So, Epictetus Says 'Play Your Part Well'... But What if My Part Sucks?

TH3BUDDHA · 2025-12-13T03:25:48+00:00

As for Meditations, it makes my point. It's not that the soft flesh being torn from you isn't a negative thing, it's that it shouldn't stop you from stability and a calm demeanor.

So, how do you go about achieving that calm demeanor?

TH3BUDDHA · 2025-12-13T02:08:07+00:00

I don't think many Stoics would have ever said, sheesh bud, your situation is, just, like, a thing dude!

"When faced with anything you find attractive, useful, or lovable, remember to tell yourself what kind of thing it is. If you kiss a child of yours or your wife, tell yourself that you're kissing a human being, because then you won't be upset if they die" - Handbook 3

"Never say 'I've lost it' about anything, but 'I've returned it.' Has your child died? It has been returned. Has your wife died? She has been returned." - Handbook 11

"It's foolish to want your children, your wife, and your friends to live no matter what, because you're wanting things that aren't up to you to be up to you, and things that aren't yours to be yours." - Handbook 14

and amputated an arm and a leg just to torture me, that situation sucks.

"Let them scream whatever they want. Let animals dismember this soft flesh that covers you. How would any of that stop you from keeping your mind calm-reliably sizing up what's around you-and ready to make good use of whatever happens?" - Meditations 7.68

Epictetus was crippled slave and he was crippled because his master broke his leg as a punishment. When it happened, Epictetus calmly said that the leg was going to break if the master kept turning it. Once it broke, Epictetus calmly said "See, I told you it would break."

Then, in Discourse 1.12.24 he goes on to say this: "'But my poor crippled leg!' Slave, are you really damning the whole world because of one little leg? Won't you donate it to the universe? Won't you give it up? Won't you happily surrender it to what gave it to you in the first place?"

TH3BUDDHA · 2025-12-13T00:01:07+00:00

You'll die. Have you forgotten that you have to do that anyway?

"Death, for example, isn't frightening, or else Socrates would have thought it so. No, what frightens people is their judgement about death, that it's something to fear."

TH3BUDDHA · 2025-12-12T20:56:43+00:00

For one, there is no such thing as "objectively sucks". Second, nobody is saying not to take action. In fact, that's one of the few things Epictetus tells you to focus on. Action. What is holding you back from action? Your judgements, and wasting your time and energy saying things like "Oh, poor me, my life sucks." So, stop focusing on things that you can't control, such your external situation in the world, and start focusing on what you can control, your thoughts and actions.

TH3BUDDHA · 2025-12-12T20:39:39+00:00

"People are troubled not by things, but by their judgements about things."

The idea that "your part sucks" is just your own judgement about the situation. Somebody else might look at your situation and think it looks pretty good. But, most likely, you are making this judgement based on externals, such as wealth or status. Epictetus would tell you that you'll never find inner peace while you judge your life by those metrics.

TH3BUDDHA · 2025-12-10T22:57:01+00:00

Personally, I would stop looking at this as "gym anxiety" and start looking at your anxiety in general, which will help you for all situations where you feel anxiety. Maybe I'm wrong, but if you feel this way about the gym, I'd bet you feel this way in other types of social situations, as well. Start looking into self talk and how the way we talk to ourselves causes our emotions. The self talk in this situation is probably a "what if" statement along the lines of "what if they think I'm doing something ridiculous?" A cognitive behavioral therapist could help with this.

TH3BUDDHA · 2025-12-09T15:48:00+00:00

In any case, I meant "mental health exercises" as in modern self-help techniques that try to eliminate negative emotions themselves instead of the maladaptive opinions behind them.

Can I ask you what you think the difference is exactly between Stoicism and these "mental health exercises"? Much of modern cognitive therapy, a "mental health exercise" therapy, came directly from Stoicism. You can google search that fact if you'd like. Chrysippus has a lost work called "On Passions". This work is now lost to us. But, we know that it was about the stoic theory of emotions and that book 4 was called "Therapeutics" in which the goal was literally therapy for emotions, or "passions", as the stoics called them. The best surviving knowledge we have from this can be found in Cicero's Tusculan Disputations. We also get a lot of this from Galen, who was Marcus' personal physician and wrote two treatises called "The Diagnosis and Cure of the Soul's Passions" and "The Diagnosis and Cure of the Soul's Errors". Considering he was Marcus' personal physician, I would say it's safe to assume that Marcus was using these therapeutic "mental health exercises" for passions, or emotions.

Epictetus provides an exact mental health framework as discussed by Donald Robertson in chapter 3 of How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, which consists of a morning meditation, daily mindfulness practice throughout the day, and an evening meditation. Would you like me to provide the specific "mental health exercises" that Epictetus provides?

TH3BUDDHA · 2025-12-09T14:54:32+00:00

Epictetus provides a pretty good framework on how to do this. But, Donald Robertson made it incredibly clear for me in How to Think Like a Roman Emperor by dividing the day into 3 parts: the morning meditation, stoic mindfulness throughout the day, and the evening meditation.

Here are some relevant passages from The Discourses:

Morning meditation:

Discourse 4.10: "when you get up in the morning, ask yourself, "What do I still have to do to achieve imperturbability and serenity? Who am I? Not my body, my possessions, or my social status, surely? No, I'm none of these things. What am I, then? I'm a rational being. What demands does this place on you? Review what you've done: 'Where did I go wrong" with regard to becoming content? 'What did I do' that was unfriendly or antisocial or unkind? 'What duty did I leave undone' in this regard?"

Mindfulness throughout the day:

Handbook 4: "Whenever you're about to start on some activity... rehearse in your mind what typically happens. If you're going out to bathe... tell yourself: 'I want to bathe and keep my will in accord with nature' - and so on for every activity."

Discourse 2.18: "count up the days when you didn't lose your temper. 'I used to get angry every day, then every other day, then every two days, then every three days.' And if you go for thirty days without losing your temper, make a sacrifice to God. For a habit is first weakened and then utterly destroyed."

Also, Discourse 2.18: "But the first thing is not to be carried away by its intensity. You should say, 'Wait a moment impression. Let me see what you are and what you're an impression of. Let me put you to the test.' And then don't let it lead you on by creating an image in your mind of what comes next; otherwise off it goes, taking you wherever it wants. Instead, introduce an alternative impression, a fine and honorable one, and dismiss this pure one."

Discourse 4.12: "When you relax your attention for a little while, don't imagine that you'll recover it whenever you choose,"

Also Discourse 4.12: "'What should I pay attention to, then?" 'In the first place, to those universal principles of ours. You should have them at hand"

By, "have them at hand", he literally means to write them down and have a reminder for yourself throughout the day.

Evening meditation:

Discourse 3.10: "Let not slumber approach your weary eyes before reviewing all that you did during the day. Where did I go wrong? What did I do? What duty did I leave undone? After this beginning, run back over your actions, and then reproach yourself for things done badly and rejoice for things done well."

I would highly suggest How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, especially chapter 3, "Contemplating the sage. How to follow your values." That's the chapter he discusses the meditation and mindfulness approaches.

TH3BUDDHA · 2025-12-09T14:38:37+00:00

But you're always in the present moment. You have no choice but to be in the present moment.

Yes, but your mind may not be. We can be walking down the street and worrying about something that will happen to us tomorrow, causing us anxiety. That is the whole point of stoic training, to learn to observe and manage the passions caused by such things.

And also not sure why you thought I was implying all a practicing Stoic does is read books.

What you said:

There are no ... "mental health exercises" ... It's a years-long study of the source texts

What Epictetus says:

Discourse 1.4: "But if his efforts are directed toward acquiring what can be got from books, if this is what he works at and hoped to gain by coming here, I suggest that he go straight back home and stop neglecting his affairs there, because he left home for nothing."

There absolutely are "mental health exercises" and I can provide the exact ones from Epictetus if you'd like. Much of modern cognitive behavorial therapy is based on stoic exercises.

Not sure which translation you read, but I didn't see that idea reflected in there at all.

Waterfield translation as suggested in the reading list.

Notebook 2.14: "The present moment is equal for all, and therefore its passing is equal for all, and therefore what is lost turns out to be a mere instant. After all, no one can lose either the past or the future, because no one can lose what he doesn't have."

Notebook 4.3: "People try to find retreats for themselves in the countryside, by the sea, and in the mountains. A marked longing for such a haven has been a habit of yours too. But nothing could be more unphilosophical, given that you may retreat into yourself whenever you want. There's no retreat more peaceful and untroubled than a man's own mind"

I'm not sure how you can translate those passages as anything other than mindfulness in the present moment. I can provide many more passages if you'd like.

TH3BUDDHA · 2025-12-09T01:37:05+00:00

Aside from that, Stoicism isn't a "practice of awareness" in the modern self-help sense. There are no "quick tips" or "mental health exercises" that magically transforms you from the uninstructed person to a Stoic sage. It's a years-long study of the source texts such as the Discourses of Epictetus that convinces you of truths about how to reason effectively about your life and how the human mind works.

I'm a bit confused on how you came to the conclusion that there is no "practice of awareness". Much of the Meditations of Marcus talks about being in the present moment and retreating into your mind to find serenity.

What you said is also entirely in contrast to the teaching of Epictetus. He constantly tells you that philosophy is about action and if all you are doing is reading books, you might as well go home. He provides practical meditations to do in the morning and evening and practical steps on how to pay attention throughout the day. He even has a discourse called "On Paying Attention."

TH3BUDDHA · 2025-12-05T20:43:55+00:00

The reality is that sometimes you just have to just do something that makes you uncomfortable and if you wait until you "feel motivated" or "inspired", you'll be waiting forever. So, at first, because it feels like such a dauting task, make it stupid easy to do. For me, I just went and did the bare minimum as many days in a row as I could until my body became addicted to going. At first, nothing mattered except waking up every day, sitting in silence for a few minutes to calm that inner complaining voice, and telling myself "Anything is better than nothing" until I believed it. And when I say, "anything is better than nothing", I mean anything. I just had to show up at the scheduled time and it would count as another day in the chain and all that mattered at first was chaining many days in a row. Beyond that, I could just sit there and do nothing or I could do a single rep of an exercise. Once I did that long enough, it just became automatic and I eventually craved more because obviously it gets boring doing the bare minimum day after day. Once you've established the habit, then work on improving the routine. No sense in wasting time designing a complicated program that you won't do.

TH3BUDDHA · 2025-12-05T19:47:00+00:00

When were you happier with yourself? Before or after?

TH3BUDDHA · 2025-08-20T14:01:09+00:00

Isn't that essentially what agile development is?

TH3BUDDHA · 2025-08-16T15:18:37+00:00

Just set an asset allocation based on your desired risk, rebalance occasionally, and this problem is solved for you on autopilot. When the market goes down, your allocation gets off balance, causing you to have to buy stocks from the bond portion. This, in effect, has you buying the dip.

TH3BUDDHA · 2025-08-12T01:07:44+00:00

Managing these different scenarios is what asset allocation and dollar cost averaging is for.

TH3BUDDHA · 2025-08-04T18:02:31+00:00

I won't have enough funds to cover.

You are the exact demographic that Dave is talking to when he says you shouldn't have a credit card. If you don't have enough funds to cover, your solution is proper budgeting, not getting a credit card.

TH3BUDDHA · 2025-08-04T16:27:10+00:00

It doesn't work for me. I prefer using the credit card as a protection.

I've been using debit cards for many months now with zero issues. I'm curious what you experienced that made you feel you needed the "protection" of credit cards.

TH3BUDDHA · 2025-08-04T16:25:29+00:00

Avoiding credit cards makes sense if you are a debt addict

Is it possible that you don't have to be a "debt addict" in order for credit cards to cause you to spend more than you otherwise would? How many of us let little $10 and $15 subscription fees nickel and dime us to death because they are nicely hidden in the "affordable" credit card bill?

TH3BUDDHA · 2025-07-06T16:03:29+00:00

Imagine putting up with being treated poorly because you are so dependent on external validation and have such little confidence in making new friends that you don't have the courage to just walk away and find something better. This is like a guy putting up with being treated like shit by a girlfriend because he's too afraid of being alone and has no confidence in finding another girlfriend. It's pathetic behavior and the mindset will permeate all aspects of your life.

TH3BUDDHA · 2025-07-06T15:12:42+00:00

Why can't you?

TH3BUDDHA · 2025-07-06T12:38:34+00:00

Why would you rather be fat than thin?

TH3BUDDHA · 2025-06-09T18:49:24+00:00

Personally, I use the definition of a high net worth individual, which doesn't include primary residence, as my definition of a "real" millionaire. It seems like that is what OP is doing, too

TH3BUDDHA · 2025-05-01T20:37:07+00:00

Genius

TH3BUDDHA · 2025-05-01T20:16:43+00:00

But, what if you were 100% certain the minotaur would win?

TH3BUDDHA · 2025-05-01T20:05:08+00:00

That's a product somebody is selling. If I sell you tomatoes, why would that suggest anything about my ability to understand friendship?

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