Donald Robertson

Wealth does not bring about virtue, but virtue makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually and collectively

“It’s not things that upset me but my judgments about them.”

“It is not things that upset us but our judgments about them.”

The Stoic likewise tells himself that although the situation may appear frightening, the truly important thing in life is how he chooses to respond.

Stoic philosophy, which teaches us to accept our involuntary emotional reactions, our flashes of anxiety, as indifferent: neither good nor bad. What matters, in other words, isn’t what we feel but how we respond to those feelings.

The Stoics were certainly interested in how our words affect others. However, their priority was to change the way we affect ourselves, our own thoughts and feelings, through our choice of language.

Marcus likewise told himself to speak plainly rather than dressing up his thoughts in fancy language.

The way we talk and think about events involves making value judgments, which shape our feelings. Shakespeare’s Hamlet exclaims, “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” The Stoics would agree that there’s nothing good or bad in the external world. Only what is up to us can be truly “good” or “bad,” which makes these terms synonymous with virtue and vice.

As an aspiring Stoic, you should begin by practicing deliberately describing events more objectively and in less emotional terms.

when you’re distressed, don’t you tend to exaggerate and use vivid, emotional language to describe things, both to yourself and other people?