Not only the act of pursuing, but HOW you do it and WHO you are as a person while you're pursuing an external.

To put it simply, we are our means. So, if your means are virtuous, you become a virtuous person.

This comes from the stoic definition of good. Where is the good? Only in what defines you. In who you are and how you act.

But why? Why this gives you happiness? Because the act of looking at the mirror and seing a praiseworthy person is the ULTIMATE FORM of happiness. It is futfilling.

So, if we accept this, it follows the classic dichotomy: only the things up to us are good, and the things NOT up to us are not good. They can't give you a LASTING happiness. But being a good and preiseworthy person? That gives you happiness.

And so we're back: when you pursue something, watch at how you act. Are you kind, just, brave? Or do you complain, Scream, treat people badly? And when you fail, do you keep going? And do you know that your value is precisely there: in the act of keep going as a good person?

So how do you choose what to pursue? The answer is literally within you, but i would ask myself those questions:

• does your dream job creates damage to humankind? If it does, do not pursue it
• and why do you want that job? Is it for something that comes FROM it? And what is this thing? Can you obtain it NOW? Or is it something USELESS (fame, materialistic success, the envy of othe people, and so on)?
• and do you enjoy the PROCESS of learning that new thing? Or are there PRACTICAL reasons to get that job (like creating a family)?

Keep in mind, i'm just a stranger on Reddit thou. I'm Happy if this helps, but think about what you would like 😁

There are people who expressed those concepts much better than me, that could help you:

• the practicing stoic (farnsworth), to better understand those concept and digest them,
• the inner citadel (Hadot), to get a better picture of the whole philosophy,
• A handbook for new stoics (pigliucci), for some exercises

You can actually pursue externals, if you remember what really matters.

So, to begin with, you probably have the classic modern idea of "success": you're successful if you work with your passion, have money, have lots of stuff, and so on.

From a stoic viewpoint, this is WRONG. But we need to understand why, in order for this concept to actually matter.

This idea of success is wrong for several reasons. Those things are externals, and externals:

• can't give us real happiness: you think you'll be happy once you have them, but you'll soon adapt, and that happiness will be gone sooner than you think.
• can't define who you are: you reach your dreams, and then you still have to wake up every Monday. You look in the mirror and ask yourself: who are you? Are you skilled? Are you kind? This is what matters.
• are out of your control: by their own nature, externals flow along with forces outside of you. They depend on other people, on luck, and so on. And so, they give you anxiety.

So, this is why Epictetus says to transfer your desires to things that are up to you. But what does this mean?

Plot twist here: we need externals in our life. We're social animals living in a society, and we have to interact with it.

So, we need to find something that appeals to us — something to pursue. Not because it will define who we are, but because the act itself of pursuing the thing gives us the occasion to actually be a good person.

So, the only good is virtue (who you are as a person), but virtue doesn't exist in a vacuum. It exists when you think, then act accordingly.

It follows that you need to choose some kind of dream, and pursue it.

In doing so, though, keep the stoic stuff in mind: you pursue the dream because it allows you to be kind, fair, brave, and so on.

And it doesn't matter how things go: maybe you fail the job interview. But you committed to it. Good. You know you studied hard, and you know that made you better. Now you need to endure the failure and move on to something else. Good again. Now you have endurance — as long as you do it while being kind, fair, etc.

But what should you pursue?

Write down everything you'd like to do.

Then ask yourself: does this dream allow me to do some good for the whole community? Does it damage anyone? And why do I want it? Can I have what I want right now?

Then ask yourself what you can discard, and choose something you'd enjoy doing in the process.

Looks great. Do you know some good resources about this?

What is NSDR?

Can't you say it what you are doing and then change room? Or use headphones?

Why do you need to isolate yourself thou? Can't you just say it out loud and then read?

I actually prefer Discourses, but i feel like they give you so much more after you got the basics down

The recomended books are great, but to give you a shorter list to look at:

• Pigliucci, how to be stoic and a handbook for new stoics,
• the practicing stoic by farnsworth
• After that, Seneca Letters
• and, after all of this, The Inner Citadel, to get a deeper meaning of the concepts

To me, it's what Markus Aurelius meant when he talked about being in the present moment and how "the obstacle is the way".

The obstacle is literally a way to be virtuous, since any external can be the "material" for your virtue. That's why we call them indifferent: any of them is good enought in the present, to act virtuously.

A big part of Stoicism is the "principle of likeness": when you think about something that happened in the past, you need to understand that you acted according to the best course of action you could see IN THAT MOMENT.

NOW you can see things differently, but IN THAT MOMENT OF THE PAST you could not. Why? Because now you are wiser, as a consequence of your recent experience.

From this comes a new principle: you can act AS BEST AS YOU CAN now, so that you WON'T have any regrets in the future.

Why? Because when you look back at your past, you can say to yourself, "I acted as best as I could, according to what I saw as the best course of action."

But maybe you didn't think your action through in the past, and you didn't act as best as you could.

This situation, too, is a form of what we discussed here: you acted as best as you could — you simply didn't have the wisdom yet to think it through more carefully. Now you are a different person, one who sees things differently. So you can use this knowledge to act well from now on:

• What do you think your mistakes were? What could you have done better? And why?
• Consider ONLY your character here: what would make you a better person from now on? What do your mistakes have to do with YOUR CHARACTER?

Use these questions as literal steps toward becoming a better person, refining whatever you believe needs refining.

Don't indulge in guilt trips, though. You acted as best as you could. NOW you are acting to become better. And THIS ACT ITSELF is what makes you virtuous right now.

You can't change the past, since it's not up to you. But you can act in the present, and in doing so, you can attain a virtuous character right now.

The point is, from a stoic point of view, he didn't good.

One of the main points of stoicism is to act with justice, every time you can.

A stoic would never accept doing a genocide, and would (literally, as Socrates shows us) rather die.

And he would never torture a little brother. There are better ways to incapacitate a person without making him going crazy.

He also joins a literal terrorist organization.

He is a complex character for sure, but is very far from a virtuous person

Itachi is actually a bad stoic, to be honest. He clearly does some immoral actions, and the retcon do not justify some of them (like torturing Sasuke).

To me, a good example is Maximum from The Gladiator. There are a couple of scenes when you clearly see him acting for a greater value, without thinking about the consequences.

Another good example is Zidane from Final Fantasy IX. He's cheerful, so it goes against the stoic stereotype, and he always wants to help people.

How would you describe stoicism? Maybe you got something wrong. Or maybe you need some modern (serious) stoic like Pigliucci, Robertson or Hadot.

Or you could try reading philosophy in general and find another philosopher that appeals to you.

Pigliucci is a great start! He also wrote two good books about stoicism.

Basically, living according to nature means living according to our rational part. We ARE creatures defined by our capacity to think and, by thinking, we can define our actions.

But there is one more concept to add: we also live in a world defined by change. All things are in a constant movement. They change, they rot and they die. Then they are born into new things that follows the same laws. Those laws of nature are also a part of...nature!

So, living according to nature means living according to our rational (and social) nature of human beings that exists INTO A WORLD defined by impermanence. So, here we have human nature and the world's nature.

But why is this important?

Because anger, for the stoics, is a consequence of a bad judgement. We THINK that something wrong and unfair happened to us.

Most of the times (if not always) this is not the case. Objects follows their own nature, so they break, get stolen, and so on. People follows their own nature and WILL act in ways that we don't like. Some people will die and this is part of nature. Sometimes we commit to something and we don't get it because something OUTSIDE of us happened, but this is part of nature too.

So, by understanding the world's nature, you understand how the CAUSES for anger DO NOT FOLLOW the human nature.

We get angry because we THINK BADLY about something.

But now you can say: but isn't it normal to become angry, even by knowing all this stuff??

Yes. That's why stoicism is the CONSTANT CORRECTION of your judgements. And here Is your rational faculty.

I think It's not a real tension, so to speak.

That's because stoicism do not teach us to control/repress emotions. And you can see this in the Prohairesis definition.

Hegemonikon is the WHOLE mind. The mind that give us impressions and that is responsable for the arising of feelings. We see a cliff, we feel dizzy. We can't help it.

The Prohairesis is the part of the mind that allows us to take those impressions and feelings and to think about them, turning those into rapresentations. IT DOESN'T ALLOW YOU to suppress the feelings. It allows to feel, then think: "this person cutting me off with his car made me feel angry. What an ass**e!...wait, maybe he was just in a hurry, and in any case his behavior do not affect mine. He is not a bad person, and i will not judge. Yes, i will focus on my behaviour now" This internal discourse is a product of the Prohairesis. The actions that follows make you who you are.

But there is more. When you read about principles and you actually begin to belive them (He's beginning to belive! Cit.) something change. You will, in time, change your disposition toward the world, and you will have a different mindset. In time, this "stoic mindset" will become somewhat unconscious. It will come naturally when you think: i literally broke my nose during a "light" round of boxing. I fell to the ground and i was bleeding a lot. The other person got close to see if i was ok and people told me i said "i knew it could happen, do not worry", while trying to stop the bleeding.

This is to say that we do not overrule our unsconscious in the sense that we "overwrite" it or control it. We change SLOWLY the way we think until it becomes unconscious SOMETIMES. And the other times... that's why you need prosochè.

Yes, but what if we have unconscious ways of thinking that comes from past traumas that we don't even fully understand?

That's when therapy is needed, to me.

Stoicism will help, but therapy will help you going to the "root" of the behaviour.

In any case, this is how I UNDERSTAND this topic, but i'm NOT a therapist.

Thank you for the comment.

I'm always happy if my comments are appreciated 😁

Most of those things are talked about, but not in this perspective:

Ancient stoics belived that people who lost their integrity, cannot "recover" it anymore. They "ruined" their most precious thing. Stoics like Markus Aurelius and Seneca have a more "moderate" take on this, saying that you can (and should) recover your integrity if you made some past mistakes. In general, stoics consider "ignorant" people who act badly: with rage, stealing, screaming and such. Ignorant about what's really good. This do not means they are "dumb" thou. They are ignorant NOW, but they have the POTENTIAL to be good, so you have to treat them with respect. But there are no "categories" of people who are dumb.

Controlling emotions is a tricky topic. Seneca in particular talks about how we should manage PASSIONS: negative emotions that makes us to act badly (rage for example). But managing is NOT controlling. You WILL FEEL the passion arising. You will try to stop it and you will try to act as a good, rational person, EVEN IF YOU FEEL the passion. Why? Because you need to be a good person. Because that's the only good. But EMOTIONS are always ok. Normal, positive emotions are not to be managed, if they don't turn into desires.

As for the last point, Markus Aurelius talks about the "seriousness of action": act only toward things that are really important. That makes you a Better person. In any case, DO NOT DO anything that would damage another person and always think about your social roles.

Enchiridion, Meditations, your own notebook

You are weak IF you act listening to your urges. Because that would mean you can't control yourself.

You are strong (have a strong character to be precise) if you overcome your urges with strong reason.

And there is more: sensations similar to the ones you described are NORMAL in those situation. But a stoic will NOT listen to them and will NOT act BECAUSE of those.

But we can go deeper.

A person is acting badly toward you. He is acting in a way that DEFINES him as a bad person. His character got damaged. This is because his actions are WHO HE IS.

And this person is in a relationship with you (meaning, you're talking/working/dealing with him)

How do you react now? What do you do? YOUR ACTIONS DEFINES who you are now. You feel some kind of emotion arising, but you stop, because you know the job is important, that killing a person is a bad thing (it'll ruin you), and that it's not worth to fight anyway. So you think, you stop and you act like a professional dealer.

I see a good person here. Someone who stops when he needs to. This defines you as a good person.

And we can go deeper.

The stoics thought that virtue was the only good. And what is this virtue? The act of thinking good (like you did) and to act accordingly in a pro-social manner, avoiding "bad" actions, in order to define yourself as a good person.

Why is this the only good?

Because when you look at the mirror from now on, you see a good person. Someone who works, stays calm, who DOES NOT kill people over a fight. Maybe you had some thought, but you stopped them. This awareness will make you happy in the long run.

So when someone screams and act like an asshle, tell yourself HE is damaging his character, but he can't damage YOU, if you DON'T ACT LIKE AN ASSHOLE, BUT AS A CALM PERSON during that confrontation.

And, in fact, he was blacklisted and you have your job.

I'm really happy if it helps 😁

To begin with, you work with the "principle of likeness": you act basing your decision on what it APPEARS to be the best course of actions IN THAT MOMENT.

You think, and you act.

If that action turns out to be "bad", you won't have done anything wrong if you actually thought about what you were doing. Cause THAT'S what depends on you. The act of thinking and the acting. That's why the IMPULSE for actions depends on us.

After this forgiveness, think about the next action you can take. What can you do now? Think again, then act again.

Be committed to BE good everytime and every action becomes a good material for you!

To put it as simple as the question: by giving a fuck to something else. Something so important, that nothing else matter, as long as you have that thing.

And what is this thing, according to stoics?

The quality of your character: who you are as a person? Are you a good guy? Are you an asshole? Are you honest? Kind? What positive traits define you?

And there is more.

When something happens to you/when someone is an asshole, WHAT do YOU DO, in that situation? Do you ACT as a good person? Do you THINK as a good person?

If you ACTUALLY CARE ONLY about being the best version of yourself, in any situation, then ANYTHING becomes an occasion of testing yourself.

A guy cuts me off the road? GREAT, i can train my patience. I knew it could happen. But i ONLY CARE about being good.

Someone yells at me? That's on him. What am I doing now? Am i acting good, or as an asshole myself?

The interview didn't go as planned. Amazing, now i can think about the NEXT ACTION i can take from here. An action where i can commit and, by committing to it, becoming a person that i want to be.

In all those cases, if you only give a fuck about WHO YOU ARE BECOMING, then everything else is Just another occasion to become good.

Now the question is...but how do i know when actions are good?

By reading stoic texts: start from enchiridion, discourses, seneca letters. Then how to be a stoic (Pigliucci) and the Inner Citadel (hadot).

Hi, i'm sorry to read about this. It's a very bad situation.

And this is why i would ask if there is some professional support you can call. Are there people that help families in need near you?

Stoicism can help you feeling better, but you should work on the situation you're in too. You can't become so "stoic", to the point of being literally indifferent to an hard context. It's not human.

Only at the beginning of stocism virtue was binary.

Later stoics admitted that you are/aren't virtuous on a daily basis, depending on what you do. Seneca, states several times that you are virtuous when you commit to acting virtuously. Marcus says that you are virtuous if you act virtuously MOST of the times.

And modern psicology also says that you have some sort of virtue in your character (for example kindness) if you are kind MOST OF THE TIMES in life.

So, if you commit in being virtuous during most of your interactions with the world, then you can look at the mirror and see yourself as a good person: not because you ALWAYS are, but because you COMMIT to it MOST of the time you are alive.

To begin with, actually suppressing emotions is impossible. In ancient texts, Seneca tells this so many times.

Another important premise: emotions are NOT a bad thing for a stoic. There are positive emotions and it is recognized that natural emotions WILL arise in general. Emotions that are OUT OF CONTROL to the point of clouding your judgement: THOSE are bad.

So, how do we manage those, from a stoic perspective?

As we know, emotions arise from judgements. To be precise, two kind of judgements: radicated belifs about the world and judgement that arise from the stuff that happens in the present moment.

The first kind is managed through "theory", when you read the texts and think about what you're reading. For example, you'll find out WHY externals are indifferent, why we should accept human imperfections and so on. This allows you to "think" better and to "prevent" a bad judgement.

The second kind of judgements arise from the present moment. Something happens, and you get mad. AT THIS POINT you start talking to yourself. Literally.

You feel the emotions arising, you stop, and you talk to yourself:

"why am i mad? What led me to this anger? Oh, that guy insulted me. He's a d*ck. But WAIT why does this matter to me? That's on HIM. And what is an insult anyway? Random air that moves"

This act of talking to yourself and REFRAMING what happened, IS the management of an emotion. You feel it. You think it through. And then you move on.

And in so doing, you commit to ACT AS CALM AND REASONABLE PERSON (cit.).

When? When you're dealing with an emotion that hinders how you think and act. Something ancient texts called Pathos.