I have been deeply into Stoic philosophy for the past year or so.

I was one of those guys who said ‘Ah Stoic people are bad. They are emotionless and egoistic’.

In retrospect, I couldn’t be more false. We all start somewhere don’t we?

But as wrong as I was, I discovered with time—that there was some truth to my initial notion of Stoicism. Let me explain.

The Golden Rule

First rule of fight club: Never talk about fight club.

First rule of Stoicism: Identify what we have influence over, and what we do not.

There’s 7 billion human beings on this planet, and each one of them—I guarantee you, has a different perspective on life.

Some out of these outlooks work for them, while some doesn’t.

If it works, it works. 

That’s it. I’m not saying Stoicism is the best way to live, I’m telling you what works for me.

Control

The single most important rule of Stoic philosophy is to differentiate the things in your life into things you can and cannot control. Let me give you an example:

You are planning to go on holiday to Bali.

After several months of planning and excitement, you leave for the airport just to see your flight cancelled because of bad weather and cloudy skies.

You get angry. You get annoyed—at the slightest things around you. You displace that anger towards your people. You say things you don’t mean. You do things impulsively, like slamming that phone to the floor.

Here is where it gets sticky.

Because you couldn’t CONTROL your emotions, you are now back home with:

1. two full suitcases

2. a broken relationship with your friend, and

3. an Iphone 13 with a black screen, with no Applecare.

Sucks doesn’t it?

Here is the key word: Control.

This is where people get it wrong. Stoicism is not about being emotionless, it is about controlling your emotions.

It’s about separating the situations that occur in our day-to-day into two groups (control and no control) and focusing only on what you can control.

No matter how loud you scream or how many phones you break, you still didn’t get to go to Bali.

Do you understand?

No matter how hard you pray for the weather to be good that day, realistically speaking—you have no influence over it. ‘If it rains, it pours.’

You study hard for an exam, day and night. You know you have prepared to the best of your ability. You turn up to the exam hall. You get a question paper that is out of syllabus.

I’m sorry to break it to you, but you have no control over what questions you are going to get.

The way I see it—Life is eventful. You are constantly going to have things happen to you that you do not want to happen. That’s life.

And out of these things, there are very, very few things that you have influence over. I call it the Circle of Control.

The white circle encircles all the events in your life. The small, yellow circle consists of the things you actually have control over.

The actions you perform. The words that come out of your mouth. Your emotions and reactions. This is the yellow circle—the circle of control.

Focus in this yellow circle. Forget about the rest. Maximize your influence in the circle of control through consciously being aware of the events happening around you.

Direct your energy towards events in the yellow circle, and the rest will follow.

If it doesn’t, well it was out of your control anyway—you did what you could.

The rest is external factors in play. You don't control external factors. Let it be.

Keep moving.

Whenever you feel something unfortunate happens to you, try asking yourself these questions:

1. What parts of this situation can I control?

2. How can I change those things to help me achieve a result I want?

Choice

We are so focused on what happened in the past, that we fail to see what’s right in front of us: today.

We fail to see today.

People who grew up in rough environments cannot change what happened to them in the past, but they can change who they end up being.

Like Master Oogway says:

‘…today is a gift, that is why they call it the present.’

Concentrate on clarity—clarify the parts of our day that is within our control and the parts that are not.

Doing so will make you happier than the people that fail to realize that they are fighting an unwinnable battle.

If you want to read more about Stoicism, I recommend you read ‘The Daily Stoic’ by Ryan Holiday. It contains 366 insights, one for each day of the year.

Also, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is a no-brainer. Regardless of your perspective, I think everyone should read it.

Let me know how this first edition was. Maybe it was too long or you don’t agree with what I talk about—would love to hear your perspectives and what you think!

You can reach out to me here on Instagram, drop a follow and message me with anything you want to say about the newsletter, topic recommendations, ideas you want me to talk about, feedback, criticism, all of it.

Thank you, and I wish you a wonderful week ahead. 🧿