The Beginner's Guide to Stoicism: Tools for Emotional Resilience and Positivity

Is there anything in your life that you used to really want or fear, that you no longer do?

What is so unbearable or unmanageable in this?

It seemed so to them

“These two things must be cut away: fear of the future, and the memory of past sufferings. The latter no longer concerns me, and the future does not concern me yet.”

This is when you pause and compare.

“If you do not know to which port you are sailing, then no wind is favorable.”

At the same time, don’t forget that everything you have is on loan. Someday you will return it.

“Living according to nature.”

To do this, you only allow yourself to dwell on the present, essentially fencing yourself off from the future and the past. Take a breath. Draw your attention to the present moment. The past is finished. The future is unknowable. Leave anxieties about the future alone; they solely exist in your imagination. You can only act in the present.