Maybe it could have been avoided. Maybe it wasn't fair. Maybe it happened to you.
You got screwed over. You got humiliated. You were robbed of something you worked hard for. You screwed up big time. And now you're in the middle of a scandal. You're at rock bottom. Deserved or not, preventable or not, you're at the mercy of fate, of the market, of a mob.
The author John Fante (whose incredible novel Ask the Dust is a classic—grab it here from The Painted Porch) had a number of bad breaks in his career. It just didn't go the way he wanted it to go. That could have made him angry. It could have turned him into a drunk or a deadbeat. It didn't. "I think the one thing that a writer must avoid is bitterness," John Fante told a journalist in 1979. "I think it's the one fault that can destroy him. It can shrivel him up...I've fought it all my life."
It was that fight that his son admired most about his father, who soldiered on as a writer (and was eventually rediscovered and rightly celebrated). "I'm not naïve enough to think good work always wins out in the end," his son James Fante explained. "There are plenty of painters who died in Auschwitz. I don't necessarily think there is justice in the world, it's that [my father] had the strength of character not to let it break him."
Injustices will befall us. Certainly, they befall the Stoics. Seneca was exiled, so was Epictetus. Others had their property confiscated, others still were executed. Think of James Stockdale and how the public treated him after that disastrous vice presidential debate in 1992. What matters is how we endure and bear these moments, whether our strength of character allows them to break us or not. What matters is if we stay good despite bad things happening to us, whether we let them steal our decency, our joy, even our sense of humor.
We don't control those big external events. We do control how we remain inside.
P.S. This is one of the main tenets of Stoicism, and it's why the philosophy is so practical for us today. Keep these timeless principles close at hand with our beautiful leatherbound edition ofThe Daily Stoic book—just as the Stoics' teachings have endured throughout the centuries, this edition is designed to last.
The Examined Life Is Worth Living. Let Someone Help You Examine It.
Marcus Aurelius kept a journal. Epictetus reflected on what was within his control. The Stoics knew self-knowledge wasn't a luxury—it was the foundation of a well-lived life.
But even the most disciplined mind has blind spots. Thoughts we can't untangle. Patterns we see but struggle to change. That's not weakness—it's human. And it's where a good therapist can help.
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