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up to us
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Citations (57)
Like u/MyDogFanny, I hope some more knowledgeable posters come to help out, as this is a great exercise. Anyway, here's my understanding. Fate and determinism are tricky concepts because they are A)…
The fatalistic overcorrection of the dichotomy of control. — I wrote part of the body of this post as a comment in another thread, but I see these comments very often anyway so I thought (voluntarily) that I would give a general objection to them here. The g…
My horrible mushroom trip by Jimmy Burnt — It all started during an environmental school excusion/protest. I had packed my lunch that day, drank my water, dressed well and expected nothing to happen. To preface I live in Sydney and lived aro…
Overcorrections 2 Electric Boogaloo — This time I'm focusing on the way things are phrased in this subreddit's Read Me First. The problems I'm noticing can be either attributed to right understanding but wrong phrasing, or wrong understan…
Why am I (27F) struggling with the thought of divorcing my husband (29M)? — I (27F) have been with my husband (29M) for almost a decade. He’s my first and only relationship. We had our first child and got married all within the same year. In hindsight we probably never shoul…
I’m re-explaining my situation after everyone on this subreddit said I was the shittiest person alive — Hi everyone I know this is super long but please read all of it. So yesterday I posted this: “I need honest opinions because I’m really conflicted and don’t know if I crossed a line or if this break…
What team am I playing on — So back in my early 20s I'd been using ambien to trip and as a substitute for Xanax whenever I couldn't get a hold of any benzos. This was in the early days of popping different pills but ambien was m…
To me, you sound self-aware enough to understand that your fears override your emotions. What an amazing position to be in. Does it make it easier? Probably not. But self awareness and accountability…
Umm.. I think your % is off and there are way more lurkers here and some real people out there. I thought about doing posts, a podcast, or a book as an entrepreneur about how hard it was for years ru…
I like this idea. It seems to help both the anxious leaning and the avoidant just check in for the day rather than the avoidant expecting to have to check in continuously, or the anxious person waitin…
Ahh, man. I'm sorry to hear that. It sucks big time. I empathise with you. I have found understanding attachment theory & limerence helpful , too, but only up to a point. I sometimes think, regardless…
You can lead a horse to water…anyway props to you OP. I invested almost six years into mine. I almost lost myself in the process. I told him this morning the ball is in his court going forward. I’m mo…
I've been reading up on this a lot today - because I think my latest avoidant and I have broken up - and unfortunately, we're literally drawn to emotionally unavailable people; there's seemingly nothi…
> The sub doesn't let me post That's weird. There are auto-rules that limit TOP-LEVEL comments for posts tagged as "Seeking Personal Stoic Guidance". You have to be tagged as a "Contributor". I do…
Welcome to the other side where you'll find peace. Boundaries are for us, not for the other person; the moment they don't respect it, it's up to us to keep our word that we will (insert what you said…
I feel like we can definitely shape ourselves with conscious effort. I see the natal birth chart as a way to recognize our inherent character, or as a point of reference for how we may tend to behave.…
1. Probably those guys are looking for sex partners primarily. They may not be looking for a real relationship at all, or they may be open to it. They probably try this approach with lots of potent…
I had something similar. In my dream my friends and I were running from the police and we were in this tall building. They needed to use the restroom and we were far enough from the cops that we thoug…
The Stoics would actually say you don't need to get rid of nihilism so much as pass through it. There's this idea in Chrysippus about preferred indifferents, things that have practical value but aren'…
Epictetus says the only area of life that is up to us - where we are free and cannot be obstructed or disturbed - is in our reasoning about what is true and false, good and bad. Everything else is ext…
Yeah it’s up to us to change that mindset, of thinking we are less than because a guy isn’t attracted. Fuck that. But the dude’s preferences are not our problem.
I had this happen to me once but it worked in my favor. My friends and I were in San Antonio for some medical conference and we were standing outside trying to figure out where to get dinner. A homele…
The value we put into our lives is up to us. If you give it no value then it will all seem worthless and empty. If you give it too much value then it will all seem overwhelming. Finding balance here i…
> When he has none to retrain him In the Seneca quote, and the larger letter the Stoic perspective becomes clear. You say “someone has to harm me before I act angrily” but imagine the Stoic who has…
>The question for me has been: how does one become resilient and less quick to anger? And the answer has been in large parts what you did. Which is to evaluate cause and effect and think about what pe…
I actually just wrote about this recently so am going to copy that here: Coming into this with the understanding that our viewpoint of what's possible has been largely directed and kept within a cert…
Yes exactly, thank you for sharing. Somehow it is always up to us to carry the entire weight of the success of a situation, a relationship, healing, etc. Or we somehow end up carrying all the weight…
“So what can we do? Make the best of what is up to us, and take the rest as it comes …” Good advice from Epictetus.
Amazing! Thanks for sharing!! 💕 Question 1: Does the head lift technique work during hypnagogic vibrations? Next Questions: Does this new method work even if we get up to go to the bathroom but ca…
It is a birthright of every soul, not a privilege that needs to be granted externally. It is a fundamental capability of one’s own being, not something you need any sort of external permission or appr…
The virtue of justice covers what is up to us when it comes to others. Stoicism is pro social. So when you combine the two, you see that we clearly have a moral responsibility in how we carry ourselve…
On one hand, this shows that you’re considerate and thoughtful of others. That’s a good trait. But there’s also something to be careful of here. It is NOT up to us how other's react and we will stall…
I underwent this process many years ago after realizing how 'broken' of a person I've became. Also had a diary entry about it ironically but stopped maintaining one shortly after I started feeling bet…
Well done for taking practical steps towards getting the employment that you prefer. At some point perhaps you might consider if not getting this employment is life-feedback, and you might need to r…
Meditation definitely helps shift perspective towards "mistakes". They start to be seen as lessons. Real mistakes stop to be existing - they become a part of the path. In general, the past and the f…
He is saying there’s no such thing as good and bad externals. Stoicism says that virtue is sufficient for a contented fulfilling life. Virtue is the result of living according to reason, which is up t…
We have no power over the past. The past is not up to us. Regret comes from needing the past to be different than what it is. This need comes from our placing the value of a moral good or bad on somet…
I understand, he could be thinking the same no? This is why it’s not up to us:)
My thoughts -1. you'll never be able to trust him (and torment yourself mentally in the process) 2. it's not "normal" for men, normal is whatever your own boundaries are 3. you're picking through tra…
Just because we had to endure the struggle and lack of care doesn't mean we were wrong or naive to expect more from them. For 2 years I not only communicated clearly the things I value in a relation…
Your situation is a bit different than what the OP asked about. In Stoicism, it would be unwise to hold that the only way to get something is to deserve it. Unfortunately, this simply isn’t how life …
Hey friend. Fellow ADHD haver here 👋🏻 I would recommend the gateway tapes. I got on them myself thinking it was just a guided meditation, because adhd had made it impossible for me to mediate and “c…
I am AuDHD and rather pedantic :) Since history rhymes rather than repeats, I would like to think that when precedents are appealed to we are not condemned to revisiting the worst elements. Except of…
I think those things go against the spirit of Stoicism because they give a false sense of security that we still have a certain amount of time left. I feel like Stoics emphasized the idea we can die o…
>But I would argue that Stoics divide life into what is within our control and what is not. Actually the (ancient) Stoics didn't do anything of the sort. What you describe is a complete misinterpret…
> Thoughts are verbal representations of impressions. You get the impression of light from your eyes. You create the thought "It is day". The thought is in your agency, it is within your power. The im…
It’s an interesting question exactly what mental activity is up to us and what isn’t. I guess some of what we call “thoughts” are in fact judgments, which are up to us, while others are impressions, w…
If one more person tells me that I am such a great person, I will definitely find someone...I will snap..haha No one knows the future. No one has a crystal ball. Dating is easy. It's easy to go out s…
Interesting, I haven't interpreted those explanations in a fatalistic or automaton way. More in the sense that some thoughts that may randomly pop up in the moment aren't up to us, but our thinking …
I largely agree with this and see the overreach you are warning of. I share that concern and see that attempts to correct often lose the plot more times than not. My one confusion in what you bring u…
By "up to us" I not only mean that we are responsible for them but that they are also in our power. By saying that assent is not in our power I am saying that we can't control assent in the sense that…
Thank you, that clarification makes sense and I apologize if I confused it with my word choice. I think your last sentence is near my point/curiosity. I’m not trying to suggest that impressions them…
Well I think I've been clear already that assent is just an agreement to an impression with the appearance of truth, so it's not really up to us. What you call "withholding assent" really is instead "…
I remember when my friends girlfriend broke up with him. To help with rebound my friends and I who all were in a relationship took him to a meet fest for singles. Although we didn’t participate in the…
It’s not events in themselves that disturb us, but our interpretation of them - Epictetus. What judgments are you making about her behaviour? Sounds like one of them is that she SHOULD behave differen…
I am taking this from Keimpe Algra's chapter on theology in [The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-the-stoics/01BCAA241D1D6569C70230A7CA594…
I think a lot of us missed out on that developmental stage as a young child where we should have had someone to protect us, stand up for us, and rescue us. We didn’t get a healthy foundation of securi…