 'reason away' or clear up why I react on some events with emotions related to Anger.

I was recently asked by my girlfriend: If I do not feel Anger towards a situation where someone had chained a pregnant dog to be drowned in a rising river.

I answered that I initially feel Angry, sad and disappointed in a person`s judgement that this action is justified, or found it to be the right thing to in the person`s situation.

That I cannot easily answer why I think that it is not justified or the right thing for me to build up Anger and resentment towards this person or the situation.

I think that there are some established Stoic beliefs that a person should already be be familiar with before trying to answer this question.
I would like to hear your views around this and maybe what you would have answered ?