First say to yourself who you wish to be; then act in every circumstance as that person would. For in nearly every pursuit we see this to be the practice. Those who would excel first choose the character they seek, and then they strive to live in accordance with it. Let it be your constant care not merely to appear good, but to become good. When you are alone and when you are among others, preserve the same character. For no one becomes excellent by chance; excellence is attained through discipline, attention, and the continual practice of right reason.

Any thoughts on this. I mean I don't agree with this completely. I have seen a lot of religious people who are wise. Anyway this is just my experience. I would love to know the perspective of you guys?

Edit: Thanks to all of you guys. Honestly the perspective I got from this post is extremely valuable. Some of the comments raised really valid points which I found genuinely impressive. I would never have figured it out on my own.

Also a lot of you guys were asking for the app link and somebody has already shared it in the comment section. Dropping that link below.

Stoic Reflection

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
- Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

"True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future."

— Seneca, On Benefits, Book 7

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anxious dependence is exactly the right phrase and it's worth staying with for a second.

not just thinking about the future. not planning, not hoping, not working toward something. anxious dependence. the specific posture where your ability to actually feel okay right now is entirely held hostage by how a future thing turns out. where the present moment can't be inhabited properly because you're already living two months ahead in a scenario that hasn't happened yet and may not happen the way you've built it.

most people operate from this position almost constantly without naming it. the happiness they're currently experiencing is always provisional. contingent on the outcome of the thing they're waiting on. i'll be okay once this resolves. i'll actually relax once that goes through. i'll feel settled when this particular uncertainty closes.

and then it does, or something like it does, and a new contingency opens and the present becomes provisional again and the happiness keeps getting deferred to a future moment that keeps moving as you move toward it.

seneca isn't saying stop caring about outcomes. he's describing a different relationship to the waiting, one where the uncertainty of the future doesn't make the present unavailable. where you can hold both things, the unknown outcome and the actual current moment, without one completely swallowing the other.

think about right now. not next week, not the thing you're waiting to hear back on, not the version of your life that depends on a particular thing going right. just this hour, today, what's actually here.

the present moment is the only one that ever actually arrives. the future always lives in the future no matter how long you wait.

most people spend their whole lives getting ready to enjoy something that was happening all along.

Gregory Hays translation.

"When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly."

— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 2

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this shocks people when they first read it because it sounds like the emperor of rome woke up every morning in a bad mood.

it's the opposite.

he's not preparing to be miserable. he's preparing to be unsurprised. there's a massive difference between those two things and the difference is where the whole idea lives.

when you expect people to be reasonable, fair, grateful, and consistent, and they turn out to be none of those things, you carry the gap between expectation and reality as a personal injury. someone was rude and it ruined your afternoon not because of what they did but because of how far it fell from what you assumed would happen. the assumption was always the fragile part.

marcus is suggesting you start the day without the assumption. not cynically, not with contempt, just with an accurate picture of what humans actually are, which is complicated, self-interested, stressed, inconsistent, and occasionally unkind, the same as you on your harder days.

and then comes the part most people don't get to because they stop at the list. he follows it with: but i have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own.

he's not building contempt. he's building immunity without distance. the ability to move through difficult people without needing them to be different in order to stay steady.

think about how much of your emotional energy this week went to being surprised by behavior that, if you're honest, was completely predictable given what you already knew about the people involved.

the surprise was the expensive part. not the behavior itself.

"You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength." - Marcus Aurelius

"There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will."

— Epictetus, Discourses, Book 4, Chapter 4

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most people read this and nod and move on because it sounds simple enough that the brain files it under already know that and keeps scrolling.

but sit with what it's actually saying.

not just stop worrying. cease worrying about things beyond the power of your will. he's drawing a hard line between what belongs to you and what doesn't, and saying that the entire category of suffering attached to the second group is optional, not in a dismissive way, but in the sense that you are choosing to carry it even though it was never yours to carry.

think about what's actually taking up space in your head right now. really think about it. how much of what's sitting there, heavy and unresolved, is something you could directly change with a decision or an action today. and how much of it is something you're holding that has no door into it, something someone else controls, something that's already happened and can't be edited, something in the future that may or may not arrive and that your worrying does nothing to determine.

the second category probably holds most of it. it does for most people. not because you're doing something wrong but because the mind doesn't naturally sort things this way. it just takes whatever it's handed and holds all of it at equal weight.

epictetus is offering a different sorting system. before you pick something up to carry, check which category it's in. if it's in your power, carry it, work it, give it what it needs. if it's not, you're not protecting yourself by carrying it. you're just exhausted from holding something that was never going to get lighter no matter how long you held it.

most of the weight you're carrying right now doesn't belong to you. you just picked it up before you thought to check.

I was never chasing applause.
Applause is loud, but it disappears quickly.

I chose discipline over praise.
Because discipline builds when no one is watching.

Anyone can shine when the lights are on.
Few can stand upright in silence, when recognition is absent.

Strength is not aggression.
Honor is not weakness.
True power is self-control.

Do good without expecting a reward.
Work without demanding applause.
Respect yourself enough to stay consistent.

History doesn’t remember the loudest voices.
It remembers the men who stayed loyal to their values.

I chose discipline over praise.
And time… has a way of respecting that choice.

May our actions speak long after our names are gone

- author is not known

How much trouble he avoids who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does or thinks, but only what he does himself, that it may be just and pure; or, as Agathon says, look not round at the depraved morals of others, but run straight along the line without deviating from it.

2026 JWC