Tag Archives: stoicism

How you react

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Epictetus wrote:

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”

The phrasing I prefer is:

‘It’s not what happens, it’s what you do that makes the difference.’

This isn’t original to me, it’s simply the way I prefer to think of the same idea. I think I got it from an NLP course or book back in my early 20’s, and it has been a bit of a mantra ever since.

Yesterday was a great example of this. Driving home, we were an hour away from the border in northern Washington, after heading down to Seattle to watch my daughter’s boyfriend play in his first professional Ultimate game. The game was great, and everything went wonderfully up to this point. Then my engine light went on. Then I started to feel a vibration in the steering that quickly developed to a full front end vibration. The next 5 hours didn’t really go as planned.

We pulled off the highway at the next exit and there was a bit of smoke coming out from under the hood. I’m about 1,000 kilometres overdue for an oil change, so we checked the oil, which was very low. After adding more we headed back on the highway and two short exits later we pulled off again and called our road side assistance insurance number.

The call took almost an hour, no local mechanic shops were open, none of them had Sunday hours, we got ripped off paying way too much for some roadside vendor burritos, we had no way home, the first shop our car got taken to was closed, out of business. And I would definitely be carless for most of the coming week, not even knowing the cost or timeline to get my car back until some time on Monday… if we are lucky.

Here is the thing, all four is us, me, my wife, my daughter, and her boyfriend, took everything in stride. I didn’t even notice this until the drive home when my daughter mentioned it. She said, “Considering everything that happened, we all handled it pretty well.” And we did indeed.

Tempers didn’t flare even when we disagreed on what to do next, or when we waited two and a half hours for a tow truck when we were told it would arrive in an hour. When we changed our order for food and the math of the new price didn’t math, we all greed we were hungry and we’d just enjoy the food even if it was overpriced. Whatever came our way was dealt with, no whining or complaining, simply dealing with things, in a neutral or positive way, as they arose… and in the end, a few things did work out for us.

The tow truck driver problem-solved for us and ensured our car got to a reliable place that he vouched for. The burritos were delicious. We got picked up by my sister-in-law who drove over an hour to pick us up, and longer to drop us home before going home herself. And while contemplating riding my bicycle to work tomorrow I remembered that my daughter was picking up a used car she purchased today and her current car is in working order, so I’ve got a car while we figure out what will happen to mine.

Still, this was a less than ideal end to the day and week. We didn’t get home until after 11:30 last night. I still have a car to pick up that’s at a shop I’ve never been to, an hour into the US after getting to the border. I have no idea what the cost will be? But we could have had a miserable experience and instead we had a bit of an adventure. Hopefully my car repairs won’t be too costly, but I’ll do my best to take that in stride too.

The impediment becomes the way

I’m re-listening to Gary John Bishop’s book, ‘Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life’, which has a very stoic approach. One quote that speaks to me from the book is from Marcus Aurelius:

“The impediment to action advances action.
What stands in the way becomes the way.”

On a positive note, the obstacles to learning can become the impetus to new learning, like this example from a student at Inquiry Hub… where a roadblock to continuing a project led to new, creative approaches and learning.

But often the impediment or obstacle becomes the block to new learning, or new approaches, or different, better ways of doing things. The impediment becomes the way, it becomes what you do, or rather what you do to avoid change, or worse yet what you use to define yourself. “I can’t” becomes the mantra, the limiting thought that makes not changing, not improving easier than doing what’s best. “I’m too tired, too lazy, too fat, too stubborn, too ‘insert-excuse-here’ to change. You continue to do what you did before, or you try something new, but decide that what you are already doing is either easier or more comfortable than the thing you had hoped to do. What stands in the way becomes the way. Inaction becomes the action.

This reminds me of one of my favourite quotes, attributed to Jerry Sternin, but I read it in ‘Surfing the Edge of Chaos‘.

“It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking,
than think your way into a new way of acting.”

We often convince ourselves of things we should not do, we talk ourselves out of trying new things, and we limit ourselves by thinking something is too hard… we think our way out of acting differently. The reality is that we are quite good at that. Our thoughts themselves become the impediment. The trick to overcoming this is to act… to actually start doing regardless of the thinking. Start small. Start really, really small but start to ‘do’ the thing we want to do. We are far more likely to achieve our goals if we act our way into doing them rather than trying to convince ourselves that we can do them.

Our thoughts can impede us, or our actions can push our thoughts forwards so that the thoughts (eventually) follow our actions.

“It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking,
than think your way into a new way of acting.”

Otherwise, the impediment to action advances (non) action.  Start small… but start now.

The way

“What stands in the way becomes the way.” ~Marcus Arelious

Sometimes a quote like this can just grab and take hold of you.

What’s in the way of you feeling good about yourself? Is it your weight, well then that becomes your focus and you don’t feel good without knowing if this measurement is going in the right direction… fast enough. But no matter how fast, you aren’t ‘there’ yet… there’s more to do… more work, more sacrifice, more time, before you can be happy.

What’s in the way of feeling accomplished? What are you too busy to get to? What do you need to do first? How do these things that get in the way become the way? How do you go for days forgetting what it is that makes your work enjoyable? Tasks become your day… ‘To Do’ lists fill your calendar, and what you really want to accomplish doesn’t get done.

When you focus on the things in the way, those become your focus. How much of our lives are spent with our attention on the things right in front of us, and not on the things we value or think are important to us?

How do we look beyond what’s in our way and truly find our way?

Share your work

Here is a wonderful (first) blog post by Marcus Blair (@MrBlairsClass):

Teaching Ancient Greek Philosophy in a 21st Century Classroom

The lesson shared is on Stoicism for Grade 12 Philosophy, but there is a bigger lesson: Share your work!

I’m sure that to create this post Marcus had to reflect far more on his lesson than he had any time before writing. So, in the process of writing, he not only helps others, but helps himself too.

He made a fan out of me, but even if no one read the post, it still would have been a valuable exercise to write it. The fact that others like myself get to benefit as well is a positive by product of sharing work on a blog.

Keeping Derek Sivers idea of ‘Obvious to you, amazing to others‘:


I think one of the best professional development opportunities educators have is to share their work… so get blogging!