You could be focused on what you're going to do about it. You could be focused on solutions. You could be thinking about forgiveness. Or patience. Or acceptance.
Instead?
Instead you're thinking about who's to blame, making, as the Noah Kahan song goes, "quiet calculations about where the fault lies." Why are they like this? Why did they do it? Why didn't they listen? Why couldn't they have done things differently?
The better question is: What good is all this doing you?
It happened. It's done. It doesn't change your responsibilities.
"Nothing is more pathetic," Marcus Aurelius writes in Meditations (our favorite translation here), "than people who run around in circles, 'delving into the things that lie beneath' and conducting investigations into the souls of the people around them…" He's saying that it's very easy to get distracted by putting other people on trial and that this is a way to let yourself off the hook. We should instead focus on how we're going to respond to this, how we are going to—as the Stoics teach us—use this as an opportunity to practice virtue.
We can keep running the numbers, replaying the mistakes, and assigning fault, but the total never changes. That type of math keeps us stuck in the past. The past is gone, and no amount of calculation will bring it back or make it fair. What we do have is agency right now. We can choose to let go, to move on, and to move forward. Agency doesn't exist in the past—it only exists now.
The Stoics believed progress is made in small, consistent actions. Not grand declarations—daily practice.Learning a language is no different. A few focused minutes each day builds discipline, strengthens the mind, and expands your perspective. With Babbel's expert-designed lessons, you can develop real conversational skills at a steady, manageable pace.
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