The Stoic Way To Friendships

Good friends are scarce because good people are rare today.

Everyone is tuned to the WIIFM station – What’s In It For Me.

For the Stoics, friendship was a life-or-death matter.

They thought it was your duty to protect your friends and even be ready to give your own life to save them. 

True friendship means thinking about how you can improve your friends’ lives. Their problems become yours. Our brain has limited bandwidth, and we already have challenges to deal with. Thus, you can’t love too many people at once.

Seneca believed that you shouldn’t hide anything from a friend.

Why would you?

“If you live your life as if you shouldn’t hide anything, even from your worst enemy, what are you afraid of?” Seneca writes.

Who is going to help you through your lowest points? Who is going to be there when your girlfriend leaves you? Who will stand over your shoulder when your life sucks?

Remember: We can’t choose our family, but we can choose our friends.

If you say true friendship is dead, maybe you are not a person that someone would like to be friends with.

Treat your friends “as your second self,” Aristotle said.

Well Said.

Till next time,

Said The Stoic

PS. If you haven’t already downloaded it, here’s THE STOIC RITUAL.