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How To Deal With Non-Stoic People (Episode 29)
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Want to become more Stoic? Join us and other Stoics this October: Stoicism Applied by Caleb Ontiveros and Michael Tremblay on Maven
How can you remain Stoic when everyone around you has lost their head?
Caleb and Michael discuss the problem of Non-Stoics. Often others can’t handle the stress of life and want to share Stoic techniques with them – when is that the right play? Luckily, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius gave for this very issue.
At the end of this conversation, we summarize 8 strategies you can use to deal with non-Stoic people. Check out StoaLetter.com if you haven’t already, the Wednesday letter will summarize the eight strategies.
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Stoa Conversations is Caleb Ontiveros and Michael Tremblay’s podcast on Stoic theory and practice.
Caleb and Michael work together on the Stoa app. Stoa is designed to help you build resilience and focus on what matters. It combines the practical philosophy of Stoicism with modern techniques and meditation.
Download the Stoa app (it’s a free download): stoameditation.com/pod
Listen to more episodes and learn more here: https://stoameditation.com/blog/stoa-conversations/
Subscribe to The Stoa Letter for weekly meditations, actions, and links to the best Stoic resources: www.stoaletter.com/subscribe
Caleb Ontiveros has a background in academic philosophy (MA) and startups. His favorite Stoic is Marcus Aurelius. Follow him here: https://twitter.com/calebmontiveros
Michael Tremblay also has a background in academic philosophy (PhD) where he focused on Epictetus. He is also a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. His favorite Stoic is Epictetus. Follow him here: https://twitter.com/_MikeTremblay
Thank you to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/
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Transcript
Introduction to Stoicism and Podcast Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
It's this Marcus Aurelius thought that you should expect there to be shameless people in the world. You should expect there to be ignorant, irrational people. And when you are surprised, when you're disappointed, well, that's some evidence that your expectations were not set appropriately.
00:00:15
Speaker
Welcome to Stoic Conversations. In this podcast, Michael Trombley and I discuss the theory and practice of stoicism. Each week, we'll share two conversations. One between the two of us, and another will be an in-depth conversation with an expert. In this conversation, Michael and I discuss how to be stoic when everyone around you
Strategies for Interacting with Non-Stoics
00:00:37
Speaker
is not.
00:00:37
Speaker
At the end of this episode, I summarize eight strategies you can use to deal with non-Stoic people. Do check out stowaletcher.com if you haven't already. The Wednesday letter will summarize these strategies. And here is our conversation. Welcome to another Stoa Conversation. My name is Caleb Montavaros. And my name is Michael Trombeau. Welcome back, everyone.
00:01:05
Speaker
All right. And here we're going to be talking about a specific problem. A lot of people who are progressors and the stoic philosophy, myself included, run across in their practice. So often we find, you know, I found stoicism to be an excellent tool for managing stress from more serious events in my life to rather mundane things like delay at the airport, delays in traffic.
00:01:35
Speaker
Studying my toe, whatever it is, stoicism is a useful resource in those more minor cases of offense, those more minor negative events as it is in some of the more extreme life events or crises that we all experience.
00:01:52
Speaker
So, that's I think one of the first upshots after you become a practicing Stoic is noticing that you can handle many of these events quite well. And you might look back on your past and, you know, take pride in the fact that you are making serious progress on the Stoic path.
00:02:11
Speaker
But you might find yourself in situations, and certainly I find myself in situations where, you know, you're at the airport, you get a delay, you check, you know, is there anything else I can do to get to my destination on time? Is this a serious enough delay that I need to change my travel plans? All right, maybe not. Okay, so then I can accept the fact that there's a delay, those sorts of things happen. It's not that unexpected.
00:02:34
Speaker
And I can go on but maybe you're traveling with someone else and for whatever reason they become extremely stressed about it and Eventually you find yourself wishing that they reacted to the event differently you wish they were more stoic and After a while you may even find yourself perturbed you might have become disturbed by the fact that they are not as stoic as you want them to be you know you are fine with the delay you did the work you overcame and
00:03:03
Speaker
the minor obstacle in yourself, why can't the people around you do
Personal Challenges in Practicing Stoicism
00:03:08
Speaker
the same? And that's especially bothersome when the people around you are people you love or care for because you don't want them to be suffering, but you also don't want them to ruin your mood or rain on your stood parade as it were.
00:03:20
Speaker
So that's this case that comes up that I think is exceptionally bothersome, can be exceptionally annoying, is you are doing excellent, you're becoming much better at how you respond to what the world throws at you, but you feel on occasion, let down or annoyed by the fact that other people don't respond in the same manner. And as soon as that happens, you realize, oh, I've stopped.
00:03:47
Speaker
becoming stoic. I have not made as much progress as I wish I had. So that's the problem we want to talk about today is this problem of how, why aren't the people around me just more stoic? Yeah. We're also like that, that problem of maybe, you know, how we should approach that situation and how we should deal with that problem. I think it's something very relatable for everybody. Anybody who's been practicing stoicism, even someone like Epictetus, right? Even someone like,
00:04:17
Speaker
Marcus Aurelius Seneca. A lot of what they're talking about, the writing about, is not just the events occurring to them, not just the behaviors of those around them, but the behaviors of those acting in a particularly non-Stoic way. Epictetus would talk about his students
00:04:34
Speaker
and counsel them about what do you do if you find yourself at a table with people who are asking you what's the philosophy asking you to justify it or people kind of acting not in a way you would agree with or approve it. So a relatable example, even in ancient Roman times, something I've dealt with.
00:04:49
Speaker
And two things that I think why this becomes a problem for the progress in stoic. The first I think is that stoicism teaches personal accountability or teaches you to really focus on what is up to you and master what is up to you. And it teaches you that what's up to you is your behavior, your responses, your decisions.
00:05:08
Speaker
And so that can be very empowering in the individual, but I think it can also lend you to start maybe even blaming other people more. You say, well, look, that that's clearly up to you. So I'm more frustrated with you before when I wasn't a stoic, I wasn't frustrated with you because.
00:05:24
Speaker
I would say, well, you know, you're angry, you're acting poorly because of this external event, but now you see the person being angry, acting poorly. You think, well, that's because of you. That's your responsibility to fix. That's something you're accountable for. So it's frustrating to me that you're providing that. Another reason I think this happens is progressing stoic. Why these, these kinds of situations become more frustrating is.
00:05:45
Speaker
Stoicism also teaches that certain kinds of ways of acting are irrational, or in other ways, certain ways of responding are objectively wrong. When you don't have a philosophy, if you don't have a life philosophy, you can say, well, that's how that person acts, that's how I act, and everybody's kind of, you know...
00:06:03
Speaker
They'll do it their way. I'll do it my way. When you start studying, when you start practicing stoicism and someone's getting very upset at an airport because there's been a delay, it's very natural for the progressing stoic to just say, well, that, that response doesn't
Empathy versus Preaching in Stoic Interactions
00:06:17
Speaker
make any sense. That response, response is irrational. That response is wrong. And it can lend to those kinds of situations being more frustrating for the progressing stoic. But yeah, that's my take on, on why that's a relatable situation and why that ends up popping up a lot as you start studying stoicism.
00:06:34
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So I think the natural response in such a situation is to share stoicism or stoic techniques with people so that they can manage what on the stoic view is their irrationality. And interestingly, I think that's not
00:06:53
Speaker
nearly always, that is not the right approach. Of course, it depends on the context. And it's something that Epitita says as well, is that often the right thing to do is not to preach stoicism at the first opportunity of someone's negative response, but instead to actively commiserate with them in a way. So I have this passage from the Handbook 16. When you see anyone weeping for grief,
00:07:20
Speaker
Either that his son has gone abroad, or that he has suffered in his affairs, take care not to be overcome by the apparent evil, but discriminate and be ready to say, what hurts this man is not this occurrence itself, for another man might not be hurt by it, but the view he chooses to take of it.
00:07:39
Speaker
As far as conversation goes, however, do not disdain to accommodate yourself to him and, if need be, to groan with him. Take heed, however, not to groan inwardly, too. Here, Epictetus is drawing the distinction that you yourself don't need to have the same view about whatever
00:07:59
Speaker
occurred, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't accommodate this person in conversation. You shouldn't expect that people will react in this way. And often assuming that they reacted differently is to miss the point, you know, you live in a world where people will not be stoic. And going back to these ideas about
00:08:25
Speaker
responsibility, you know, what is up to you is how you respond to that fact. And often our role, you know, as a friend, as a partner, what have you is to commiserate with a person at that time. And
00:08:40
Speaker
do what they would have us do, maybe over a longer term, they can see that through your actions, things like the stoic approach to life might be better in the long term. But at that moment, things like commiseration are often much more advisable. What do you think about that, Michael?
00:09:02
Speaker
Yeah, so to get us up to the point where we're at, you start practicing stoicism, you start seeing people acting non-stoic. A, it can be frustrating or you don't know what to do and you might have an instinct to say, well, A, to be angry, but B, I'm going to help them. I'm going to teach them. They're not going to be upset with them. I'm actually going to like help them become more stoic.
00:09:21
Speaker
And you're saying the answer to that is to actually not do that. That's something Epictetus says. Sometimes meet them where they're at. I guess to push back on that a bit, maybe to push back on Epictetus' claim here, is there some worry that there's enabling? Why do you think Epictetus is saying this?
00:09:44
Speaker
Why not teach them stoicism, even if it's difficult for them? Why not double down, even if it's unpleasant in the moment, if it's the right way to act? What do you think? So clearly, Epictetus is against lecturing your upset friend in the moment, but it doesn't seem, I'm still not clear, I guess, exactly on why. Maybe you could speak more about that.
00:10:09
Speaker
I mean, certainly there are different contexts. In some cases, you might know the person who is upset and you know that they'll be receptive to some more of the tough love type approach or the explicitly stoic approach. So in certain cases, it will work to be more stoic, but in many cases, I think it will not. And that's for a few reasons. I think one is just because even if you were
00:10:35
Speaker
the most persuasive opponents of stoicism, the person still might not be receptive for whatever reason. People are receptive to the same message at different times. One time the message might work, other times it might not. And if someone is having an estate of heightened passion, then they're not in a state where they're going to be able to think exceptionally clearly. So you shouldn't think of
00:11:04
Speaker
the sorts of arguments you could give for stoicism, the reasons you could give for stoicism are not going to be especially persuasive. So that's one bit. And I think there's also some aspects of this that have to do with yourself. And if you note that what you are responding to is the person's reaction to the situation,
00:11:29
Speaker
then you might be missing that in certain cases, the right thing to do is focus on the problem that provokes their reaction. So an example of this would be, say you're facing a delay and the person is worried that you're not going to meet your destination on time. In certain cases, just focusing on
00:11:53
Speaker
this worry, this initial reaction would be to miss the point and your time would be better spent seeing, wait, maybe you should, you're actually in a situation where you need to figure out how to get to this location on time.
Leading by Example in Stoic Practice
00:12:07
Speaker
You need to put in the work to find a new flight or something like that.
00:12:12
Speaker
So there's this argument, I suppose, from distraction. You can be distracted from the fact that you can fix the problem itself. That's one line. The first bit that I noted is that it just, the person is not in the space where they can be persuadable. And then the second,
00:12:27
Speaker
The second issue with distraction is that you aren't focusing on yourself or your own improvements. And on occasion, you might be blaming someone in a way that is not productive or takes away your own responsibility for your own state. If you find yourself in a state where you are
00:12:47
Speaker
frustrated and you're frustrated at the other person's reaction, then you've already made the mistake of becoming frustrated. It's one thing to tranquilly handle their response and think, actually, the rational thing to do is to provide some of the stoic techniques and a completely different thing to notice that you've become disturbed and then provide stoic techniques in that case.
00:13:13
Speaker
Yeah, so then lots of good stuff there. Like, and there's, there's a passage by Cicero. Cicero himself was, was not a stoic, but he wrote a lot about the stoics. Recommend anybody listening, if we talk a lot about Barkus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus naturally, but Cicero is also another very historically famous figure and writes very intelligently about the stoics, just, just as a position of someone interested in them instead of someone living that life. But he talks about Chrysippus.
00:13:42
Speaker
and how Chrysippus says the same thing. I guess the point is, this is not just an observation. We're making this something the ancient Stoics were really in tune with, not just Epictetus, but all the way to Chrysippus. If someone's in a state of heightened passion, your goal is just to help alleviate the passion. Because if you try to rashly persuade them, it's not going to work.
00:14:02
Speaker
But the, the, and I think that is, that's a pretty persuasive argument about, you know, what's good for other people. You're not doing something you're, you're, you're claiming to intervene as a stoic because you want to help. But if you're intervening with stoic arguments, when someone's in a heightened state of passion, you're not actually helping. You're probably just fulfilling your own desire to feel useful or something like this, or you're mistaken about what is helpful.
00:14:27
Speaker
But then you make this other really interesting point, Caleb, about the kind of distraction argument.
00:14:33
Speaker
So I guess it's this view where, you know, going back to that simple example, if your flight is delayed, there's a lot of things outside of your control. One of the things outside of your control is how upset the person you're traveling with is. One of the things outside of your control is, you know, this delayed flight. So to be upset by either of those is to make a mistake, but then you have kind of this, the sphere of influence, right? Where you're able to now this, this realm of action. So what do you do? How do you then, you know,
00:15:03
Speaker
choose to interact with these things that are not directly up to you, but you can still interact with. And I think the really insightful point there, Caleb, was that if now all your focus goes to making sure your friend is not upset, that's a weird, or not weird, but that's not the only thing you can be focusing on. It's kind of almost encouraging this passivity, and it's blinding yourself to other options you have. I think that's a really insightful point, and not a way that I've thought about it before,
00:15:31
Speaker
which is, you know, your job in a situation is not to make sure to emotionally regulate or make sure everybody's acting as stoically as possible. There's lots of things you can interact with and make sure you're also interacting and doing your best to do the right choices with those things that are causing people to get upset too. That's a really great point.
00:15:50
Speaker
Yeah, thanks. A helpful line from Marcus Aurelius on this was from Meditations 9. He says, whenever a person's lack of shame offends you, you should immediately ask yourself, so is it possible for there to be no shameless people in the world? It isn't. And you should therefore stop demanding the impossible. If you run into someone who's shameless, he's just one of those shameless people who must necessarily exist in the world. And the thought is that
00:16:19
Speaker
You're going to find yourself in many of these situations and as you said, your role isn't to emotionally regulate other people, it's to fulfill whatever was driving you to be there in the first place, whether it's travel or simply navigating through traffic or doing performing well on your job, whatever it is. If you have some role, you know you're going to bump into obstacles like other people's reactions.
00:16:49
Speaker
that can put you in the face where now you're able to respond tranquilly and in such situations maybe it is appropriate to share stoic techniques. But I think it's also counsels against avoiding in a passionate way yourself and focusing on what your job is in whatever situation you find yourself.
00:17:09
Speaker
Yeah, so to pull it apart, I really think there's like two issues we're wrestling with here. One is, you know, how should you feel when you see non-stoic people being non-stoic? Should that frustrate you? Should that upset you? How should you respond to it? And one easy thing is to just go to the dichotomy of control.
Role Ethics in Social Interactions
00:17:27
Speaker
Well, so it's not up to you. So it doesn't, but.
00:17:30
Speaker
the economy of control is not really going to be this helpful catch-all. This other kind of argument I find much more persuasive, the one that Marcus Aurelius makes, which is that there will be people that will be ignorant and will make mistakes, you included.
00:17:48
Speaker
And then there will be people that are just shameless, or there will be people that are just kind of, you know, bad people. And there's just, that's a natural fact of the world. And to be, you know, if you're driving in traffic, there's going to be people that flip you off. There's going to be people, if you're walking down the street, that say mean things to you. And, you know, that act in these non-virtuous ways. And to be surprised by this,
00:18:15
Speaker
to have this be some sort of a front or be so immediately abrasive to you. It demonstrates, I think, kind of a lack of perspective or a lack of acceptance of the world as it is. So that's one argument for why you shouldn't be upset in these situations.
00:18:32
Speaker
And then there's this other point I think about also about helping people, which was the one we were talking about later. And then so, so not only should you not be upset, but you should not immediately intervene necessarily. Sometimes you'll intervene. Sometimes it's the right thing to do. As you said, you know, your friend really well, you know, how, how, you know, they, they, they trust you and the receptor this, but you should also not immediately intervene.
00:18:54
Speaker
So interesting arguments from the Stoics on both of those points there. I think pretty persuasive. I tend to like Epicthenuses and Marcus Aurelius' reasoning here.
00:19:06
Speaker
One of the things that I think Epictetus talks about that people could learn more from in the quote you gave was this idea of you can wail externally, but not inwardly. So sometimes when somebody's upset, you know, the question to ask yourself is not, is it rational? Is it correct? The question to ask yourself is what do they need? You know, what are they looking for? How can I help?
00:19:34
Speaker
And as long as you can do those things without compromising yourself, then I think those things are on the table. So if you can weep or groan externally, but not inwardly, that is to say, show empathy without getting yourself caught up and rising to match their emotion, then you should do that. And there's nothing wrong with doing that as a stoic. Is meeting someone where they're at as a non-stoic or is someone else progressing? It's not like I don't ever get upset about anything.
00:20:02
Speaker
I get upset all the time is you meet the person where they're at and you say, well, and right now you're looking for empathy. Right now you're looking for someone to, to, to relate to and maybe half an hour from now we can talk about why that response was unhealthy or not, not great. But right now, maybe a day from now, but right now that's not what you're looking for. And for me to focus on that first part, well, it's not correct. It's not right is to get something wrong. Even, and even like, you know, hardcore Epictetus thinks that.
00:20:32
Speaker
Do you agree with that? No, I agree with that. I think reframing on questions about needs is useful. If it's a friend, partner, family member, what are the requests they have and how can you meet them where they're at? And you can do that without using your n-word state. And I think that's just part of what it is to be a good friend, partner, or family member.
00:20:58
Speaker
And I find it useful to, in these cases, think about role ethics and what are the expectations around my particular role here and how can I meet the person where they're at in this moment is useful. And I think thinking of myself in a role, it makes it easier to do what's required in the moment without, say, feeling like I'm
00:21:27
Speaker
compromising or asserting values I don't really believe, say when I commiserate with someone. You know, I think commiserating is just part of what it is to be a good friend for humans who are not rational all the time. And it's something that occasionally I would expect that other people do for me as well, even if less than many on stories. Yeah, I expect it all the time. Big commiserator. I need it. I need it. I constantly.
00:21:58
Speaker
And yeah, that's the good, there's the idea there should have lost it. Oh, the role ethics. Great. So for those that aren't familiar, but we've talked about this in other episodes, role ethics is this way that the stoics have of kind of explain how we should navigate preferred indifference. So how we should navigate, um, you know, yeah, virtue is good. Vice is bad. Now, what do I do about.
00:22:21
Speaker
how to structure my day, my career, my relationship with my friends. And stoicism points to this idea that you should look at these through the lens of different roles and there's kind of a hierarchy of roles. The top hierarchy is you're a rational human being and don't do anything that compromises that. But then if you're not compromising that, then you can look at your role as a
00:22:41
Speaker
mother, father, brother, sister, friend, boyfriend, girlfriend, something like this, right? And you don't commiserate because it is correct in your role as a rational human being, which is to say, if someone's upset because the flight is delayed, you don't commiserate because you agree in the true grand scheme of things, taking the view from above that the flight delayed is a terrible evil. And you also feel a passion. You commiserate
00:23:11
Speaker
without getting internally upset because you recognize that's part of your role as a friend or part of your role as a family member or partner or whoever you're traveling with.
00:23:20
Speaker
So just to flush out what you were saying, the rule ethics helps justify ground and explain from a stoic view what justifies these kinds of actions, even if at that ultimate rule, at that higher rule, no, I shouldn't be upset. I shouldn't be commiserating. They're wrong. They're irrational. Well, OK, you accept that, and you also don't get upset. But in your role as a friend, provide that person what they're looking for or what can help them feel better.
00:23:49
Speaker
It's a, it's more common sensical than you might assume considering how paradoxical a lot of stoic ethics is otherwise about virtue being the only good and things like this. There's, there's really kind of a sense for context and common sense in this role. I think allows, you know, allows stoics to really flourish in social settings and be good members of the community and good friends as well.
00:24:13
Speaker
Right. And of course, there's always a balance. So the Seneca has a useful line, you may weep, but you must not wail. And the thought is that it's completely natural to respond with latent feelings in many, many cases, but end up having problems when the response sort of distracts from living well or promotes too much ignorance either in ourselves.
00:24:40
Speaker
or others. So there certainly are cases where someone might end up throwing an absolute tantrum in an airport and that would be inappropriate and it might be wise to step in those sorts of cases. So that's always important to say and one always needs to use your judgment to figure out what world you're in. But I think typically the
00:25:01
Speaker
If I think about myself, my fault is of course to be quicker to point the finger at the other person's reaction than perhaps I should be. And why do you think you do that? Yeah, that's a good question. Why do I think I do that? Probably just because it feels like I responded appropriately to the situation and I wish they would do so as well.
00:25:26
Speaker
Get on my level. Let's go. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. It feels like I wish I was a specific person who can handle stress with equanimity. And I was just same thing for those around me, but there is always that paradox of that wish can become, or it can create unreasonable expectations or that wish itself becomes a source of the lack of tranquility.
00:25:50
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. That the wish that other people would respond tranquilly should never impede your own tranquility. That would be counterproductive. That's a great way of thinking about it.
00:26:03
Speaker
Yeah, I think you can also think about the same kind of phenomenon with yourself and not so much other people, but often, of course, we ourselves are going to make mistakes, we're going to respond in particular ways that are not appropriate. And a natural response in those cases too is a case of extreme.
00:26:23
Speaker
self-judgment, which often might be too extreme or just not realizing the fact that we respond in a particular way because we were ignorant at the time. And just as Marcus Aurelius said about shameful people, you know, we are progressors and we should expect to make these sorts of mistakes. And what matters is what we do now, of course, we always apply the dichotomy of control. What are the decisions and judgments that are up to me now?
00:26:51
Speaker
and presumably it's not to decide to wallow in self-criticism for the next few days or what have you. So I suppose that's always another way one can take this is thinking about how you would treat yourself when you make mistakes.
00:27:07
Speaker
Yeah, try it to be, you know, if you're kind to yourself, be kind to others. If you're kind to others, be kind to yourself. And if you're, I guess if you're judgmental to both, try to be less judgmental, at least starting with one. But yeah, I find people are, it was a good point. People are, in my anecdotal experience, usually good at one and not the other. So they're either very understanding for others and then internally judgmental or very internally forgiving, but then externally judgmental.
00:27:35
Speaker
to try to treat both spheres appropriately is a worthwhile goal. Yeah. My slogan for this is stoicism for me, but not for the phrase I have for these sorts of moments is that it's important for myself to remain stoic when I have these expectations about others. Marcus Aurelius has a nice line from book 10 where he says, when you are offended at the faults and bad behavior of others, ask yourself when you've acted like they are now,
00:28:02
Speaker
when you behaved as if money or pleasure or reputation were good in themselves. Your anger can be controlled if you remind yourself as well that these false beliefs about the good required them to act as they did. So this includes this notion of
00:28:18
Speaker
thinking of people as ignorance at the time and not thinking of them as corrupted or evil in some particular way. No, they just have mistaken beliefs. They're sort of malfunctioning in a way. It's not a justification for an extreme kind of castigating
00:28:39
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I really like what Marcus Aurelius is doing here, both in the previous quote about there must be shameful people, and in this quote about, you know, think about when you've acted this way before.
Understanding the Dichotomy of Control
00:28:50
Speaker
Because when I see people progressing in stoicism, myself included, or I think everybody's gone through this, you hit this initial stage where if anything's upsetting, you just say, well, it's not in my control, it's in the other side of that economy of control. But you hit a kind of wall with this, because
00:29:06
Speaker
It's not really a foundational understanding of why the dichotomy of control is true. It's just kind of the application of a rule, right? Well, that person getting upset or that person, you know, making a mistake is not me, so I shouldn't care. And I think Marcus Aurelius is pulling the curtain back a bit about why we shouldn't be upset or why we shouldn't have a
00:29:29
Speaker
be angry or judgmental in these moments and providing some, some meat onto the bones there of why those things, not just that they're on the other side of the dichotomy. It's that, look, that's something to do with the way the world actually is and the way the world actually is is that people will make mistakes. You have made these mistakes. You are included in people. You are not special or different. So the forgiveness you, you provide yourself, you should also provide to other people to be consistent.
00:29:58
Speaker
I really, really like that because I think, yeah, when you'll, you'll hit this kind of intermediate level of progression where you're just try to apply that rule. Just try to apply the economy of control. Unless you have these deeper arguments, you won't really get over that hump in the more kind of emotionally frustrating situation. So, so love what he's doing here.
Integrating Stoicism with Modern Tools
00:30:15
Speaker
practice stoicism with stoa. Stoa combines the ancient philosophy of stoicism with meditation in a practical meditation app. It includes hundreds of hours of exercises, lessons and conversations to help you live a happier life. Here's what our users are saying.
00:30:33
Speaker
I'm new to Stoicism and wanted to dive deeper with guidance. This is it. I love the meditations. I've practiced meditations with other apps, but this just seems to be more impactful, life changer. With Stoa, you can really get a sense of how to take yourself out of your thoughts and get a sense of how to handle different difficult situations. Find it available for a free download in the Play Store and App Store.
00:31:00
Speaker
Yeah, are there other ways you think people can be better or improve their responses and actions to these kinds of situations?
00:31:11
Speaker
Well, the other one that Epictetus provides, it doesn't have to be all or nothing, right? You can sit in this kind of middle ground where I'm going to empathize, but I'm not going to get carried away. And I think, I think, I think what can feel unnatural when you're starting to, and can cause people to move away from Stoicism is this kind of unnaturalness of
00:31:32
Speaker
Wow, I'm really supposed to feel nothing here when my friends upset. I'm really supposed to not care about this or help. So this idea that no, you can you can have that healthy middle ground is a good one.
00:31:44
Speaker
In terms of other conceptions, as I mentioned before, rule ethics is a good one, which is to say, no, there is room to care here, but you care as a friend. You don't care as a person recognizing that there's an actual evil that's occurred. So there is still room for this empathy to come in. I think those are two good ones.
00:32:04
Speaker
And then again, Seneca's we but not whale, which is yes, feel, feel something, you know, we're not sages, but stop that feeling before it becomes passion, before it becomes a temper tantrum. So, so allowing, you know, I think of this in terms of dieting, in terms of like a cheat meal, right? I don't have cheat meals, the best metaphor, but
00:32:27
Speaker
You know, everybody here knows how to diet and from the first day, from the first, or not many, but like, it doesn't take a long time to learn about the basics, you know, calories in, calories out, or, or, or kind of an understanding of nutrition at a theoretical level. But then there's, there's all this kind of complication to application as people with their own complex context and situations.
00:32:47
Speaker
And I think if you approach stoicism at that theoretical level, at that high level, well, it matters to me or it doesn't, it's up to me or it's not, you're going to run into these problems where it feels too rigid. And allowing a bit of this leniency, allowing a bit of this movement will help, I think, alleviate some of the frustration when other people aren't being perfect.
00:33:10
Speaker
but also makes us feel like a much more palatable life philosophy when you're down in the nitty gritty of other people, not just by yourself sitting alone, but when you're in the thick of things in the mud, so to speak. I think the key point behind the idea of
00:33:28
Speaker
a cheat meal. And maybe cheat meal is not the right concept, but it's just being realistic, seeing yourself as progressing and others as progressing. And part of that involves setting plans that are achievable. Plans or goals or a way of being that doesn't require cheating because you've set the right level. And once you've mastered that level, then you'll move on to the next one.
00:33:54
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Yeah, and there's something else I want to say on this that I was just realizing. Epictetus, or one thing that the Stoics don't do, is the Stoics do not, and they intentionally do not, explicitly recruit or convert.
00:34:10
Speaker
You know, we could almost have an entire podcast on this. I mean, we could, but, but the stoic position is one of, I'm going to go, Epictetus is like, I'm going to go over here. I'm going to open up a school. If you want to come and study, you come here. Uh, we have a porch, you know, the stoa in Athens. If you want to talk about philosophy, the stoicism, this is where you're going to come talk about stoicism.
00:34:31
Speaker
but it's not knocking door to door. And I think there is a, I think there is a pragmatic consideration or a pragmatic reason for this that the Stoics have adopted through trial and error. I don't think it's that they don't care about other people.
00:34:46
Speaker
I think it's a realization of the importance of self-motivation and the realization of the importance of kind of autonomy or self-direction. So this is coming back to the example of providing stoic advice, very different experience if that's given unsolicited versus someone comes and asks. And one thing the stokes will talk about is that, you know, kind of let them see,
Receptivity and Stoic Effectiveness
00:35:08
Speaker
right? Like let them see the positive effects stoicism has had on you.
00:35:14
Speaker
And then they'll come to you and ask, you know, well, how are you able to do that? How are you able to stay calm when I'm so frustrated right now? How are you able to, you know, handle that situation so well? How were you able to, you know, see the joy in the situation where I couldn't, I could only see the bad. And when you kind of lead by that example, then both you're, you're protecting yourself, you're doing the right by yourself.
00:35:38
Speaker
And you're actually more likely to have people come to you and approach you and ask about, you know, how that's the case and how you got there. And then that might be the time. It's a non-passionate time. It's a, it's kind of consensual. They've asked for, they've asked to learn about spilicism and you can have that discussion. And that's both my own advice, but that's something that, as I was saying, the Stoics have picked up on through practice and through their experience teaching.
00:36:05
Speaker
Right. And of course you have historical cases of the Stoics forgetting that advice. You have Seneca going to Nero and trying to change who Nero is. Nero is not at all receptive to becoming a Stoic or perhaps even becoming a better Emperor. So Seneca's projects in a real sense failed. He wasn't able to convert Nero into a better person, let alone Stoic. So that's what I think what you're saying there is you always wait for that receptivity.
00:36:34
Speaker
Marcus Aurelius was receptive to the ideas of Stoicism, so when the time was right, he got Epictetus from his tutor, Junius Rusticus. And then he became a pretty good emperor and an excellent Stoic, one of the great emperors, as I've given sense, one of the five good emperors. And then, as you say, the question is, how can you make people more receptive? Well, that's where you need to embody the philosophy, not just talk about it.
00:37:01
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. Stoicism is most effective when people are receptive. If you're genuinely concerned about the other person and not just about making yourself feel better, you want the stoicism to help them. It helps people the most when they're receptive. They're receptive not when they're passionate.
00:37:20
Speaker
Unless again, maybe some are and you have a good relationship with them, but most of the time not when they're passionate, it will be when they're not in a state of passion and they've seen it in action. They've seen you kind of walk the walk and not just talk the talk.
00:37:34
Speaker
The last strategy I want to mention on this for managing your response in these situations has to do with a stoic paradox. So one of the stoic
Maintaining Focus on Virtue
00:37:44
Speaker
paradoxes is the idea that there's no real sense in which any wrong is more wrong than another. It's just wrong. So what that means is if you steal $100 from another person,
00:37:59
Speaker
you committed an act that was wrong, it was vicious, not virtuous. If you steal their entire life savings, that is also wrong. And there's nothing else to say about, well, which is worse. And the ancient Stoics had some philosophical reasons for saying this, but there's also the practical reason, I think, which is that
00:38:22
Speaker
As soon as you're sort of playing the game, well, I only stole $10 from this person as opposed to the person who stole their life savings. You've taken your eye off the ball and you've taken your eye off progressing towards becoming the sage. So that's one other
00:38:39
Speaker
heuristic, perhaps a more advanced heuristic for these situations is thinking of the sage, not thinking about weighing how good or bad particular responses are to a situation, but always keeping in mind just being virtuous and aiming to be as good as you can, and perhaps a pragmatic reason for that stoic view that there's no purpose in weighing up difference.
00:39:06
Speaker
wrongs or evils is that when you're involved in that project, it's another way of becoming distracted as it were from what really matters.
00:39:15
Speaker
Yeah, I think another way, I mean, that's a great point, the view that if you start comparing yourself to others, you're taking yourself off the, off the important project, which is to be a good person, to be virtuous, your eyes off the ball, it's off that target of the sage. We had a earlier episode called, why you should compare yourself to other people. And that's talking all about the contemplation of the sage exercise and the benefit of positive role models.
00:39:38
Speaker
And I guess this, so I guess this is this interesting inversion of this, right? Is there any benefit to looking at people worse than you or is that even, is that even a coherent way to think about things or is that just harmful? And I think, I think the stoic point here that you're making is that you start looking at people worse than you.
00:39:56
Speaker
It will just be kind of a way to feel satisfied. There'd be a way to say, well, I'm better than them. Or, Oh, they're so frustrating because they're beneath me. But that's not really, as you said, philosophical arguments against that from the stoic, but pragmatic arguments of that not being effective. I do think there is some benefit to taking pride in progress. And that might refer to looking at kind of a worse version of yourself or people who remind you of how you used to be.
00:40:27
Speaker
But that's for the benefit of kind of doubling down on your motivation of how far you've come and kind of continue the journey. It's not for the sake of saying, well, you know, I've come far enough or I don't have any more work to do because now I'm better than I used to be or better than these other people. I think that's the right way to think about that.
Stoicism and Social Adaptation
00:40:45
Speaker
Yep. That seems right. I think it's always important to take some amount of pride, some amount of satisfaction, your progress.
00:40:53
Speaker
And it can also be thinking about this idea of anti-models. Having anti-models can be useful, but perhaps the lesson there is you don't want the anti-models to be too close to you in your life. Otherwise then maybe that's a sign that you've made a mistake. You'd really don't want them to be a family member or a friend or a coworker or something like that. Cause then there's a significant worry that now you're just playing the status game.
00:41:16
Speaker
Whereas if you have an anti-model that's not involved in the same circles, then there's less concern that what you're doing is just comparing yourself against them to feel better. Yeah, the status game. I think that's the perfect way to put it. We want to avoid the status game whenever, if we ever do look, look to people struggling more than us, we don't want it to be for the status game reason. It's got to be for, for.
00:41:39
Speaker
for a motivational or beneficial reason, and a good heuristic to avoid that status gain. It's somebody that you can't compare statuses to, so it's people that aren't in your immediate kind of circle. Sweet. What else you got on? There's one other point that I want to make, which I guess is really this question of dealing with non-stoics. Not so much, should I do stoicism? Should I teach them stoicism? Should I be frustrated? But this whole idea of dealing with non-stoics is something the stoics took very seriously.
00:42:08
Speaker
Just understanding those rules and understanding kind of social norms and how to play within them is not an anti-stoic thing. Again, as long as you're not weeping internally. And I always go back, I taught a lot of kids classes. I did, I'm a martial arts instructor. I taught a lot of kids jujitsu over the years. I was a camp counselor. I worked a lot with children. If you do not relay or communicate on any sort of emotional level with children, it can be very, very difficult for children.
00:42:36
Speaker
Right. So I'm not being anti stoic when I commiserate or empathize with the child. Likewise, I'd be exhausted at the end of day camp. If every time a child fell and scraped their knee, I cried with them. Right. It wouldn't make any sense. It would make me a worse counselor. Right. So I have to find that middle ground.
00:42:53
Speaker
And one line that Seneca has on this that I love is about how you can communicate anger without being angry. So, you know, if the child needs to know they did something wrong, you can scold them in an angry manner that communicates the idea to them without internally feeling angry.
00:43:13
Speaker
I mean, that's really the superpower of stoicism. The superpower of stoicism, I don't think, is to step outside of the game of socialization or step outside of the game of normal social interaction or having friends and these social roles. It is to say, well, you can fulfill those rules better and fulfill those rules with less harm to you if you do them without internalizing the emotional struggle as you go, without kind of groaning internally, as Epictetus put it.
00:43:43
Speaker
And I think that's kind of the superpower to focus on, not stepping outside of the game, but how can you fulfill those roles better by internalizing these ideas?
00:43:54
Speaker
Yeah, that's well put. Well, I can follow the list of eight different strategies you can take when you're in this sort of situation. So from progressing, you've handled some stressful situation, and then all of a sudden you notice that you are frustrated or disappointed that another person isn't handling the same, another person near to you in your life. What do you do? How do you respond? And here's sort of eight heuristics we've sort of been talking about that I think will be useful to summarize.
00:44:20
Speaker
You know, one is just this idea that you think of yourself and how you've been in those situations as well. So sort of stepping outside of herself and seeing this from a third-person perspective, if you will. The second is this idea of ignorance. People respond to events in a negative fashion when they are ignorant, when they don't have the correct views about the world. And that shouldn't prompt blame, but is
00:44:49
Speaker
expect that they may not even be culpable for their ignorance. The third has to do with expectations. It's this Marcus Aurelius thought that you should expect there to be shameless people in the world. You should expect there to be ignorant, irrational people. And when you are surprised, when you're disappointed, well, that's some evidence that your expectations were not set appropriately.
00:45:11
Speaker
And if your expectations are set appropriately, there's less chance of finding yourself in a situation where you respond with frustrations to others' non-stuck behavior. And then we have this thought of natural responses. It is natural to weep in certain circumstances, and that applies both to yourself and to others. We have involuntary responses to the world just because of the kind of social creatures we are.
00:45:38
Speaker
Then there's this idea of roles. That's always useful to think about, what's my role in this situation? And what does that have to say about how I respond to this delay at the airport? What does this have to say about how I respond to others' responses to the situation? Then there's this idea of the sage. Always think of the sage. They're the goal not comparing how well others are doing on their stoic.
00:46:06
Speaker
as it were. And then you mentioned this idea of being realistic, ensuring that you've set goals both for yourself and there are others that are achievable. Otherwise, your expectations are bound to be frustrating. I think the strategy is related to the point about expectations that Marcus Aurelius makes as well. And then finally, there's this divide between the internal and external and always remembering that
00:46:31
Speaker
how you respond, whether you commiserate with the other person, whether you sometimes use external anger as a tool that does not determine your beliefs, your internal character.
Conclusion and Contact Information
00:46:46
Speaker
So those are, that's a whole list and a number of these strategies are useful. I found them to be useful and there's a few others I need to think about more and to incorporate them more into my practice. Yeah, that's a great list.
00:47:02
Speaker
Sweet. Well, let's end it there unless you have anything else to add. No, it was great. Thanks, Gil. All right. Thanks, Michael. Bye. Thanks for listening to Story Conversations. If you found this conversation useful, please give us a rating on Apple, Spotify, or whatever podcast platform you use, and share it with a friend. We are just starting this podcast, so every bit of help goes a long way.
00:47:27
Speaker
And I'd like to thank Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music. Do check out his work at ancientliar.com and please get in touch with us at stoameditation.com if you ever have any feedback or questions. Until next time.