Why Have An Opinion About This?

"We don't care about what happens to you," the Stoics literally said.

"We want to see how you react to it."

A relationship ended. A job was lost. Angry words were exchanged. Money was stolen. Something broke.

Look, it’s definitely not what you wanted or expected to happen.

But why add your opinion to the event and make it even worse?

The Stoics talk about how events "don't need your opinion."

Events aren’t asking us to judge, label, or explain them.

The most eye-opening statement about depression I ever read was the following:

We feel such an urge to talk about what happened, why it happened, how annoying it is that it did happen, and how much the fact that it happened is going to cost us.

We like to complain, in a few words.

But does this actually help? What does it do about what happened? Not much.

It just stirs up resentment and anger. It distracts. It takes us away from what we do control, which is how we respond.

"It's not events that upset us," said Epictetus, "but our opinion about those events that matters."

Two people can experience the same event, yet have completely different opinions about it.

Remember the following two phrases:

The world is objective; our opinions about it are not.

Events just occur. We intervene and label them as ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

Tell me, isn't it stupid to label 'good' or 'bad' events that are not under our control?

"It is," the Stoics responded.

Isn’t it impractical to want to avoid or experience something you cannot choose to avoid or experience?

"It is," the Stoics responded again.

For instance, does wishing for sunny weather prevent rain? Will anything change just by thinking about it? No.

Use your mental bandwidth elsewhere. Can you do that if the stake is inner peace?

Thank you for reading.

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