Last August, I wrote an article for THE STOIC magazine entitled “Temperance as Freedom.” In it, I reflected on the Stoics’ claims that temperance is not a form of deprivation but a source of liberty. By learning to govern our desires rather than becoming governed by them, we free ourselves from a kind of dependence upon external things. At the time, I was thinking primarily about pleasures, comforts, and possessions.

I still think there is truth in that. But over the past year, I have come to suspect that I was only beginning to appreciate the breadth of that particular virtue.

The Invisible Overload

When people speak of temperance, we often default to the obvious examples. We think about food, drink, money, or material goods. The Stoics certainly had much to say about those things. Yet I wonder whether some of the forms of excess that shape our lives are less tangible and therefore easier to overlook.

The world around us assumes that more is generally better. More information, more opportunities, more experiences, more accomplishments. We admire growth and expansion almost instinctively. It can seem strange, perhaps even irresponsible, to question whether everything available to us deserves to be pursued.

Over the past year, I’ve noticed myself asking different questions than I once did. I spend less time wondering what comes next and more time wondering whether I actually want what comes next. Some of that no doubt comes with age, and some of it comes from having watched plans change, work shift, health concerns arise, and priorities rearrange themselves in ways I never anticipated. Things that once seemed terribly important have a way of becoming negotiable. Other things, often smaller and easier to overlook, seem to acquire greater weight.

A Shift in Ambition But Not in Joy

I don’t think this has made me less ambitious. But I do think it has made me somewhat less interested in treating achievement as a good in itself.

In recent years, Greg and I have found ourselves talking more often about what really matters to us and less about what we are supposed to want. We have undertaken what many people at our age do and have significantly downsized. We’ve not just talked about simplifying but actually done it. We’ve also left behind some of the assumptions that quietly shape so much of modern life. We continue to think about and discuss how much space we actually need, how much work is enough, and what kind of days we hope to have if we are fortunate enough to grow old together.

These conversations have not been driven by dissatisfaction. If anything, they arise from gratitude. We have both reached the point where the appeal of endless striving is fading. There are still projects that excite us and work we hope to do –– this pursuit of The Stoic Heart® being one of them. But there is also a growing appreciation for quieter things like a good conversation, an evening walk on the RiverWalk, time to read, and the chance to pursue meaningful work without surrendering every waking hour to it.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons Stoic thinkers regarded temperance as a source of freedom. Appetite does not confine itself to food and drink. We can become just as attached to productivity, recognition, possessions, or the comforting sense that we are indispensable. We can become so accustomed to urgency that we forget to ask whether everything demanding our attention deserves it.

I don’t mean to suggest that there is anything virtuous about having less merely for the sake of having less. I disagree with those who see Stoicism as a philosophy of self-imposed misery or an extension of asceticism. The Stoics were not interested in poverty as an ideal. They were more interested in learning to distinguish between what is necessary and what is superfluous, and in recognizing how often we confuse preferences with necessities.

Shifting Priorities Over Time

That distinction becomes increasingly interesting with age.

There are things I once regarded as indispensable that now seem merely pleasant. There are ambitions I once held tightly that no longer carry the same urgency. And there are ordinary things I once took for granted that have become more precious than I would have imagined.

Perhaps this is simply what happens when enough unexpected things occur. Plans change. Circumstances shift. People become ill. Jobs disappear. New opportunities emerge where old ones close. The future refuses to cooperate with our expectations. And somewhere along the way, we will (or do) discover that much of what we thought we needed was simply what we had grown accustomed to having.

The Stoics believed that temperance makes us free because it prevents us from becoming slaves to our desires. I suspect that insight extends further than I appreciated when I first wrote about it. These days, I find myself less interested in accumulation and more interested in sufficiency. Not because I have arrived at some settled conclusion about what constitutes “enough,” but because the question itself seems worth asking.

And perhaps that question changes throughout the course of a life. Maybe at each stage, we’re meant to ask ourselves questions like, “What does enough look like now? What deserves our attention? What can be set aside without regret?”

I do not know that there are universal answers. I suspect each of us must discover them for ourselves. But I have begun to think that temperance has as much to do with making room as it does with restraint. Making room for what matters. Making room for the people we love. Making room for the ordinary pleasures that are easily crowded out. Making room, perhaps, for a life that feels less hurried and more fully inhabited.

Those are thoughts I have found myself returning to lately. I suspect I will continue to revisit them, and perhaps understand them differently, as time goes on –– and that’s the joy of pursuing study as part of a well-lived life.

The Stoic Heart® helps individuals and couples navigate the complexities of modern relationships using the timeless principles of Stoic philosophy. We provide the tools for disciplined communication, emotional self-mastery, and deeper, more intentional connections in a variety of settings, from home to work to the wider community. We apply Stoic practice to help others live more in harmony with nature.

Portions of Seneca’s Letter 62 can provide us with several very useful reminders about two important and interrelated matters at the core of the Stoic Heart: Stoicism itself and the relationships we live within and value. Are we giving to both of these the time, the attention, the care that they deserve? Are we prioritizing them? Or do they get what’s left over after other, perhaps seemingly more pressing matters get the best of us?

Seneca starts out the letter pointing out a common dynamic:

They are lying, those who want it to seem as if a multitude of business matters block their way to liberal studies. They make a pretense of being preoccupied, when they increase these and preoccupy their very own selves with them.

What Seneca means by “liberal studies,” quite literally using the Latin term studia liberali, are the sorts of disciplines that promote a person’s freedom of mind. These include, but are not limited to, the discipline of philosophy. Seneca is far from a study-Stoicism-alone thinker. In fact, among the Stoic writers whose works we possess, he is the one who most often and arguably most deeply engages other schools of philosophy. But Stoicism will feature centrally in these “liberal studies” he refers to.

We’ve all seen people who engage in this sort of deception, who “lie” (mentiuntur) not only about just how incredibly busy they are, so occupied by important matters they have to handle, that they simply don’t have the time for other things. In fact, you can even find people in the workplace who get little to nothing done, precisely because, as they claim, they have so many different demands on their time they can’t ever catch a break, hunker down, and focus on completing one of their projects.

Seneca calls them on their misrepresentations. They act as if their busyness is simply imposed upon them, and they have no choice or responsibility in the matter. But in reality, they themselves increase them (augent) and they preoccupy their own selves with them (ipsi se occupant). There could be many motivations for doing so. A person might do so precisely to fill time they don’t know what to do with. They might fear missing out on something, or that if they’re not occupied like that, others might think them slackers, unambitious, or replaceable. This comportment might even have hardened over time into a habit that a person engages in without much thought.

The types of “business” Seneca refers to aren’t just matters of the workplace, finances, or management of property. The language he uses, turbam negotiorum, can refer to a number of different things. It might be our various social engagements. It could be keeping on top of current affairs and news, staying “informed” by doomscrolling, losing oneself down proverbial rabbit-holes doing “research”. It could be tending to the felt demands from (or one’s own desires for) relationships other than that with their significant other. So long as it renders people “preoccupied” (occupationes), or at least they can pretend (simulant) to be so, it qualifies as “business”, typically presented as important, as needing to be prioritized and tended to.

Seneca contrasts his own approach to the affairs of life:

My time is free, and wherever I happen to be, there I am my own. I don’t surrender myself to affairs, but lend myself to them. Nor do I seek out reasons to waste away time.

What gets translated as “my time is free,” is more literally “I am empty” (vaco), that is, of these sorts of concerns or entanglements. This doesn’t mean that Seneca doesn’t have any matters he needs to attend to. But there’s an openness, a space, a not-being-sucked in, even in the things that he has to give thought, attention, and care to.

This isn’t just a emptying one’s mind, not having any thoughts in one’s head, just existing or being there, as what he says next demonstrates:

Whatever place I stay for a while, there I engage with my thoughts and converse with my mind a bit. When I give myself to my friends, I don’t lead myself away. And I don’t linger with those people with whom I’m brought together with for a time or out of some reason arising from social duty, but rather I am with the best, and I entrust my mind to them, in whatever place, and in whatever age they existed.

He cites the Cynic philosopher Demetrius, who he is friends with, as a prime example of one these “best” people, saying that he not only admires him, but carries him around with him (mecum circumfero), a theme we see in other writings by Seneca, that in some respect, we engage with other people through our active thoughts or memories of them.

What should we occupy ourselves with, if we wish to have a good life, a happy existence, one that we choose as the better course for ourselves? Do we really want a life full of busy preoccupation with things we burden ourselves with, putting on a show for ourselves and other people, pretending that those are the things that really count?

Or do we want a life during which we can learn about philosophy (among other good things), where we have enough space in our souls to mull thoughts over, in which we have enough time to actually apply and build that intentional way of living? Do we desire a life where we make enough time to spend with the persons we actually care about, friends, family members, lovers (and perhaps others as well), where we can get to know them more fully and share more of ourselves with them, where we can deepen our connections?

We really can’t have it both ways, not even if we tell ourselves other stories about how our preoccupation with business matters is just temporary, how it is really a means to the end of someday having more time and headspace for what we say really matters. So this letter could provide a useful reminder for most of us.

As always, we’ll end with three questions it might be useful to ask yourself:

• Do you find yourself feeling “so busy” because of tasks, commitments, or projects you chose to take on when you didn’t need to?

• Are you making and maintaining enough time to study matters that will actually enable you to better understand and consistently improve your life?

• Are you shortchanging the people and relationships that you say matter most to you by giving other things too much of your time and attention?

The Stoic Heart® helps individuals and couples navigate the complexities of modern relationships using the timeless principles of Stoic philosophy. We provide the tools for disciplined communication, emotional self-mastery, and deeper, more intentional connections in a variety of settings, from home to work to the wider community. We apply Stoic practice to help others live more in harmony with nature.

In Lecture XIIIA, “What is the Chief End of Marriage?”, Musonius Rufus describes his take on the proper purpose of a husband and wife joining their lives together:

“In marriage there must be complete companionship and concern for each other on the part of both husband and wife, in health and in sickness and at all times, because they entered upon the marriage for this reason as well as to produce offspring. When such caring for one another is perfect, and the married couple provide it for one another, and each strives to outdo the other, then this is marriage as it ought to be and deserving of emulation, since it is a noble union…”

While on the surface it sounds a good bit like the typical marriage vows that people exchange in the course of a wedding, it’s actually a remarkably demanding standard. Musonius doesn’t speak about marriage as merely sharing a house, dividing responsibilities, producing children, or even sticking it out in the sickness and health / richer or poorer moments of a shared life. He speaks about complete companionship and mutual concern. He even says that a husband and wife are to strive to outdo one another, not in getting their own way, but in care, goodwill, and support.

And he is equally clear about what happens when that mutual concern disappears.

If husband and wife each become absorbed in their own separate interests and cease to pull together, the marriage itself begins to break down. They may continue to live under the same roof, but the partnership that gave the relationship its purpose is lost.

Musonius says that such a condition can become “an existence worse than loneliness.”

That phrase truly struck me from the first time I read it, because it captures something many people have experienced, sometimes slipping into it over the course of increasingly unhappy and lonely years.

There is a loneliness that comes from being alone, and there is another kind that comes from feeling alone while sharing your life with someone else. Two people can sit in the same room, manage the same responsibilities, and maintain the same routines while no longer sharing much beyond logistics. They coexist, but they no longer really participate in one another’s lives.

Musonius sees this not simply as an unfortunate development but as a departure from the very purpose of marriage. In his view, a husband and wife are meant to share common interests and common concerns. They are meant to pull together rather than simply exist alongside one another.

Looking back over our own years together, Greg and I can easily recognize how difficult this can be. We are both independent and strong-willed. We each have our own projects, interests, and responsibilities. And if left entirely to ourselves, it would be easy to become consumed by everything we manage independently, both inside and outside the home, and allow our lives to run on parallel tracks.

What has helped us over the years has not been the absence of disagreement. Quite the contrary. As I’ve said elsewhere, we used to argue with very little grace on either side. We both tended to dig in, defend our positions, and try to win. Thankfully, we’ve found a better way to navigate our differences, but even more than that, we’ve found ourselves creating a more rich and rewarding partnership.

Over time, we’ve learned to put more of our attention on what Musonius calls our common interests. We read together, write together, teach together, and spend a great deal of time talking through ideas and projects. We attend music events, grow things together, and travel when we can. In our relationship, we’ve had plenty of chances to remind ourselves that companionship is not something you stumble into and then simply maintain by inertia. Like everything else worthwhile, it requires attention and practice.

To hint at a question that often follows discussions of living in true partnership, this does not mean that a husband and wife must share every interest or spend every waking moment together. And Musonius definitely doesn’t suggest that. In fact, I suspect trying to make another person into a copy of ourselves would undermine the very companionship he is describing. From my perspective, it would be dull and in some cases, that erasure of differences would even be dangerous for the soul!

In our case, while we’ve built (and continue to build) our life together, Greg and I have a wide range of interests that we do not share. Left to myself, I could happily spend hours in the water, whether swimming or simply enjoying the peace that comes with being in the water. Greg, meanwhile, can spend endless amounts of time caring for cats at the shelter where he volunteers, or immersing himself in other projects that capture his imagination.

The answer has never been insisting that we do all of those things together. We appreciate our time spent alone. And we genuinely appreciate what brings joy to the other person, even if it’s something we wouldn’t choose to do.

We listen with genuine interest when the other talks about an experience, a new idea, or something that mattered to them that day. We celebrate each other’s enthusiasms, even when we don’t necessarily participate in them ourselves. Companionship doesn’t require identical interests. It requires remaining interested in one another.

Just as there have been seasons in our life together when philosophy and teaching occupied much of our shared attention, there were other seasons when the more difficult things of our life like caregiving, financial stress, family obligations, and simply getting through difficult days became our common concerns. Neither of us would have chosen some of those chapters, but they reminded us that a true marriage isn’t simply about sharing the enjoyable parts of life. It is about sharing life itself.

Looking back, I don’t think what has sustained us has been “compatibility” in the sense that people often mean it. We are both alike and different in countless ways, and there have certainly been periods when we had to do some work to find out which of the many paths we could take as a couple would be the right ones for us. But over time, we have learned that friendship matters more than agreement, goodwill matters more than being right, and that paying true attention to one another is itself a practice.

His advice that husband and wife should strive to outdo one another in care and concern seems particularly worth considering. By using the word “outdo,” it could be easy for some to imagine marriage as a competition, but that’s not the case. This kind of out-doing directs our attention away from keeping score and toward asking a different question: “What can I contribute to this person whom I love and how can I love them better, do more, share more, and be a better partner to them?”

And if Musonius’ description of an existence worse than loneliness feels painfully familiar at any point in a marriage (or any other committed relationship), the answer is not found in giving in to resentment or waiting indefinitely for the other person to change. As those engaged in a Stoic practice will know, we can’t govern another person’s attention, priorities, or choices.

But we can govern our own.

When we’re stuck in a place of loneliness while being with another person, especially a true partner or a spouse, we can choose to communicate more carefully. We can let go of the need to win arguments. We can seek to serve the other person with love. We can offer kindness without making it transactional. And we can invest ourselves once again in the common life we have built together.

None of this guarantees that another person will respond in kind. Relationships involve two people, not one. But it does return our attention to what lies within our own control and our own choice.

For Musonius Rufus, marriage was much more than a practical arrangement. It was a friendship, a partnership, and a shared pursuit of what is good. Perhaps that is why he regarded the loss of that companionship as something to be avoided so as not to experience the “existence worse than loneliness.”

Whether we are married, partnered, or reflecting on our closest relationships, his reminder is worth considering. Shared lives are not sustained simply out of habit. They are sustained by attention, goodwill, and the continuing decision to pull together rather than merely live side by side.

The Stoic Heart® helps individuals and couples navigate the complexities of modern relationships using the timeless principles of Stoic philosophy. We provide the tools for disciplined communication, emotional self-mastery, and deeper, more intentional connections in a variety of settings, from home to work to the wider community. We apply Stoic practice to help others live more in harmony with nature.

In two recent posts, we’ve been exploring several lessons and implications Seneca’s Letter 3 has not only for friendships, but for relationships more broadly. If you would like to read those you can do so here: Part 1 and Part 2. One interesting point remains to explore in this short letter. This is one with more general, broader scope, what we might call prudent advice Seneca is providing about what sort of people we ought to be (or at least try to be) when it comes to how much we trust and confide in other people.

He sets out two extreme positions, two opposed ways of going wrong with sharing information about oneself with other people. On the one side, there are the indiscriminate confiders, the “over-sharers”:

The sorts of matters that should be entrusted to [committenda] friends, there are some people who narrate them to any chance person and unload into their ears whatever happens to weigh upon them [quicquid illos urserit]

On the other side, we have those who are too tightlipped:

Others dread [reformidant] to share their inner thoughts [conscientiam] even in those they care for the most [carissimorum], and if they could, they would not even place trust in themselves, and they push down [premunt] every secret deep within themselves [interius].

Seneca goes on to say that we should adopt neither of these two courses. Either one of these, trusting everyone or trusting nobody, would be the wrong stance, or reading him more literally, a “vice” [vitium].

There is an interesting difference between them, however. Trusting everyone is, as Gummere translates it “more ingenuous”, and as Campbell more closely renders it “worthier”. The Latin term is “honestius”, more honestus, seemingly implying that there is some vestige of genuine value in that stance of openness. Trusting no one is a safer course.

Seneca advises us to take a middle position, one which, if we think through, won’t just mean avoiding far-out extremes of trusting everyone or nobody. We shouldn’t place our trust and confidence in too many people, too easily, quickly, or indiscriminately. Likewise, trusting only one person, and even them not that much, would remain problematic. The confidence we place in people ought to be proportioned to the assessments we have of them.

If we’re fortunate to have a circle of genuinely reliable friends, family, even comrades or colleagues, Seneca seemingly wouldn’t have too much of a problem with us distributing our trust and confidences among them. Perhaps he’d also view as prudent our placing people within wider and tighter circles of friendship and fidelity.

What about people who we are in (or desire to be in) more intimate relations with, the objects of our affections, those with whom we are in romantic or erotic relationships, or even choose as partners or spouses? We probably shouldn’t place full trust in them, reveal all of our secrets, right at the start, however tempting that might be, however much they might invite or solicit that, even if it feels like they’re the right person to do so with.

After we’ve been in a relationship for a significant amount of time, and we’ve had the opportunity to see who that person is (if we’ve got our eyes open and we’re paying attention - big “if” of course!), it would be strange for us not to share more of ourselves, our desires, our thoughts, our commitments and values, even our vulnerabilities with them. If you feel (perhaps rightly) that it would be imprudent to really trust your partner, you might need to consider whether they’re actually the right partner for you (or whether you have some issues with trusting that need to be worked through).

Another aspect of this that Seneca doesn’t discuss, but which we probably should take into consideration is that, when we are in relationships with others, whether those of friendships, romantic or partnered relationships, even going in together on some enterprise, the different people involved in the relationship can have quite different tendencies to trust.

Take a couple, for instance, where one partner is more open and comfortable in sharing information with other people, and the other partner is much less so. If this difference is not acknowledged and addressed, that can easily lead to conflicts between them, and perhaps even damage the trust between them. They can legitimately differ over which other people ought to be trusted and which ones shouldn’t, what sort of information is all right to share and what’s off-limits, or even what the right or wrong occasions for doing so are.

Engaging in reasonable, caring conversations with each other about precisely these sorts of differences can be a pretty smart course to take with each other. Not only would it be prudent, and quite arguably just, it would also be a way to build and deepen that very trust between the two partners that they would be discussing in relation to others.

As always, we close this series and this post with some questions it might be useful for you to consider:

• If you’re not at either extreme, are you actually right in the “sweet spot”? Or do you lean to one side or to the other?

• Are there secrets about yourself that you keep even from yourself? Would it be better for you to be able to face them, and perhaps confide them in someone worthy of trust?

• If you’re in a relationship, do you and your partner see “eye to eye” on who and how much it makes sense to trust and confide in? If not, does that affect how and whether you trust each other?

The Stoic Heart® helps individuals and couples navigate the complexities of modern relationships using the timeless principles of Stoic philosophy. We provide the tools for disciplined communication, emotional self-mastery, and deeper, more intentional connections in a variety of settings, from home to work to the wider community. We apply Stoic practice to help others live more in harmony with nature.

We’ve started exploring one of Seneca’s very early letters, number 3, and the implications it has for relationships. Officially speaking, it focuses on friendship (amicitia), but many of the points Seneca makes could also be applied to other types of relationships as well.

We started out by looking at a contradiction that Seneca himself pointed out to his friend Lucilius, stemming from a remark he made about a third person who he both called a “friend”, but with whom he suggested Seneca should not discuss matters concerning him. Is his “friend” really a friend or not? Or is he just using the term “friend” in a wider, laxer sense, where it doesn’t properly designate a person we regard and treat as a friend?

As we saw, for Seneca, what is really central to this is whether we trust that person as a friend. Friendship involves loyalty or faithfulness (being fidelis) on the part of both friends. Ideally, friends trust each other just as much as they trust themselves (cui . . . tantundem credis quantum tibi). What do they trust each other with? Among other things, all of one’s concerns and thoughts (curas. . . .cogitationes). There is an intimacy, security, and vulnerability all rolled together within that relationship.

It’s that aspect of deep trust that we’ll focus on today. Seneca doesn’t say that we ought to feel, give, develop, or demand trust of that sort with just anyone. In fact, it would be a great mistake to trust people indiscriminately. He taps into a tradition that, according to him, goes all the way back to Aristotle’s own friend and student Theophrastus (and notably includes Cicero), who establishes and advises a proper ordering for judgement and trust.

People often make the mistake of judging a person after they have already made that person their friend, and likely confided in them more than they ought to. Instead, what they ought to do is to engage in judgement of the person before making them their friend, so that they can then trust them in rationally founded confidence.

Seneca also suggests this shouldn’t be a snap judgement.

Think a while [diu cogita] whether you will receive a given person to your friendship

We could also say, as an older translation does, “ponder for a long time”, or alternately “consider for a while”, about this process of judgement. We shouldn’t rush through it so that we can come out on what we anticipate to be the pleasurable side of getting to be genuinely friends, to trust ourselves to another fully, to share our heart with them.

As pointed out in the earlier post in this series, the advice Seneca provides here about friendship, trust, and judgement could also be applied to other common types of relationships we have. We might consider whether the same strictures ought to apply, for instance, to those with whom we share other things, or at least those to whom we expose ourselves in some measure of vulnerability and trust.

Should we be “friends” of sorts with those people we encounter in the workplace? Definitely not all of them! Perhaps some of them, but certainly not right away. That doesn’t keep us from being friend-ly with them, cordial even. Or professional. Or nice. But trust is something that requires development over time, at least if one is proceeding reasonably. People who work together for a while get to know each other, at least in some respects, and if you’re a decent judge of character, you might eventually find people worthy of your trust. Perhaps they won’t transition into friends in the full sense, which is quite all right. Or perhaps with time, they will.

What about romantic or erotic relationships? It depends a good bit on what the people involved are looking for or hoping for in such a relationship. If your goal is just to enjoy the play of attraction, flirtation, sexual desire, and pleasure, on the one hand, or even just to stave off loneliness with some sort of companionship, that doesn’t require that deep a level of trust, but it definitely ought to involve some. If the goal is to develop something more, then despite temptations urging you to dive in more quickly and deeply than is prudent in trusting the other person, that trust has to be earned. That is, the other person needs to be judged worthy of that trust (just as much as we ourselves need to as well).

There is of course a bit of a paradox here, which does have to be addressed. If you don’t “let them in” to any extent before fully assessing them, how can you possibly tell whether a person would prove to be a decent colleague, a trustworthy friend, a reliable as well as attractive romantic partner? If we place judgement of the sort Seneca calls for entirely before entering fully into whatever level or mode of relationship we anticipate, aren’t we cutting ourselves off from that very relationship? Clearly we don’t want to leap blindly before we look at all, but don’t we need to make at least some forward movement into a relationship with that person before we can even start to judge them?

That’s a valid concern, and we probably need to modify Seneca’s advice in light of it. Perhaps the process of judgement isn’t a one-time-for-all sort of thing. A relationship develops over time, often changing in ways reflecting how the people comprising it themselves change. Some of those very alterations might be the products of getting to know each other, or even themselves, more fully, for better or worse. As deep and as intimate a connection as we may have developed with another person, that doesn’t mean we ought to automatically trust them with every bit of ourselves at any given point. It could be prudent to maintain some reserve, rather than pursuing some overly-romanticized idea of being completely transparent to each other.

But that sort of judgement and reserve would be something very different from suspiciousness, let alone anxiously locking away from the other the portions of one’s self, one’s thoughts, feelings, experiences, assumptions, or memories. It simply involves recognition of the reality that none of us is an ideal Stoic sage, who won’t ever make any mistakes with the information about the other we learn within the scope of a deepening relationship. Judgement could mean something as simple and straightforward as realizing that your friend or partner is more (perhaps too) comfortable sharing information with other people than you are, and paying attention to that difference.

The sort of judgement Seneca proposes also doesn’t have to be carried out entirely on your own, simply applied to the other person without any awareness, input, or opportunity to respond on the part of the other person. It could take the form of a conversation, a dialogue, something more reciprocal. In fact, that approach might contribute to building (or restoring) trust between both members of the relationship.

So judge before you befriend, or otherwise open yourself up to the other person in a relationship. But do so prudently, justly, generously, and don’t feel as if once you’ve arrived at a judgement, you’ve given away your right to do so again in the future, if it seems needed.

Once again, we close with three useful questions that you can ask yourself:

• When you’re considering deepening a relationship, what holds you back from “judging” the other person before revealing more of yourself?

• When would you consider it wise, right, or rational to restart that process of “judgement” with someone you’re already involved with in a relationship?

• What criteria would serve you well in making those judgements about other people you are considering a deeper or fuller relationship with?

The Stoic Heart® helps individuals and couples navigate the complexities of modern relationships using the timeless principles of Stoic philosophy. We provide the tools for disciplined communication, emotional self-mastery, and deeper, more intentional connections in a variety of settings, from home to work to the wider community. We apply Stoic practice to help others live more in harmony with nature.

In place of our usual two-person podcast this week, we're sharing a conversation we recorded five years ago with Massimo Pigliucci and Rob Colter for Philosophy as a Way of Life.

As Greg outlined in the Selected Presentations and Interviews post:

We were invited onto the podcast to discuss how Stoic philosophy applies to marriage and other close relationships, including questions of friendship, sexuality, gender roles, equality between partners, and some of the common challenges that arise within long-term relationships.

It was an excellent conversation with two people we enjoy collaborating with and greatly respect, and it touches on several themes that continue to shape our own practice today, including:

• Stoicism as a shared practice and the value of learning philosophy alongside other people;

• marriage as friendship, partnership, and an ongoing exercise in virtue;

• courage, perseverance, and the continual work required to build a healthy relationship;

• Stoicism, feminism, and questions of equality, gender roles, and human flourishing;

• how we can thoughtfully engage with ancient texts while recognizing their historical context;

• mortality, grief, and Epictetus’ famous “jug” passage;

• the dichotomy of control and the challenges of applying Stoic ideas within close relationships;

• and, what Stoics mean by “living according to nature” and how that applies to marriage and partnership.

Five years later, we are still actively working on all of these questions in our own relationship. Looking back on this conversation was a useful reminder that philosophy is not something we simply talk about or teach — but something we continually practice, often imperfectly, in our daily lives and relationships.

We hope you find something useful in it as well.

You can click on the image or use the link below to access the recording.

🔗 Stoicism and Marriage | Andi Sciacca and Gregory Sadler

NOTE: This will be our only post for this week, as Greg had unplanned surgery on Monday. He is home, doing well and resting, and we’ll be back to our normal posting schedule next week.

The Stoic Heart® helps individuals and couples navigate the complexities of modern relationships using the timeless principles of Stoic philosophy. We provide the tools for disciplined communication, emotional self-mastery, and deeper, more intentional connections in a variety of settings, from home to work to the wider community. We apply Stoic practice to help others live more in harmony with nature.

Very early in his correspondence with Lucilius, in Letter 3, in fact, Seneca raises and brings together several important subjects.

One of these is a particular sort of relationship, friendship (amicitia), a matter people found as confusing in his time as they do in our own. He has a lot to tell Lucilius and us present-day readers about this, particularly in terms of trust, confidence, and sharing information.

Another that might slip below the radar is noting contradictions or conflicts within a person’s beliefs and behaviors. Recognizing and addressing these is a critical component in making any progress as a Stoic.

A third might also go unnoticed by some students of Stoicism, particularly those who insist upon too much distance between Stoics and members of another school, the Aristotelians. Seneca doesn’t invoke the Aristotelian doctrine of virtue as a mean between extremes, but his discussion of friendship certainly exemplifies it in this letter.

What does Seneca actually say? He starts by pointing out a problem:

You have sent a letter to me carried by a “friend” of yours, as you write about him. And in your very next sentence you warn me not to discuss with him all the matters that concern you [ad te pertinentia], saying that even you yourself are not accustomed to do this with him; in other words, you have in the same letter said that he is your friend and denied it.

Why does this contradiction that Seneca points out arise for Lucilius? Because the term “friend” gets used in at least two different ways, and while they use the same word, they don’t mean the same thing at all.

Seneca talks about “using that very word in a sort of popular sense” (quasi publico usus), in which the term doesn’t really mean what we think it does. It gets used euphemistically to attribute something complementary to someone else who really doesn’t deserve that term. Or perhaps, you might say, it is used aspirationally. You hope that they’ll live up to the title (though odds are, you’re going to be disappointed).

He draws an analogy between calling someone a “friend” in this loose sense and referring to all candidates for office as “good men” (bonos viros). Odds are some of them aren’t good people at all, or a mix of both good and bad. Another similar example occurs when we forget someone’s name, and we greet them with (as Gummere translates it) “my dear sir.” Seneca’s Latin is actually a bit more direct. We call them “dominos”, “lord” or “master”, obviously stretching the meaning of that term pretty far!

By contrast, there’s a truer sense of the term “friend” that Seneca calls attention to, and that requires not just understanding that term, but the closely related term “friendship”. He sets out criteria for this, implications of which we’ll explore more fully in future entries in this series. A friend is:

• a person you can trust as you trust yourself

• a person who is loyal (fidelis) and whom you treat as such

• someone with whom you can share all of your concerns and thoughts (curas. . . .cogitationes)

• someone whose character you have engaged in judgement about

If we blur together these two ideas of “friend” as a person or “friendship” as a relationship, we are not just going to land ourselves in contradictions. We are setting ourselves up for all sorts of troubles. We might find ourselves lonely while in the midst of people we mistakenly call our friends. We might feel and act upon duties that we would have towards genuine friends, but don’t actually have towards “friends” in the very loose and inaccurate sense.

Notice that there are many other relationships that don’t carry the same weight as friendship. We don’t owe the same information, loyalty, or intimacy to coworkers or colleagues as we do to close friends (unless they also become close friends). Neighbors? There are certain basic norms of decency and justice we might say, but they’re not necessarily our friends.

One might wonder about romantic or erotic relationships, ranging from casual hookups to exclusive dating, from just hanging out to a commitment like marriage. In these, should we expect from or exhibit towards the other person in the relationship the sort of openness, trust, and vulnerability Seneca regards as integral aspects of a friendship in the full sense? Well. . . it depends, doesn’t it? We can apply the same line of reasoning about the need for judgment to these as he does to friendships:

After a friendship is established, you should trust; before friendship is formed, you should pass judgment. Those persons indeed put last first [praepostero] and confound their duties [officia], who . . . judge after they have loved, instead of loving after they have judged. Think a while whether you will receive a given person to your friendship; but when you have decided to do so, admit them to your entire heart.

Casual involvements, where there isn’t a solid commitment, you probably don’t know the person very well, and might be in it mainly motivated by infatuation, loneliness, or sexual desire, you probably shouldn’t treat them like real friendships. And if you’re going to use a term like “lover” (or any other synonym), perhaps you have to similarly distinguish between a loose, often inaccurate, popular sense on the one hand, and a stricter sense on the other. If that realization casts a pall on the entanglement for either you or the other person, that won’t feel good, but it is a good thing for both of you in the long run.

We’ll have more to say about this Letter coming up. But that’s likely enough for the moment. As always, we’ll leave you with three questions that might be helpful to ask yourself:

• When you hear people using the words “friend” and “friendship”, what do you think they mean?

• Do you agree with Seneca’s insistence that we ought to make judgements about people before becoming friends with them?

• What about persons you are romantically interested in or involved with? Should the same logic apply as with friendship, or not?

The Stoic Heart® helps individuals and couples navigate the complexities of modern relationships using the timeless principles of Stoic philosophy. We provide the tools for disciplined communication, emotional self-mastery, and deeper, more intentional connections in a variety of settings, from home to work to the wider community. We apply Stoic practice to help others live more in harmony with nature.

Some Important Context

In the interest of full disclosure: I am someone who probably should not work anywhere near a traditional organizational chart.

I know myself well enough to admit that I am not cut out for a 9–5 framework, and corporate office culture feels like a very specific form of punishment to me. Water-cooler gossip, corporate ice-breakers, mandatory after-hours mingling, or meetings dedicated entirely to a manager’s abstract vision of team-building are the literal stuff of my nightmares.

Even out in the field, away from a desk, reporting to a supervisor has never suited me.

I’ve held an unintentionally eclectic range of jobs across my working life: building superintendent in New York City, assistant to a dolphin trainer at the Milwaukee County Zoo, slinger of all manner of burgers and hash. I’ve also been the Chief Academic Officer of a Swiss university, the Dean of Faculty Development at a culinary college, and the president of several non-profits. I’ve launched tech startups — and I’ve gone door-to-door on a ten-speed bicycle selling kitchen knives.

No matter the gig, my default preference is to complete the work entirely solo.

I deeply value working with a willing partner — especially when I’m collaborating alongside — and I love facilitating interactive workshops, teaching, or learning from and with an engaged group. But I strictly prefer those environments to be non-hierarchical, time-bound, and creatively dynamic.

So, when I propose this exploration into how Stoic philosophy can reduce friction and frustration in your professional life, understand that it comes from a deeply sincere “if this can work for me, it can work for anyone” perspective.

This isn’t because I dislike people or struggle to collaborate. In fact, the most meaningful achievements of my career have depended entirely upon thoughtful partnerships, incredibly difficult conversations, and the willingness to build systems alongside others over decades.

Much of my professional life has unfolded inside complex, messy structures that require precisely that kind of intense engagement: public institutions, academic environments, regional coalitions, and public-private partnerships. I genuinely enjoy convening with intelligent, committed people to solve stubborn problems with limited resources, competing priorities, and far less time than anyone would prefer.

But over the years, certain patterns have become impossible to ignore.

Choosing Stoicism In The Workplace

Some workplaces manage to build cultures where people can execute high-stakes tasks without creating unnecessary difficulty around the work itself. Expectations are explicit. Disagreements remain proportionate to the factual circumstances that triggered them. Frustrations happen — because they always happen when human beings cooperate with other human beings — but they don’t accumulate into structured resentment or emotional exhaustion.

Other environments rot from the inside out. Small operational inefficiencies become recurring sources of profound irritation. Normal, daily communication carries far more emotional baggage than practical value. People stop responding to real-time events and start reacting instead to the internal stories they’ve constructed about those events. Eventually, navigating the workplace atmosphere feels far heavier than performing the actual job.

Stoic thinkers noted long ago that human beings consistently compound their own suffering by attaching wild judgments, assumptions, and heavy interpretations to events before examining them clearly.

The modern workplace has the potential to serve as a hyper-efficient laboratory for this specific brand of self-sabotage. A colleague asks a straightforward question about a project timeline, and we quietly decide they don’t trust our competence. An email requesting standard revisions feels like a targeted insult rather than a routine check for clarity. A delayed reply to a message becomes definitive evidence that priorities are misaligned, respect is lacking, or someone is actively sabotaging your department.

Sometimes those dark conclusions are accurate. Most of the time, they are not. But in either scenario, our lived experience is no longer shaped by the objective event itself. We are being actively governed by our unexamined interpretation of it.

The Stoics were directly concerned with maintaining boundary lines between what was factual and what was invented narrative — but not because they imagined humans could magically disconnect from emotion or stay entirely unbothered by this kind of chaos. My own corporate track record certainly doesn’t support that fantasy. If anything, years of deliberate practice have simply shown me how rapidly unexamined frustration narrows our attention and warps our perspective.

Difficult personalities remain difficult. Outdated software remains inefficient. Some organizational leaders are genuinely toxic, creating structural strain that cannot simply be thought away through philosophical reflection or visualization.

But there is a massive, life-altering difference between acknowledging brutal working conditions and allowing those conditions to quietly dictate the quality of your attention, your personal integrity, and your basic peace of mind.

An Exercise That Helped Me Survive In Chaos

Recently, while building out the practical frameworks for our workplace programs with Greg, I kept returning to one of the absolute anchors of Stoic discipline: separating what belongs to us from what belongs to someone else.

I don’t mean this as an academic exercise any more than I intend it as something reserved for a massive career crisis.

This exploration belongs in the mundane, grinding moments of an ordinary Tuesday afternoon when your inbox holds three times more demands than your calendar allows. Or on a Friday at 4 pm, right after a high-stakes conversation completely falls apart. In one of my recent roles, my personal friction came from constantly shifting, unmapped priorities that required the entire staff to completely rebuild finished work that had satisfied the earlier directive, but had never even been reviewed. These are deeply human frustrations playing out in deeply human systems.

As Greg and I dissected these recurring loops, while I was living them, we built a series of sharp diagnostic tools I could use to pull myself out of the reactive spin. We wanted exercises that forced an immediate pivot from friction back to steady focus so that I could navigate my situation more effectively. We came up with three specific audits that reduced friction and frustration in ways that matter.

Audit One: Draw Your Control Line

The first is deceptively simple. In this exercise, you will literally draw a line down a piece of paper. On one side, dump the unchangeable facts: the decisions leadership makes, erratic timelines, shifting budgets, personalities that clash with yours, and broader market realities. Those are stubborn, external variables. On the other side of the line sits a much smaller, but infinitely more powerful list: your preparation, your verbal choices, your boundaries, your direct responses, and your immediate actions.

Most professionals understand this distinction intellectually; practicing it while your pulse is racing during a tense meeting or out in the field is another matter entirely. The utility lies in returning to the line, ignoring the chaos on the left, and picking one productive action you actually govern on the right.

Audit Two: Track Your Reactions

The second framework is an objective audit of the prevailing narrative. Judgments arrive fast, routinely outrunning our capacity for critical thought. We fill information gaps with defensive assumptions that feel incredibly persuasive simply because our own brains generated them.

This exercise forces you to strip the dramatic story away from a workplace stressor and isolate the raw, courtroom-admissible facts. When you look at what actually happened—minus the assumptions of disrespect or malicious intent—the path to a reasoned resolution becomes clear.

Audit Three: Observe Daily Focus

The final tool tackles the concept of strategic attention. Most high achievers care deeply about excellent output. But we are also highly susceptible to surrendering our best mental energy to whatever screams the loudest in the moment. We call it “triage” or “putting out fires,” but the reality is we are letting external interruptions dictate our career priorities.

We burn our highest-leverage hours reacting to everyone else’s urgent requests, then wonder why the meaningful work feels completely impossible to protect. Stoicism cannot add hours to a broken workplace timeline, but it forces an aggressive evaluation of exactly where your focus goes, what is pulling it away, and how actively you are choosing to participate in your own distraction.

The Stoic Heart® Approach

Greg and I believe philosophy is best when it’s put into practice. It has to work in real-time, right in the middle of a difficult conversation, during an exhausting project wrap-up, or late in the workday when your patience is entirely spent. The only question that matters in those moments is whether these mental tools remain sharp while your professional life is actively unfolding.

Workplace friction is inevitable. Wherever people gather to build things under pressure, misunderstandings will occur. Priorities will collide, and stress will expose human limitations. That reality isn’t changing.

The goal can’t be to entirely eliminate friction. The real opportunity to put these ideas into action is changing how we meet that friction — and our ability to refuse to let external operational chaos dictate our internal character. We hope you’re also able to use the practical tools in the document shared below to protect your focus, preserve your virtue, and keep doing excellent work.

Stoic Heart® Audit To Reduce Friction And Frustration In The Workplace

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The Stoic Heart® helps individuals and couples navigate the complexities of modern relationships using the timeless principles of Stoic philosophy. We provide the tools for disciplined communication, emotional self-mastery, and deeper, more intentional connections in a variety of settings, from home to work to the wider community. We apply Stoic practice to help others live more in harmony with nature.

Greg: In this dialogue, we’re going to talk about an emotion that the Stoics had a pretty uniformly negative judgment on and that’s anger. And it’s one that I think we have to admit we have a lot of experience not only with seeing in other people but also in feeling in ourselves and exhibiting towards each other so perhaps this will be useful for anybody else who struggles with it. I think one of the challenges that — and I’ll speak for myself here and you can tell me whether you think this jibes with your own experience — but one of the problems that the Stoics definitely address that’s helpful for us was we labored under the common idea that it’s useful to get angry or necessary to get angry or even the right thing to do in particular situations. So if we don’t get angry, maybe we’re letting ourselves down or letting other people down.

And, you know, it’s a pretty bold claim on the part of the Stoics, but you do see them backing it up, particularly in Seneca’s On Anger and in passages in Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius that whatever you may think, that emotion is actually not going to be positive and productive in the ways that you’re telling yourself that it is. So I’m kind of curious, do you, I struggle with this, the idea that maybe sometimes it’s okay or helpful or necessary?

Andi: Do you think that the struggle is coming though from the fact that you also are in many ways an Aristotelian? I mean, you’re an eclectic, but also isn’t it Aristotle who said to be angry at the right time, to the right degree, for the right reason. I think that in some temperaments, and I’ll say this is something I think that you and I share, there is an anger connected to injustice or a lack of fairness that we both have felt and strongly.

So I think for me, and this is where I’m approaching it at this particular point in my own personal development, is that I don’t like to feel anger. I don’t like what it does to me. However, I am right now more concerned about how I might express myself when I feel anger than actually not feeling anger. I don’t know that I am someone who will ever not be angered by certain things that I witness or that occur or that I see happening either to others that I care about or even to myself.

I am much less angry than I was earlier in my Stoic practice or earlier in my life. I feel like I am learning new ways to respond to it that are better oriented toward being virtuous and certainly more respectful or thoughtful in terms of my engagements with others. But I’m not sure that I will ever cease from feeling anger completely. And to be perfectly honest, even though perhaps I should want to, I don’t know that I actually do want to never have that response. I feel like there are a lot of reasons, or situations rather, where anger is the appropriate response.

Greg: Yeah, I think there’s a couple things to dig out of that and explore a little bit further. I also agree that I can’t imagine I will ever, even at the end of my life, be situated in such a way psychologically that I never feel the emotion of anger. And even if I imagined spending time each day doing exercises and reading specifically about it, that doesn’t seem likely for me, but it does seem like something that I would want to prune in many respects.

You mentioned the expression of it. If you are feeling it, well, we do have some measure of control over that. Now, Seneca thinks that once we actually do become angry, we totally lose it and there’s nothing to do. But it’s clear that Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius don’t think that , because they even suggest that the angry person can kind of reason with themselves. And I think that’s right.

So there’s the issue of how we express it. If we are angry, can we talk to ourselves and say, maybe you’re being kind of silly, being angry about this matter or responding in this way, or not necessarily silly… being petty… being unjust. All of that might be quite helpful for us, but just like you, temperamentally, I can’t imagine myself as ever being totally the opposite of anger, never having any tendency towards that.

And you’re right. I waver in between the Stoics and not just Aristotle, but also other thinkers like Augustine and Aquinas who see some roles for anger; the Platonic tradition sees some roles. But one thing that we do see among all of them is even when they’re suggesting that maybe it has some use, some purpose, they’re always saying, yeah, you’ve got to be super, super careful with this. And I know, again, I’ll just speak for myself. In the past and perhaps even in the future that’s ahead of me, I haven’t been — and I would have to be very careful to be — thoughtful about when I’m going to allow anger to do anything, to have any role in my decision making, any seat at the psychological table.

Andi: Yeah, I think also, and again, this is something that I know you well enough to know that we have in common, but for anyone else, it might also be useful: I think there’s an element of self-discovery in terms of understanding anger and being able to recognize what a strong emotional response looks like versus what an anger issue is versus when you’re motivated to sort of immediately and impulsively respond.

So very early on, when I first started working through some of the practice exercises actually during Stoic Week, I think, or Stoic Mindfulness and Resilience Training, way back when, I was at a point where I didn’t necessarily understand even the degrees of anger that I felt. Everything just had a kind of almost overwhelming physical and emotional component. I found that I sort of lost my ability to reason to a certain degree. It was a very immediate stimulus and response activity.

And some of what we’ve been working through, even in the Reducing Conflict and Building Connection workshop, those types of practices are used in other circles or communities, sometimes therapeutic, as example, where you take a breath, take a pause, step back. Then ask yourself: What are you inserting into the story? What are you assigning meaning that may not have meaning? What assumptions are you making? And as I go through those steps, sometimes I find that my response might not actually be anger itself, but something where I feel a strong motivation to act or to speak up or to do something.

And that’s that’s a lesson that I painfully had to learn because very early on anger just felt sort of like it was a foe that I couldn’t quite battle effectively and so now yes I do still get angry — I can’t imagine, as you said, never having that feeling and it is not something I’m proud of in any way, but I am grateful that I’ve been able to find different ways of dealing with the physical response, the emotion, and the thought process that comes up that’s connected to the idea of anger, which is, you know, very far down the road from where I first started.

Greg: Yeah, I think we can say that for both ourselves and of that we’ve made a lot of progress, painful and partial, like the proverbial three steps forward, two steps back a lot of the time, but it’s progress over the years that we’ve been together on this matter.

And I wanted to go back to two things that you were just talking about.

One is that a lot of the time we don’t really know exactly why we’re angry. We have the immediate thing that we’re talking about or that the other person did and we’re responding to or the way that they talked to us and the tone we didn’t like. And that’s real to some degree, right? Although sometimes we get these things wrong. And that’s worth thinking about.

But a lot of the time, there’s other stuff in the background because we’re people with histories who have deep psychologies. That’s what it means to be a human being if you’ve lived a number of years and experienced things that have become sedimented or habitual or lead you to approach situations and say, oh, here comes that damn thing again. And we’ve had to do a lot of figuring that out over the years, having an argument leading to conflict, both of us getting angry and talking afterwards, and one of us or both of us sorting those things through and saying, I’m angry, but it’s not just because of what I think you did or said or attitude you displayed. It’s also because of this other thing that really doesn’t have much to do with you. And it’s unfortunate that I’m carrying, as we call it, emotional baggage. I’m carrying this baggage around and you happen to stumble over it, right?

And I think that’s really important, whether it’s anger or fear or any other thing, even seeking out pleasure in weird ways that someone else doesn’t understand. Stoicism doesn’t say, stuff it down, shut it off or anything like that, because that’s not going to do you any good if you don’t know why you’re suddenly getting pissed off over something that other people aren’t. And it’s not going to help you to say, “Socrates didn’t get angry when this sort of thing happened,” because you’re not Socrates. And so I think that’s an important aspect in getting to learn more about ourselves.

And maybe in situations like ours where you have a thoughtful partner who actually wants what’s good for the other person, you have a better chance of being able to figure out what the hell’s going on in your twisted up psyche and why you’re responding the way that you do. Not that your partner should become your therapist or anything like that. It’s an invitation to a conversation and the conversation starts with yourself, right? Like you’re saying: Why am I thinking this? Is this really about this circumstance? Am I bringing baggage into it?

Andi: Right, and then having another person that you can trust who, in our case is one another saying, I really feel like this is what was happening. How does that track for you? And not in an artificial way, but a really genuine sort of conversation, observing the other person being careful and thoughtful and, in the case of a marriage, loving.

If you were to do that in the workplace, you would want to maybe approach it slightly differently. Like I had a strong response to the critique that you gave to my X — where X is like a project or work product, right? So let’s say I’m responding to the critique that you gave to my project. And I’d like to talk through that, you know, and if you have someone who’s not willing, well, maybe then you do find a trusted friend or partner or someone else to think it through.

But again, even if the other party isn’t receptive, we owe it to ourselves to be focused on our own development and say: Well, here’s the part of this that is within my control, and that’s what I’m going to focus on. And this response, whether it triggered something else or was unjust or unfair, what have you, elicited this response from me. And so I’m going to look at some sort of stimulus and response. I’m going to think about it. I’m going to have a conversation if the conversation is available to me. I’m going to learn and grow from it.

So, again, it’s not that for me or for you anger will ever fully disappear, but if we better understand our response and where anger enters into it and what might also be masking itself as anger — is it hurt, is it fear as you said, is it something else — you know, unmuddying muddy waters can often be the best that you can get out of a of a situation that feels outside of your control.

Greg: Yeah, and that was the second thing I was going to say, and now you’ve reinforced it, is bringing up that there’s all of these other specific affects that can be connected to anger and if we’re not all that well trained or educated in how the emotions work and what they are… Well, you know you might think of the entire movement that came out of Goleman’s emotional intelligence. Well, that was good stuff. I mean, a lot of that was ancient philosophy dressed up in modern psychological terms. And he starts with a quote from Aristotle about anger, of all things, in his first book. But that’s good stuff, being able to recognize: What am I actually feeling?

I think that in the past, I would often associate this with like masculine and feminine, but I think it’s probably become in our contemporary culture, pretty equal opportunity. And I know in our relationship, it definitely is that… for a lot of people, it’s easier to feel anger than it is to feel pain because that makes you feel vulnerable, or fear because then that makes you feel like you don’t have agency, and anger makes you feel illusorily as if you have agency or other things, maybe like disappointments or what would be, you know, similar affects. It winds up, as you called it, masking, right? And I think being able to disentangle these different emotional states from each other is really quite important.

Andi: I agree. And I think that if anger becomes a tool to do that, then that’s a usefulness that I can look to for now. And if it ultimately is replaced by something else and I am able to sort of free myself of it, then it’s not that I wouldn’t accept it — it’s just one of those things that I think, will continue to be a practice field for me, a space that I can do some work.

Greg: Yeah, I think for me as well. And there was another aspect too. I realize we’re doing a lot of things like jumping back into what we said. So this is becoming kind of a meta conversation at different points. But I think it’s important to stress this. You had mentioned that you get angry and then your lines of thinking get distorted in certain ways. And you didn’t quite say this, but I think we can say this about both of us, and it’s also a pretty universal thing. Aristotle talked about this, the Stoics talked about this, Plutarch, many others from different schools.

Anger doesn’t just short circuit reason and put it aside — and then you’re this irrational brute that’s just swinging fists or, you know, I don’t know, yelling obscenities at the top of your lungs or, I don’t know, pushing buttons on your laptop. It’s rational. Aristotle actually says that anger syllogizes, but it does so in an imperfect way. So it’s putting together lines of reasoning that are kind of crap if we look at them from the outside or as a non-angry person. But at the time we think, yeah, we’re completely rational. We’re on top of things. We’re being the reasonable person here.

So you put the two of us together in a conflict where both of us are angry. We’re both really good at making cases for things, marshalling evidence, drawing connections between things. And I think that’s part of what made it so difficult for you and I was neither one of us wanted to accept that our lines of thinking were way off base when we were angry.

Andi: I also think that because of our temperament, and this again is probably something that other people can relate to, at the earliest stages, anger itself became a battle to be won, right? Like the right person, the person who had the most authority, intelligence, power, you know, experience, whatever. It was sort of a power struggle type of anger that would happen as well. So there would be an impulse, an angry response, and then this idea that the person who refused to back down was the victor.

And I think that now, over years of practice, and again, this extends to other relationships, I don’t want to win. I just want to have there be a peaceful solution. I don’t need to feel like I am the winner. In fact, that’s kind of the last thing that I’m thinking about in a conflict in our relationship. For example, if there’s conflict, my desire is to be heard and understood and to be acknowledged — not necessarily to be right. And I think that very early on we were both used to having to kind of fight to be right. And if a person is in that type of cycle it can be very difficult to break.

And then when you superimpose other power structures, whether it’s work or family or friends, this idea of kind of non-hierarchical relationships that can be an even greater risk because there isn’t sort of a — there isn’t a necessarily obvious power dynamic to struggle against, but in the workplace, there’s almost like this expected amount of subservience or willingness to sort of just go with what the person who has the role above you might say.

And there’s institutions where that’s absolutely mandatory, right? I mean I’m thinking of the armed forces where there is no debate and if you’re angry about what you’re told to do you’re still doing it, and you’ll just feel your anger. But I think when you’re navigating or negotiating relationships with others, the anger masking can become so severe that you’re never really solving the problem. And if you don’t look at what your own desires are and you ignore the opportunity to get to better know yourself and the other people with whom you’re engaging, it’s a loss, a true loss.

Greg: Yeah, I think that’s a kind of anger that you and I didn’t struggle with in our own personal relationship, although we’ve seen this, for example, in the workplace, sometimes people use anger as a way to express dominance or try to impose dominance on other people. So the boss yells, right? And everybody knows that they have to watch out for them. I mean, we’ve — we had instructors like that as well in education. There, the anger is something else — we can talk about different ways in which people do use it.

But yes, we did both struggle with the, “If I back down from being angry, I’ve somehow lost the contest,” — the agon, as the ancient Greeks would call it, right? The battle. And if you have mistaken ideas like that, then it’s a lot easier for anger to appear as if it is something necessary or useful or even just. But that’s because you’ve got a wrongheaded conception of what those terms actually mean — useful, necessary, just. But you’re also, you know, you’re operating from a wrongheaded notion of what it is you want out of a relationship.

I mean, there are plenty of people who just want to boss other people around and dominate them and have other people tell them, “Yes, you’re such a smart guy,” or whatever, right? We know people like that. But we could say they’re not living — they may think they’re living a good life, but they’re not actually living a good life. And whatever relationship they do have with their subordinates or with their significant other, or with their family, they’re living kind of a lie.

Andi: That’s true. I’m learning as we’re talking here and I’m really thinking about it, that perhaps my initial statement is not necessarily true. Maybe there is a point where my detachment from the expectation is practiced enough and mature enough and reasoned enough that what I feel won’t be anger, it will be something else.

But I agree with you. I think that there are people who are very proud of their ability to exercise their will, to win an argument, to shut the other person down. I think that there’s kind of like a feedback loop too because those folks are not at all pleasant to be around. And so the people that ultimately are with them consistently or are willing to tolerate their behaviors are reinforcing the idea that, you know, that’s okay, right? The person who really just kind of wants to boss everybody around is either going to be alone or with other people who are perfectly happy being bossed around. So eventually you sort of winnow away the conflict.

And so, in that respect, working through these things with a partner, with a colleague, with a trusted friend can be very helpful because otherwise, how do you find out? If you and I hadn’t had some of our early debates or conflicts, how would we know how to fix them? How would we know where the points are where we had to learn to practice better habits? Or better understand the other person, maybe maybe abandon some sort of long-held assumptions that were serving us in our past or perhaps not even serving us in our past — but were just part of our past that we brought into our relationship. So if you’re not growing, right, and you’re not learning and you’re not getting opportunities to continue to live a better life or a more just life or a more virtuous life, I don’t think you’re ever really going to experience joy.

And I could be off on that, but I think that the best possible outcome of addressing the idea of anger is not necessarily to feel no anger, but to recognize sort of the whole spectrum of other emotions, other circumstances, other ways of thinking that anger sort of works its way into or covers or masks or gobbles up, right? I don’t want to be an angry person. I am okay with feeling anger right now. It is still unpleasant, but I am much more capable of not acting on that anger. And I think that that’s sort of a growth cycle that might be the first thing you have to do if you ever want to really become more fully yourself as a person of virtue in a world that doesn’t really supply a whole lot of it a lot of the time.

Greg: Now, what do you think about people who will point out that sometimes getting angry about something — for example, in a relationship, let’s say you have a partner who’s exploitative or abusive and things are very unfair and you accept it for a while because maybe that’s what you’re used to or you’re afraid of losing the relationship and being completely on your own and you think you can’t do any better. And then you start getting angry. And in the course of getting angry, things start to become clear for you. And you’re like, well, this is crap. I shouldn’t have to put up with this.

I mean, there was a lot of that going on in, you know, consciousness raising in the 70s and realizing that people had put up with things that they shouldn’t put up with. And I think we see this sort of dynamic now. Again, from a strict Stoic perspective, you could say, well, that’s still not good. It’s anger. You’re not going to turn it to good ends, but it could have, we might say, a temporary epistemological function, meaning that it’s tied in with knowledge of the situation that you’re in. So, you know, you’re in a relationship and you realize this person has been screwing me over for years and they’re never really going to change.

Now, you could feel other things as a result. You could just feel sadness or pain or despair. But anger — so again, continuing this line of idea of people who aren’t necessarily endorsing anger completely, they’ll say, well, this is a kind of anger that could actually be quite useful because it motivates you to take a stand or make a decision or to declare, I’m not going to put up with this sort of thing. I mean, maybe we want to jokingly call it the, “We’re not going to take it — No, we’re not going to take it,” from the Twisted Sister song style of anger. Now, again, from a strict Stoic perspective, it’s just as bad as any other kind of anger. I’m inclined to say that might be temporarily quite useful, but maybe you don’t want to stay in that sort of anger forever.

Andi: It’s like the stages of grief. I don’t think that anger is the thing that makes you decide to take action. I think it’s awareness. And then I think that anger is maybe a natural response. And the anger can be a mourning over years that you spent in a bad relationship. It can be a lost opportunity. It can be awareness of betrayal. It can be directed at the self. Why did I not think that I deserve better?

Any sort of loss, even if it’s a good loss or a loss that should be seen as an achievement of sorts — getting yourself out of a bad situation, whether it’s a relationship or a terrible workplace or out of a friendship that is highly one-sided or damaging to yourself. I think anger is a natural response, but I don’t think anger is the thing that actually motivates you. I think it’s an awareness and a willingness to see things as they are. A kind of reality check, if you will.

And then anger is part of what you feel. But you’re absolutely right. You don’t want to stay in that space. It can yield no good for you, yourself, right? It can be bitterness, but it’s a reaction. And if it’s a catalyzing reaction that takes you into a different space, well then, yes, I do feel that there’s a usefulness, but I don’t think that that’s the thing that motivates change. I think it’s a byproduct of the decision to make a change.

Greg: Yeah, that’s a good distinction to make. I’m kind of curious, shifting this then, you mentioned being angry at yourself. So one thinker who’s very important in monastic life, who took an almost equally zero tolerance attitude towards anger as the Stoics did is John Cassian. And what he’s saying is actually not just his own points of view, but it’s reflecting what the desert fathers were doing and advocating — all these abbots and monks out in the Egyptian desert. And he says that the only type of anger that you can feel productively is anger at — and he doesn’t say anger at yourself. He says anger at your own vices. So a part of yourself, because you can try to pretend that, no, no, those vices aren’t really me. I’m just carrying them around. No, they’re you for the time being.

He doesn’t tell you exactly what you’re supposed to do with that anger. Usually we think of anger as involving retaliation or punishment or something like that. It’s not clear how you apply that directly to your own greed or pride or anger proneness or anything like that. But I don’t know. What do you make of that idea that maybe it’s okay to get angry at yourself for having given in in the past or made bad decisions or trusted the wrong person.

Andi: Well, I think that that type of anger, again, is masking something that’s more like a regret or more like, well, I guess we all have experienced that kind of wishful thinking. Like if I had only not done X or if I had only done Y or if, you know, this had happened and that had happened. I mean, that part of the human condition is wondering what might have occurred had we made a different choice.

I mean, I can say that one vice that entered into my life that I wish never had was smoking cigarettes. And I’ve — I mean, I haven’t — I can’t even remember it’s been well over a decade since I even thought about doing so — but am I angry with myself for ever having started it? I don’t know. I was an impressionable kid. I was in a car with other people who were doing it. I didn’t feel powerful enough to say, “No thank you.” It was something that old movie stars did that was glamorous. I had so many conflicting feelings around it and it became a bad habit. Am I angry with myself for having done it? No. Not at this point. I’m disappointed that I didn’t make a different choice.

Greg: However, I have seen you be angry with yourself.

Andi: Yes, I have been angry with myself about it, especially when I first made the decision to never do it again. That’s right. Or if I was struggling with it, sort of like the impulse because it is such a strong, addictive substance. I think that if you were to ask me, at some point, if I had a permanent medical complication as a result of having made that decision, would I feel anger about that? Perhaps, right? If it’s part of your own stupid decision. I mean, you hear people talk about that a lot with money, right? Like, well, I’m paying this stupid tax now because I did this stupid thing. And now this is just what it’s going to cost me.

But is it anger? I think there may be overtones or even undertones of anger in it. But I think it’s often about something else, like a disappointment about some kind of choice… We, you and I, that is… We joke around a lot about this, right? Like Past Greg and Past Andi really did something that either helped or hindered Current Greg or Current Andi — or we’re going to do something now that we don’t really want to do so that, Future Greg or Future Andi has a slightly better day. I think it’s that kind of thing.

And so perhaps part of, well, part of the process is to feel anger initially and then to find a way to experience whatever else that is covering for you. And in some respects, if you are angry with yourself, and I don’t mean this in the very sort of stereotypical or cliched way, but you really do need to forgive yourself, find a way to forgive yourself.

Because anger is one of those things that does require some sort of response. If I say something to you and I’m angry, I’ve probably hurt you, especially if you don’t deserve my anger directed at you because I’m actually angry about something else. I have to acknowledge that I’ve hurt you. I have to acknowledge that I’ve sort of lost control of my own abilities to manage my anger that I let it get in there — I mean, there’s so many levels to it for each individual, outward expression of anger because it’s so complex. So if that’s part of why we’re saying we shouldn’t have it or feel it, okay sure, because it complicates everything, but it’s very rarely anger itself. It’s typically misplaced frustration, misplaced hurt, a disappointment, a regret, a resentment, a yearning, you know.

To use your example, and this is the last thing I’ll say on it, but to use your earlier example of how we might advise a person who’s been in a long relationship with someone who was abusive to them or didn’t treat them well or simply didn’t give them what they had hoped to find, I think a lot of that could be anger at the other person; anger at the self for having entered into that situation; anger at others uh perhaps for not saying more or showing more support — where do you stop? You know, one of the problems with anger is where do you actually stop the sort of fire that it brings. How do you put the fire out? And who lit the initial match? And oftentimes we discover if we really do introspective work and we’re thinking through it clearly that we’re the one holding the flame from the very beginning. We made the choice.

Not always, right? There’s plenty of things that happen to us that are outside of our control. Clearly if someone does something to us, that’s very different in some respects, but also if we stay in a situation where someone did something that was harmful to us, there is a question of responsibility — and it can be easier to feel anger than it can to really recognize that at some point you chose that for yourself as well.

Greg: Yeah. Part of what this suggests is that although the Stoics have a lot of really great insights about and practices bearing on anger, maybe in order to make them more fully effective, what’s needed are ways to bridge the gap between anger and the other emotions and to dig back. I mean, the Stoics didn’t have the same resources of depth psychology that other people have brought to the fore. Neither did the Aristotelians or the Platonists or any of the others back then. But we do see that it is effective to figure out how did my childhood lay down patterns — not determine me for life because of the initial trauma, but lay down patterns that gave me the wrong ways of looking at things and associating the things that I feel with the ways that I respond to other people characteristically. All of that is, well, it would make sense. So it would be part of prudence to actually dig into. And it takes courage to be able to do that.

And I would say that it also does involve justice if you’re involved with somebody else. I’m not going to say you have a moral duty to make yourself into a perfect human being for them because that’s unattainable. But if you’re pretty screwed up, you kind of do have a duty to make yourself a bit less screwed up and more bearable, more reasonable, more open to being a good partner for the person that you’re involved with.

Andi: Yeah, I would agree. You know, I think that as we range over the conversation, it’s clear that this is something we have to pick up another time as well, because I’m thinking about then, yes, what you should do for yourself and for your partner. But then also, if you’re really thinking about this from a Stoic perspective, where do you or do you not choose to get involved? And I think that that’s something that I’ve heard a lot of people discussing when they talk about injustice or issues of a lack of fairness or, like you’re saying, actual harm.

And so if what we’re trying to do is really kind of thinking about how this might play out, I think it really is that you have to start with the self. And if you’re in a partnered relationship, you start with that other person and you build trust if you need to. You rebuild trust if you’ve lost it. We’ve done a lot of work in this regard and it’s a good thing that we did because obviously we’re able to talk about this calmly and rationally without having it go into something where I’m calling out examples and you’re calling examples and suddenly our dialogue is a way to drudge up all the old stuff.

I mean I think that’s a prime example of of how doing exactly what you just said is helpful is that I’m not even thinking of that… I’m not thinking of examples of when you and I had an angry argument I only know that we’ve had them and what we’re trying to do is to make sure that they’re less frequent but also more fair. That is really sometimes the only thing that you can ask if you’re going to experience conflict. How you behave in conflict is really about your character and to have a better character means to not deliberately point that anger at another person. You don’t want to try to hurt them. You don’t want to try to win or be the victor. You want to be a person who is open and honest and just and displays kindness and goes back to that thing we’ve talked about before. What am I about to say? Is it helpful? Is it true? Is it necessary? And oftentimes anger, while an understandable emotion, is simply actually not necessary.

Greg: Yeah, and oftentimes less helpful or just than we think that it is.

Andi: That’s right.

The Stoic Heart® helps individuals and couples navigate the complexities of modern relationships using the timeless principles of Stoic philosophy. We provide the tools for disciplined communication, emotional self-mastery, and deeper, more intentional connections in a variety of settings from home to work to the wider community. We apply Stoic practice to help others live more in harmony with nature.

This post wraps up our series drawing lessons for relationships from what might at first seem an unlikely source, a passage in book 10, chapter 8 of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations that, when properly understood, applies to relationships. It starts by stating:

Words you apply to yourself: good, modest, truthful, sane, cooperative, high minded. Take care that you don’t switch other terms in their place. And if you do lose these words, that you quickly return to them.

In previous posts, we looked first at the entire set of these terms Marcus thinks we should hold ourselves (and we would say also our partners) to. Then we examined whose views we ought to care about when judging what these mean and whether we have them. After that, we noted that Marcus himself provides fuller explanation of what the terms mean, and what important implications that has for us.

There is one further aspect of this chapter that we have so far skipped over, but now it is time to explore it. And that is what we ought to do when we have gone astray and made mistakes when it comes not just to these words, but to the qualities that they refer to, or to our possessing, embodying, and acting in accordance with them.

Right after listing those six value- and virtue-terms, he cautions against exchanging them for other terms or names (metanomazē) at any point (mēpote). He adds that if you lose (apolluēs) these words, you return (epanithi) quickly (takheōs) to them. We’ll come back to both of those injunctions shortly.

First though, there’s another metaphor that he introduces, one that has draws upon the language of navigation:

Embark your own self then towards these few words, and if you can stay the course towards them, remain on it like one emigrating to the islands of the blessed. But if you perceive yourself falling off and not maintaining control, go off with confidence to some corner where you can regain control.

He doesn’t take for granted that he (or anyone else) will always be able to place themselves back on track like this. There is another choice one can make in that situation:

Or exit life completely, not falling into anger, but with simplicity and freedom and modesty, at the least by your action in life to go out of it in this manner.

Just as a side note, Marcus is using additional “words” in these passages that arguably name subordinate virtues, or in one case, the opposite of a vice. Modesty falls within the cardinal virtue of temperance. Simplicity comes up in many places in his Meditations, and names another positive moral quality. Not getting angry means not giving in to one particularly problematic vice. The adjective “with confidence” (tharrōs) might be read as just involving the emotion of confidence (tharros), but it could also be interpreted in terms of the subordinate virtue of bravery (tharraleotēs), an integral portion of courage.

Coming back to the nautical analogy, notice that Marcus counsels a similar action. Earlier it was “return”, or more literally “go back to” (epanithi). Here it is “go off to” (apithi). Clearly it is important that we deliberately direct ourselves, that we orient and shift our mindsets and lives, towards the places we need to be, or need to be headed for. And those are the positive moral terms that we should want to call ourselves by and measure up to.

We might go astray by losing our course as we are on our journey through life towards truly embodying and enjoying the aspects of developed virtue those words name. We might also stray into error by “losing” or, more literally “ruining” or “destroying” (apolluēs) those words, at least for ourselves (since it’s not as if we can destroy what they refer to, except in ourselves). In either case, when we’re aware we’ve gone wrong, the key is to set things right.

Switching the words for other words is another way of going wrong. What should we imagine Marcus means by that? Choosing other terms by which to describe ourselves with? Being powerful, successful, rich? Words that describe matters ultimately assigned by fortune rather than virtues we cultivate? When we discover we’ve messed this up, just as with the others, we have to choose to return, to set our course right, to restore the terms that if we can’t yet truly ascribe to ourselves, we can at least aspire to.

When we consider these final questions, we can see how all of this applies within the framework of our close relationships:

• How do we go astray from rightly applying and following the positive character terms that matter to us?

• How and when should we tell those we care about when they are straying from what ought to be their moral core?

• How can we support and reinforce each other in steering ourselves back on course?

The Stoic Heart® helps individuals and couples navigate the complexities of modern relationships using the timeless principles of Stoic philosophy. We provide the tools for disciplined communication, emotional self-mastery, and deeper, more intentional connections in a variety of settings from home to work to the wider community. We apply Stoic practice to help others live more in harmony with nature.

In two earlier posts, we have explored important lessons and questions for our relationships stemming from a set of passages in Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. They come up in book 10, chapter 8. First, we looked at the meanings of the terms Marcus suggests we should want to call ourselves (and our partners) by. Second, we considered whose views on whether we have these qualities or not we ought to value, and whether or not we want to live a genuinely better life.

Another aspect of that chapter that we haven’t touched on yet, but is well worth exploring and applying to our own lives and relationships, comes up in a portion of the chapter we haven’t cited yet, specifically this part (in a slightly modified version of Hayes’ translation:

Keep in mind that “sanity” means understanding things— each individual thing—for what they are. And not losing the thread.

And “cooperation” means accepting what nature assigns you—accepting it willingly.

And “high-minded” means that the intelligence should rise above the movements of the flesh—the rough and the smooth alike. Should rise above fame, above death, and everything like them.

Marcus here is reminding himself, quite literally telling himself “remember” (memnēso), that these terms he would like to apply to himself have real, determinate meanings. They can’t be interpreted however one likes in order to fit oneself into them, and feel good about being able to label oneself with positive characteristics.

In fact, something that gets left out in the English translation, but is clearly there in Marcus’ Greek is that he attributes these terms a kind of agency in meaning, admittedly perhaps one that is metaphorical. He says “remember that sanity wishes (ebouleto) to be interpreted as (semainein)”, or you could say “to mean”. And then he provides the short gloss on what that quality is.

We’ll look at each of his characterizations of these three positive qualities in just a bit. But before that, we should dwell on what significance the fact holds that he does linger for a moment over the meaning of these terms. What reasons might he have for reminding himself of their meanings?

It is easy to throw around terms that we think correspond to good traits of character. Really, just about anyone can do it. It’s just as easy, if one remains sufficiently vague about what they mean, to ascribe them to ourselves or to others. People do that all the time. Think about the stretching of the term “brave” in our own current culture, where you might call unironically someone else (or even yourself) “brave” for dealing with some trivial instance or challenge, or even for just continuing to exist in the face of some adversity. Not quite the same thing as the “bravery” required to stand up for a bullied co-worker, knowing that stance will likely make you a target as well, now is it?

Not just anything can be wisdom, or justice, or temperance, even if people want to stretch the meanings of these terms so far that you’re surprised they don’t just snap. Everybody can use terms like “good”, “modest”, or “truthful” to describe themselves, to flatter other people, or to fake themselves out about people they’d like to think better of. When called out for that, if they don’t just admit they don’t really understand what the words mean, they might come up with their own mischaracterizations of those terms. But they can’t really make those words stick, not if the terms have any genuine meaning corresponding to actual moral qualities.

Reading between the lines, Marcus is telling himself (and us, his readers): you want to call yourself things like “sane, cooperative, high-minded”, and that’s great. Now make those words refer to something. He’s not necessarily giving us formal definitions in those three sentences, but he is picking out some key aspects to what sanity, cooperativeness, and high-mindedness involve.

We could do this with all sorts of other moral vocabulary. Are you attracted to the Stoic schema of four main, “cardinal” virtues? Would you like to be able to call yourself, or your partner, a person who is prudent, just, courageous, and temperate? That’s great! Now explain what those are. If you can’t give any sort of explanation, those are at this point, for you, just buzzwords, what my kindergarten teacher used to call “warm fuzzies” (as opposed to “cold pricklies”).

Since Marcus did provide us with characterizations of these three terms, let’s look briefly at them. Being “sane” (to emphrōn) involves attentiveness (epistasin) in judgement (dialēptikēn) to each particular matter (eph’ hekasta). This arguably names either a subordinate virtue or a type of conduct belonging to the cardinal virtue of prudence.

The way he characterizes cooperation (or being cooperative, or in concord, to sumphōn) seems a bit odd, since it doesn’t mention other people, but rather those things that are assigned to you (aponemomenōn) by nature. Actually not just by nature, but by “common nature” (apo tēs koinēs phuseōs), or you might say nature as the totality or whole. What does the cooperative person do? They accept, or welcome (apodexin), and they do so willingly or voluntarily (ekousion) rather than grudgingly. This one also can be located within the sphere of a cardinal virtue, namely justice.

Then there’s being high-minded (uperphrōn), which is elevation (uperstasin) of the thinking part (tou phronountos moriou) of ourselves above the movements of the flesh (kinēsin tēs sarkos), our little reputation (doxarion), death, and “all that sort of stuff” (kai hosa toiauta), that is, the sort of stuff our culture and other people (and even we ourselves) will tell us are really important and obsess over. This clearly falls within the scope of the cardinal virtue of courage, and high-mindedness might even just be a synonym Marcus uses for the subordinate virtue of magnanimity or great-souledness (megalopsukhia).

When you spell out what each of these means and requires, then the question becomes a bit more pointed. Do I really have this quality, or not? Can I say my habits, my mindset, my choices, my attitudes, my emotional responses, my actions fit these characterizations? What about my partner’s? Have I been fooling myself, or perhaps even fooling them?

We can close up this third exploration of the passage by thinking about three more questions it might be helpful to ask ourselves.

• With positive terms I’d like to apply to myself or my partner, do I really know what they mean?

• Do my partner and I share the same conceptions of what the terms that matter to us mean?

• If it turns out that we don’t really understand what they mean, where can we go to find out their real meanings?

The Stoic Heart® helps individuals and couples navigate the complexities of modern relationships using the timeless principles of Stoic philosophy. We provide the tools for disciplined communication, emotional self-mastery, and deeper, more intentional connections in a variety of settings from home to work to the wider community. We apply Stoic practice to help others live more in harmony with nature.

Recently, Greg was speaking with a colleague who knows our work and was asked if our current program focus for The Stoic Heart® is intended only for people in, or desiring to be in, romantic relationships. His question was no doubt based on our recent messaging about how individuals and couples can apply the principles we’ve used in our own marriage to live richer and more rewarding lives.

It made us realize we need to offer a bit of information to clarify that!

Below are a few other questions we’ve fielded as we’ve shared our work more widely, offered as an FAQ and Update. We hope you find it useful. If you have any questions, please let us know.

1. Is The Stoic Heart® just for people in romantic relationships?

Not at all. While the “heart” often symbolizes romance in modern culture, we use it to represent the core of our emotional lives and our character. Our work focuses on all interpersonal dynamics, including:

• professional relationships: navigating workplace conflict and management, applying Stoic principles effectively to interpersonal relationships in the workplace, job change or loss, responding to workplace challenges;

• friendships: building loyalty, setting healthy boundaries, developing new expectations about relationships over time;

• family: dealing with difficult relatives, navigating shifting roles, caregiving, challenges with moving location, supporting one another in times of change or crisis; and,

• the self: understanding your own reactive patterns, building the skills you need to approach your life in harmony with nature, becoming a more virtuous person in ways that serve your life and others.

2. I’m currently single. Is there anything here for me?

Absolutely. Stoicism teaches us that the most important relationship you will ever have is the one with your own reason and faculty of choice. By focusing on your own character and how you relate to the world, you become more grounded and resilient, regardless of your relationship status.

3. Does studying or practicing “Stoicism” mean I have to suppress my feelings for others?

This is a common misconception. Stoicism isn’t about being “emotionless” or “stony.” It is about understanding which emotions are helpful and which are “passions” (unhealthy disruptions like rage or crippling anxiety). We use our experiences in navigating our own lives with the benefit of Stoic teachings in order to help other people experience deep care and affection for others without becoming overwhelmed by things outside of their control.

4. How can Stoicism help me with a difficult boss or colleague?

Stoicism is incredibly practical for the workplace. It provides tools to distinguish between your job performance (which you control) and your boss’s opinion or company politics (which you do not). Our workshops and articles provide strategies for maintaining your agency and composure in high-stress professional environments.

5. Is this just for people who already study philosophy?

No. We take the “ivory tower” out of the equation. While we draw on the works of Stoic teachers like Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus, our goal is to provide actionable strategies for modern life. You don’t need a degree in philosophy to learn how to stop a reactive argument or how to communicate more clearly with a sibling.

6. What is the main goal of The Stoic Heart®?

Our goal is to help you cultivate interpersonal relationships by applying Stoicism to your daily life. This means moving away from reactive, “knee-jerk” emotional responses and toward intentional, virtuous actions. We want to help you build relationships that are defined by clarity, resilience, and mutual respect, no matter what role that person plays in your life.

7. Can Stoic Heart® help me navigate a breakup or the end of a relationship?

Yes. While we focus on building healthy connections, Stoicism is can be very powerful when dealing with loss and transition. We provide tools to help you process the “preferred indifferents” of life — recognizing that while a relationship is a beautiful thing to have, your character and your worth are not dependent on it. We focus on:

• moving from asking, “Why is this happening?” to making a plan that allows you to respond with virtue and dignity;

• managing the “internal storm” of grief and rejection;

• and, learning how to let go of what is no longer within your control.

8. Does being Stoic mean I should stay in a toxic or abusive relationship?

Absolutely not. Stoicism is about virtue, and staying in a situation where you are being mistreated, or where your ability to live rationally and virtuously is being compromised, is not “endurance” — it is a failure of Justice and Courage toward yourself.

• Justice: You have a duty to treat yourself with the same fairness and protection you would offer a friend.

• Wisdom: Recognizing when a situation is beyond repair and that the most “Stoic” action is to remove yourself from harm.

We teach that Stoicism gives you the clarity to see a toxic situation for what it is and the strength to make a firm, reasoned exit.

Please remember: Stoicism is a philosophy of agency. If a relationship is toxic or abusive, the most Stoic thing you can do is use the virtue of Courage to protect your well-being and walk away. Endurance is for challenges that build character — not for situations that destroy it.

9. If I am in a romantic relationship, how can these principles make it better

While we cover all relationships, Stoicism offers a profound “superpower” for romance: the end of reactive conflict. As just one example, we host workshops that help partners (long-term, struggling, developing, or somewhere in between) do the following:

• Identify Triggers: understanding that it isn’t your partner’s words that upset you, but your judgment of those words.

• Communicate with Intent: moving away from “winning” an argument and toward finding a virtuous resolution.

• Practice Appreciation: reminding ourselves of the temporary nature of all things, which encourages us to cherish our partners more deeply in the present moment.

Simply put, whatever the relationship, The Stoic Heart® helps others live more disciplined and harmonious lives.

We hope these first few FAQs were helpful.

We look forward to working with you.

All are welcome.

The Stoic Heart® helps individuals and couples navigate the complexities of modern relationships using the timeless principles of Stoic philosophy. We provide the tools for disciplined communication, emotional self-mastery, and deeper, more intentional connections in a variety of settings from home to work to the wider community. We apply Stoic practice to help others live more in harmony with nature.

This transcription captures the complete dialogue between Andi Sciacca and Greg Sadler as they discuss the complexities of navigating career changes and professional changes within a partnered relationship, using Stoic principles to guide their approach to common life challenges.

Greg: In this dialogue, we’re going to look at another very common challenge that couples often face. And it could be people who are married or in some sort of long-term committed relationship, but it could also be people who are involved for a shorter time and they don’t know each other that well. Maybe they’re living in separate places. And the challenge is dealing with, we could say, job or career or professional changes. These could be taking on a new position or new challenges in the work that you’re currently doing. It could even be loss of the job and the income that goes with it and perhaps even status as well.

Andi: Yes. I think one of the things that you and I were reflecting on in preparation for this conversation is the idea that both of us have pursued in our own lines of work academic positions, positions where the very nature of placement can be temporary or inconsistent, and how you treat opportunities that might come up that look, well, maybe they end up being too good to be true, but they look really good and they kind of provide a settled environment or, that constant movement without having that sort of secure situation that so many people find themselves in because the workforce is changing so much right now.

Long gone are the days of starting with the company and then retiring, you know, 30, 40 years later. So no matter what your career path, no matter what you’re doing, you have to have an expectation around change and accept that change can cause a lot of problems and it can be something that either builds more connection or, frankly can kind of break people apart if they’re not careful about how they approach those things because there’s so much connected to the professional self and like you said the finances, the location, the expectation, all of these different things.

Greg: That’s right. Yeah. And one could say, well, from a Stoic perspective, all that really matters is that you preserve your virtuous character. These are merely indifference, but they’re indifferents that matter a hell of a lot for anybody who isn’t a sage. And, you know, we don’t even know if there are Stoic sages or not. We live in a real world where we’re not fully formed in that way. And if we’re together with somebody else who’s being affected by it, even if we’re doing okay with the level of change and its arbitrariness and the unpredictability and our emotions don’t get the better of us, it could be that that happens to our partner. We have to be able to figure out what to do in relation to their responses.

Andi: That’s right. And so much of what we do professionally or to earn any kind of financial gain is loaded. It’s not something that we alone control. Oftentimes, even if you work for yourself, it’s based on what you’re able to sell or what people are willing to pay you for. The very exchange of money creates an expectation around all kinds of things. And, for anyone who is faced with an unexpected career change or is in a situation where they recognize that this career they’ve pursued is not serving them or serving the world in the ways that they hoped, there’s a wide range of considerations that you have to think through. And if you’re in a partnered relationship, that means thinking it through with your partner.

Greg: Yeah, and I think there’s a whole range of what the Stoics call indifferents that we do have to consider. So there’s the money aspect. And it’s interesting when I talk to my students in classes where we’re looking at virtue ethics and what comprises happiness or anything like that, they always do bring up money. And they bring it up in terms of three main things which are connected to money but aren’t directly money. There’s some who are like, “Yeah I just want to make a million bucks, I want to be rich, you know?” And there it’s kind of a comparative, like once you’ve got a certain amount of money so that you could be, let’s say comfortable, adding more to it we know it doesn’t make people drastically happier; there’s kind of a curve. But some people just get sucked into it and they want to make more in part because they’re comparing themselves with others. Either they look at other people’s salaries or benefits packages and they’re like, “Hey, I should be getting that too.”

And then they might also do it by consumption. And this leads into the second thing. So, people want money because you can buy stuff with it. You can buy your house, you can buy cars, you can buy vacations. These are all the sort of big-ticket items. You can, I guess you could outfit a library if you wanted to. That’s a little bit more rare, but there’s all sorts of other things. And so we make an exchange — and money exists to be exchanged for goods and services. But the number one thing that my young students will talk about when I ask them why they want money is, for them, it’s security. They think of it in terms of not having to have fears, have worries, anxieties; to be able to pay for things, not when they see that they want them and they’re like, “Oh, I need that item,” but, you know, things that they think are going to be unexpected expenses. It gives them peace of mind to know that their bank account has more zeros at the end.

Andi: Sure. I think shifting the focus a little bit to money as we have, I think what’s interesting too is that there’s a lot of different cultural and generational shifts, right? So your students are of a certain age. The students in the classroom are oftentimes insecure about their field because they’re artists and designers in this case, right? And they’re not necessarily entering a workforce that is just dying to pay them for things. I think people our age… I mean, putting us very firmly in sort of the Gen X landscape, money equals time. And so the people that are paying us, are essentially buying our time. They’re buying our life hours and whatever it is that we produce for them is almost secondary. And so there may be a slightly different feeling around work as connected to money or work as connected to time or work as connected to fear or security or skill. And it’s very important not to make sort of sweeping generalizations, but to say that the point in life that you find yourself with your partner can very much dictate or influence how you’re approaching that conversation.

If we were in our 20s, and you made this comment in a recent workshop, I think, but let’s say you didn’t have a job you liked, you would just leave that job and get another job. And I think that those kinds of mindsets, the capacity to think in that way and to act in that way, diminishes over time once you have other responsibilities, or at least it feels different, right? But when you’re facing a career change or a job change or, say, you’re suddenly one of the many, many people who are being furloughed or downsized, well, how you treat that presents an opportunity for connection using the tools that we talk about, right?

Greg: That’s right, yeah. And I’ll say, too, that it is students at my Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, but it’s also Marquette students who are in business or nursing or things like that. They say similar things. And I think it probably is partly a generational thing. The reference to leaving a job and finding a new one, well, that was much more possible in the 1990s when you and I were 20-somethings than it is today. It’s kind of a — I don’t want to say dismal, but a more challenging environment, the whole job search thing for especially younger people. But you’re right, I wouldn’t, if I’m 55 years old, I don’t think in terms of, well, I don’t like this job, I’ll just go find another one. That’s not quite so easy this far into the game.

But I did want to talk about a couple other indifferents that get drawn in there too. We often, and it’s not just Americans, other people do this as well, though perhaps it’s our unique vice, we identify ourselves with our careers and our jobs. And it’s okay here in America, as opposed to other places, to begin a conversation by saying, “What do you do?” Because people do think of themselves in terms of the place where they may be spending anywhere from 30 to 80 hours a week. So our identities become oftentimes intertwined with or invested with our professional titles, our accomplishments, our functions, our worth gets tied up in that. So when people lose that or they have to move to something that can be a real challenge as well.

Andi: That’s true. I think that as you consider identity, too, and how we introduce ourselves and how we choose to identify ourselves, it’s rare that you would meet someone and they would say, “Hi, I’m so-and-so and, you know, I am a virtuous person,” right? You’re not really getting into that, right? It’s more like, here’s where I’m from and what I do. And, I was thinking about a book I recently read and I shared this passage with you, but it was about someone who was navigating their own experiences with Asperger’s and saying, well, I observed that people typically introduce themselves by saying where they’re from and what they do. So when I introduced people, I was saying “This is so-and-so, they’re from this place and they are a blank,” –– whatever their job was. And it was sort of like an over-disclosure. People were offended by him doing that.

But when you take a step back and you look at kind of how that plays into the ways in which we interact, it’s sort of like each individual introduction is a way of creating a social hierarchy. Like “I am from this place and this is what I did or this is where I went to school,” or, you know, there’s all of these sort of meanings that cascade from that. You can kind of assume what they might be worth, right? And our focus on worth is very different if we’re really trying to pursue the good life. It’s not about money as its own thing. It’s about what I said earlier: the idea that you could, if you wanted to, introduce yourself and say, “Hi, this is my name and I pride myself on being a virtuous person.” Or I suppose you wouldn’t say “pride myself,” –– you could say “I’m working on this particular virtue in which I’m deficient but at least have some good guidance.”

Greg: Exactly. Exactly. I value justice. I mean, it’s interesting because in 12-step programs, people introduce themselves and then they talk about a specific failing or a vice. “Hi, I’m so-and-so and I’m an alcoholic.” And then everybody says, “Hey, so-and-so.”

Andi: That’s right. And in a way, it’s to destigmatize the experience and to just simply state it, accept it, and then move on. But in polite company or in general society, that’s not something that you might do... or if you did, I don’t think people generally would respond in the way that you might hope. So, the way that we see ourselves is –– you’re absolutely right –– connected often to the work that we do, to the financial sort of rewards that we get, where we went to school, all of these different things. But losing a job regardless of where you might fit in terms of a classed society… Well, it can shatter all of that and really be challenging.

Greg: Yeah, and I was thinking another thing that goes along with jobs or careers or positions is your connections with other people. So a person could introduce themselves and say, “I’m connected with so-and-so in such-and-such a way.” So at a family reunion, it’ll be, “Well, I’m the cousin of so-and-so.” In a networking thing, it might be, “Well, Jim over there is my manager.” And there could be lots and lots of things like that. Now, not everybody makes close friends at work. And maybe not everybody who’s a work colleague should be a close friend. But I think a lot of people, they not only find their identity in part at work, they find their network of relationships in significant part at work including sometimes their romantic relationships. And a lot of people wind up marrying people that they worked with or they date people in the workplace. Hopefully not where there’s a direct report, but even that is kind of artificial…I mean I understand the reasons for it in terms of power dynamics and avoiding lawsuits and everything, but that really is kind of an artificial, arbitrary line, right?

Andi: Right. Because power dynamics exist in every relationship and people do spend much more time in the workplace than they do often in their homes or their places of worship or just, being out in the world. And so, like you said, it does make sense that people find one another there. I also think that there’s a certain sort of constellation — it’s almost like it creates its own universe — and the way in which you interact in the workplace when you’re outside of the workplace can be a strange thing. It can cause some difficulty in navigating things.

And I’m thinking specifically of a time that I had someone to whom I reported at the time, and we were at a work event and they had a medical issue, and it was incumbent upon me to get them to an urgent care to be seen. And as we’re in the sort of intake area and, you know, I’m assisting this person –– well, there’s paperwork to fill out, they’re having some difficulty due to the pain that they’re in, and they introduce themselves to the caregiver as my supervisor, right? Like “This is Andi. I’m her boss.” And I thought, “Oh, what a weird thing to do in this specific situation,” because it was almost the inability to kind of remove either of us from that place, right? Like in the moment, I was actually somebody who was helping her get medical care and just another human being. So, so much gets wrapped up in the title and the relationship. And again, these sorts of power dynamics can be incredibly, I think, disquieting or unnerving to lose all of that at once. It’s sort of like there’s a divorce of self, but also of relationship. And so when you have to navigate that with a partner, it’s very important to be able to talk about all of those things.

Greg: That’s right. And so this has all been, you know, very general and hopefully is useful for people to think about. But we were going to talk about some of the challenges and difficulties that we’ve had to face over the years. And if you don’t mind, I will actually start with a big life-changing thing for both of us, which I was thinking about the other day because I realized — so I just finished teaching my last class for the semester in the place where I’m currently teaching earlier this week. And I had a Facebook memory of the very last critical thinking class that I taught at Fayetteville State University. And that was a huge transition for us for the better. But it did mean leaving a lot of things behind, sort of like the proverbial setting sail with the ships and then when you hit the shore burning the ships. In part because I was a traditional academic — now I was doing some other things, I was already doing some public philosophy and I was doing some administrative work that probably would have put me on a trajectory to be involved in various... I was leading university-wide assessments; I started an ethics and business education project. We don’t have to go through all the different things.

Andi: You did a lot.

Greg: Yeah. And I was up for early tenure and promotion, which for academics, that’s the really important thing — getting the next position because it’s a pay raise, but also job security. And then tenure is, well, they can’t fire you unless you do something really dumb. So those are all important things. And had I stayed there, that’s probably what the track would have been. But it would have meant continuing a long-distance relationship that we’d already done at that point for about a year and a half. And, you know, I don’t want to say it sucked because it was great — obviously, I wouldn’t have been involved with you if it wasn’t — but what did suck was hardly ever getting to see you.

And those, I think once a month on average trips, driving up to Raleigh, catching a flight to JFK, you driving down — two hours of traffic wasn’t bad to the city to pick me up at JFK — driving up to where you lived in Kingston, us getting to spend 48 hours together, waking up at 3 in the morning for you to drive me back down to JFK for me to then take the flight from JFK to Raleigh, get to Raleigh, get in my car and be ready to teach Monday morning. That was not a good part of it. That certainly was a challenge. So we decided that, well, obviously I didn’t want you to come down to Fayetteville because I didn’t particularly want to stay there either, that we would move in together up in New York. But that meant — for me, that meant leaving behind that portion of my academic career and becoming an adjunct, which was good in part because it was eye-opening and it opened up options for us, but it certainly meant a huge diminution in money and even prestige, you could say, right?

Andi: Sure. I think the other thing too is what complicated that in many ways was the fact that I had the job that I had at the time. I wasn’t going to come to Fayetteville, right? I was in an academic administrative position at Culinary Institute of America. I was a dean. I mean, this was not... this was not sort of like, “Well, just come down there and grab a job there.” We had a lot of deliberation that we had to put into this over long-term potential satisfaction, the likelihood of good opportunities for both of us. It’s hard now to think of those 3am drives, but as you were discussing them, they were all kind of coming back to me. And I think the thing is that, you know, we were industrious, we made it work, but we couldn’t have had the life that we ultimately wanted to build being in two separate places.

Even if your career had put you in a position of total job security, running your own programs, doing all the things that you wanted, and I was able to do what I wanted, it would not have been as rich or as meaningful because we couldn’t share just in the day-to-day together. And so in that case, you definitely made a sacrifice to try and do something different, but it meant walking away from, as you said, a very secure path forward in a place where you already were respected and had an actual map of where you would be going next. And I think that that’s different than some of the other ventures or adventures that we’ve had — you know, getting involved with startups, doing some of the things that we’ve done that required a very different level of not only discernment and acumen on our parts and skill and talent and tenacity frankly, but also knowing when it was the right time to walk away or in some cases jump ship very quickly.

And so I think that when you’re looking at a career change they’re not always that big, right? It’s not always sort of like “Who leaves their great position,” but that can be really tough and it’s something that we had to — well, not question, but really think through before you made the decision to do it. It was not on a whim, right? It was over a year of discussing this.

Greg: And if we had sort of just jumped in and been lucky with it, that’s exactly it — it would have been just being lucky. We wouldn’t have been deliberating and taking all the different factors, as much as we could, into consideration. That would have been pretty foolish for us to simply decide a month ahead of time, “Well, we’re moving in.”

Andi: That’s right. And we were already, as you said, a year and a half into our relationship. I mean, I think that if anything, what these types of situations continue to teach me, right, because we continue to have these opportunities for thinking through things and working through things together, is that the foundation for how we approach difficult situations is more important even than the situation itself. Because we created in that particular instance, we created a template for how we think through tough things. And it allowed us then to face a change in that job that I had or jumping into an opportunity that looked great and then your utility is sort of exhausted and the doors close or funding collapses, or the grant gets pulled or whatever. So we’ve had a lot of those types of challenges and I think we’ve been successful in navigating them because we started out intelligently and prudently in how we approached that very first one.

Greg: Yeah, and I think now this will be a big, big generalization. So we’ll have to qualify it and you can tell me whether you think it’s off base or not. The challenges quite often as we went through different jobs... so we had the ones where we got in together with some sort of organization. Some of them were startups and some were bad fits. Some were with people who actually, or the company itself lacked integrity. And I will come back to that because I thought about something my dad did that I hadn’t thought about for a long time that was kind of like a template for the getting out that he did. But then there were things where you got into positions and they almost never turned out to be what they were projected to be and they involved lots and lots of work. And often they would be on paper paid well, but for the amount of work, not quite so good. And then dealing with kind of bad people. Sometimes just not intentionally bad; some of them actually intentionally bad.

With me on the other hand, it was teaching as an adjunct where you make some money, but you never make a lot of money. You don’t have benefits. And there’s always the dangling promise of, “Well, you do well here and maybe there’ll be a full-time position for you.” And anybody who’s ever been in adjunct positions knows that almost never actually happens; they’ve always got somebody else in mind. And that’s happened to me several times in places where I taught. And then there would be other startups and there was the potential to maybe make good income, but things would fall through. And it’s sort of like with educational startups, they’re like any others; we should always predict that 90% of them are going to fail. So we did a lot of those sorts of things. And I think that the biggest challenge for both of us was figuring out how we were going to support each other and move on to the next thing given the, I’ll say, heavy hits that both of us took from the kinds of workplaces that we were involved in, sometimes of different sorts.

Andi: That’s true. I think that all of those hits are what ultimately led us to the decision that the best possible venture that we could build or be part of is the one we build together, right? I think that’s part of what occurred. And had it not been for some of those other experiences, I don’t know that we would have arrived at that point by this point. I don’t know that we would have made this decision to really kind of go all in on something that we’ve been doing for well over a decade. And I think that, you know, when you talk about the on paper part or the heavy work, when you have a reputation as you do or as I do for competence, people bring you in to sort of be the fixer. It’s kind of like fractional leadership roles, but they don’t tell you that they’re fractional, right? They talk to you about stock options and long-term things. And, if you’re in academia and you’re of our generation, the jobs were never there, right? The baby boomer generation did not retire. The millennials were on our heels. The idea of turning an adjunct position into a full-time position at any age beyond your 30s… at this point the competition is so high. It’s just... there’s been so many different things that have happened in the workforce. But, you and I are also people who have done any matter of work throughout our lives. I was a building super when I lived in New York City and was going to grad school. You worked nighttime security while teaching yourself languages. I mean, I fully accept that our path is not necessarily normal.

Greg: Yes.

Andi: And there’s a lot of folks who kind of just put one foot in front of the other and they kind of proceed along the pathway. But what we’re talking about really is applicable to either of those options. Either you’re out there trying to create your own thing or, you know, you’re sort of in lockstep trying to just do step A, then step B. When that change happens, like you said, whether it’s a heavy hit or a minor inconvenience, it really does take relying on the other person and working through it and navigating it together because otherwise that can be the kind of thing that unfortunately ruins a relationship –– because the impact to the individual person is significant, but the impact to both people is, well, it’s amplified.

Greg: That’s right. Yeah, there’s lots of opportunities for misunderstandings or feeling like, “Hey, I’m supporting, when do I get supported?” or, you know, all sorts of comparisons. And it’s tough too sometimes to understand... Now, neither of us had this sort of naivety, but I think about my relatives when I was teaching at Indiana State Prison and it was for Ball State and it was part of a university program, but it was teaching in prison, which is its own set of challenges. And they would say to me things like, “Purdue University is just an hour down the road from you. Why don’t you just walk into the department and give them your resume?” They didn’t even know that you have to have a CV. And “You know, why don’t you just talk to them? I’m sure they’d hire you.” And I’d be like, “You gotta understand for academic hiring it’s like a year-long process and there’s 500 applicants for each position,” — this is back in the early 2000s — “they don’t just take walk-ins.” Neither of us had that sort of silly, totally unrealistic expectation, but I think that could be a challenge for a lot of people being poorly informed about the difficulties and challenges of the contemporary economy and workplace.

Andi: Definitely. And the fact that it’s changed so rapidly in our lifetime, right? I think that the well-meaning wishes of your relatives indicate that it was for them a desire to try and encourage you to just get out there –– and you’re great and someone would be lucky to have you. Not understanding how academic hiring works. But I talk to colleagues who, for whatever reason, in the space that I’ve been working for the past few years — working with a lot of different federal grants — and the competition when an entire sector of the workforce is simply let go or eliminated and finding a new position or finding other work or all of these different things... I can’t imagine if we had ever had to face some of the losses or the heavy hits as you described them without the ability to create a new opportunity on the other side of that, what that might have felt like. And there’s a lot of people I know, whether it’s through LinkedIn or even just locally, who are not able to find anything to replace what they’ve lost.

Greg: That’s right.

Andi: And they’re navigating it as best they can. But the tremendous pressure that that puts on a partner — or if they’re not partnered, that that puts on themselves. It can be very isolating and lonely and it’s one of those sort of circumstances where having a good partnership really does make a difference.

Greg: That’s right. Yeah. And so we could talk about how to support each other. I mean, obviously you don’t want to say, “Well, you know, take as many years as you need. I’ll shoulder all of the burden.” That would be ridiculous.

Andi: Well, that would be medical school. Some people actually do that, right?

Greg: I suppose so, yeah.

Andi: It’s medical school, residency, I mean, you know, fellowships, all of that. So it sounds ridiculous, but I can’t... I mean, there’s countless careers in which that becomes almost a necessity. And how do you then, how do you address that, right? How do you find fairness in that? Does that mean that when that person is practicing that the other partner is basically going to go off and study pottery and, you know, like, live abroad, have their own sort of life? So a lot of it is just the sacrifice. The sacrifice again going back to what you had said earlier that you made to come to New York and leave a position that had some guarantees for the unknown was really only possible because of the faith and commitment that we had created in our relationship and in one another. But it could have gone terribly wrong. And it has been at many points throughout our professional lives a struggle for us to be in positions that were right for us but also compensated us and also allowed us to do the kind of work that we really craved doing. And that’s why we’re here, right? I mean that’s a huge reason.

Greg: And there were some where it wasn’t just, you know, the role changed or it was not a great fit. We dealt with some people who –– I won’t just say genuinely lacked integrity, but were bad actors. And, again, I think about my dad. He was a tax attorney. And he worked for a firm at that time called Touche Ross which was gobbling up all the accountancy firms — it’s nowadays Deloitte; it’s gone through all these different iterations and changed its mission a number of times. And so he worked here in downtown Milwaukee and he decided that he wanted to work someplace closer to where we live because it was an hour commute each way for him even on a good day. And if there was worse traffic or bad weather, it could take him even longer.

So he got a job as the chief accountant of a firm in Waukesha, which was much closer to us. And we did get to spend more time together. And then he found out that they wanted him to cook the books, that they were filing fraudulent returns. And I don’t know whether it was money laundering or, well, something like that... And he decided, “I’m out of here.” And he had to go back hat-in-hand to Touche Ross. And he was a capable guy. So they sent him down... they were like, “Well, you’re not working here anymore. We’re going to send you down to Texas.” And the last roughly year of his life, he was setting up a branch office down in Houston, Texas. And we were going to move there. And, it was going to be… it was all pitched as, “Well, this is going to be great. It’s a new booming town. We’ll have the boat. We can take it out. You know, maybe even go out on these rivers and things like that.” I don’t know how any of that was going to work out because I was quite young.

But I think back on the sacrifices that he took on and even the sacrifice of being able to go back to his former workplace and say, “Do you have any work for me? I saw that I messed up, but these people, you know, were not what I thought they were.” And he did it. And we have had to negotiate some pretty... we won’t go into any details about it, but we’ll say some pretty shady characters as it turned out. And that can be a challenge, right? Because you can be like, “Are they really doing this? Are we overreacting?” You’ve got the challenge of, well, this may mean losing an income or even a title, but we don’t want to be involved in this sort of thing, right?

Andi: Absolutely. And I think your dad’s story is such a great example of the price you have to pay if you value integrity and your employer does not, right? If that’s something that is a virtue of being just and you’re in a place where that’s not the case at all, you owe it to yourself to get out, but at what cost, right? It could have ended very differently. And unfortunately, of course, your dad didn’t live to see that move and that transfer and all of those things because of his health, but he was willing to kind of take a risk to try to achieve a good which was more time with his family. He discovered that it was not a good place to be. He found the humility to go back and request different work and he faced consequences. And that’s a certain amount of maturity that he was able to exhibit. But for anyone whether they’re coming from a place of professional service, or an academic position, or working in hospitality, or construction, or government, or, well, anything…

Greg: Being able to identify what’s most important to you in your working environment is very significant to who you are. Because as you said earlier, we spend so much time in our workspaces.

Andi: It does bleed over into how we live our lives. I’ve had terrible positions that we both basically, you know, were not getting paid to do, right? Like the impact on me was so significant that it was something that we’d talk about in our time together. So even when I left work, I hadn’t really left work. I hadn’t really left the office for the day. And those kinds of environments can really fracture or do damage to a personal relationship. And so sometimes the navigation starts in advance planning as we did for your exit from Fayetteville. And sometimes the navigation is actually something where you both hit a point where you say this can’t continue. This is all we talk about. This is robbing both of us of the joy of living a life that’s more aligned with what we want and what we value and what’s important. And sometimes — this is the last thing I’ll say about this particular topic — but sometimes there’s the pain of realizing that the person you believed in or the cause you believed in or the organization that you believed in was not at all what it claimed to be. Leaving that type of role can be a different and very specific type of pain as much as being simply cut or cast aside or dismissed.

Greg: Yeah, I think there’s often a grieving process that goes along with those sorts of discoveries or even betrayals. And just as you would, you know, if your partner’s parents die, you’re not going to be like, “Well, they’re not my parents. Good luck with your grief.” You don’t want to do that with your partner dealing with the grief over... I mean, even losing a bad job, it still feels like a loss, right?

Andi: Right, right. Yeah, because it is a loss. And it represents a change and a shift in something that impacts your identity and it impacts your ability to provide for yourself and others. It’s something that is very important, I think, to most people. And, you know, even if it’s the kind of job where that’s not the case, it’s not a cause, it’s not something that... I mean, I certainly never felt like taking a job as a building superintendent in New York City was because I had this long-standing desire to uplift the people. It helped pay my rent. But I was able to do X number of things as a result of having that and I was not able to do X number of things, as well. It’s always a trade-off. But if you’re with someone else, it’s always a point of navigation and discussion and conversation and impact. And fortunately, we’ve been able to get through these things together. You know, we’re pretty strong in a crisis, but it became difficult for all kinds of reasons, both leading up to and then kind of recovering from. And I think that’s where there’s an opportunity to really learn how to put these practices into actual action.

Greg: Yeah, and I think, to bring this to a close, these sorts of situations that we’re talking about are precisely where if one of you is a Stoic or if you’re both striving to be Stoics as a couple, it’s probably not helpful to say, “Hey, these are just indifferents, buck up, you know, consider your reactions to appearances.” That’s not where that’s helpful. Just as much as if, I don’t know, somebody dies and you’re like, “Well, they were going to die someday. Socrates had to die.” No, that’s not the time or place to try to push that. But you could — I mean, there are openings for using Stoic practices and insights in how you’re... I like the word that you used earlier, navigating these things together, actually like sailing — which back in ancient times was a little bit precarious thing, right?

Andi: Right. With your special cargo trying to get to your destination.

Greg: There’s lots of room for not being a heavy-handed Stoic, but a light-touch Stoic, we might say.

Andi: Yes. Agreed.

Greg: All right. You want to end it there?

Andi: Yeah. Until next time.

The Stoic Heart® helps individuals and couples navigate the complexities of modern relationships using the timeless principles of Stoic philosophy. We provide the tools for disciplined communication, emotional self-mastery, and deeper, more intentional connections in a variety of settings from home to work to the wider community. We apply Stoic practice to help others live more in harmony with nature.

We’re re-sharing a piece from Greg today that feels especially timely as we continue building out The Stoic Heart®.

While many of you may have seen it more recently on his personal Substack, or in his Medium publication Practical Rationality, this article was originally published back in 2018 for Valentine’s Day through the Modern Stoicism Stoicism Today blog, and it’s a great example of the kind of work Greg has been doing for years that continues to resonate in new ways as our conversations evolve.

What makes this piece particularly meaningful to share here is that it reflects the kind of thinking that has long been part of our shared dialogue. These ideas have been shaped through years of teaching, writing, and, just as importantly, through the lived experience of working through these questions together as partners in work and in life. As we’ve shared, long before The Stoic Heart® had a name, we were already exploring what it means to take Stoic philosophy seriously within the context of a real relationship — especially when it comes to love, attachment, emotion, and connection.

Re-sharing this now is part of a broader intention for us as we bring more of those ongoing conversations into the open. Again and again, we’ve seen how these themes come up in workshops, classes, and conversations with others. We’ve seen first-hand how much people are looking for ways to thoughtfully apply Stoic ideas to their own lives. As one of our Longer Posts and Stoic Writings posts, this piece offers an additional entry point into that work, and an invitation to reflect alongside us as we continue to share more of what we’ve been developing together over time.

If you do read (or revisit) the piece, we’d genuinely love to hear what it brings up for you. What resonates? What feels challenging or unclear? How do these ideas land in the context of your own relationships? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments, or send us a message directly. We’re always paying attention to the questions and perspectives that emerge, and they often shape what we explore next.

Stoicism, Erotic Love, and Relationships

What can the ancient Stoics tell us about love?

What should contemporary Stoics make of Valentine’s Day? That’s an interesting question by itself, but it depends upon and raises a number of other broader questions.

• What is the Stoic approach to relationships, romantic and otherwise?

• What does an ideal romantic relationship comprise or involve?

• How should a Stoic view sexual pleasure and desire, as well as other pleasures and desires infused by eros?

• Is there a Stoic approach, or guidelines, for matters ranging from old-fashioned courtship to late modern hookup apps, from flirtation to dating to committed relationships, and more?

Valentine’s Day offers us an excellent occasion to examine issues that really concern the entire year.

When we consider these issues, and bring in ancient Stoic texts and thinkers to help us think them through, cultural differences from classical antiquity to the late modern present become prominent. We can survey what ancient Stoics had to say about erotic love and desire, relationships, the body, and sexuality (which I plan to do here, at least in part). But a good bit of that is arguably dependent upon taking cultural assumptions made by those ancient writers as constants of nature (at least ideal human nature). And given the concerns of the present, there are understandably many gaps in the matters on which Stoic authors provide helpful advice or useful guidelines. Seneca doesn’t know smartphones or dating apps, for example. Epictetus didn’t discuss blind dates or workplace romances.

That is not to say, of course, that these classic Stoic thinkers don’t have anything useful to contribute. Were they brought into our present day — after they recovered from massive culture shock! — these authors would likely have a lot to tell us, derived from the same basic principles and practices their works teach us, but adapted to new situations, conditions, and challenges.

Classic Stoic Discussions of Erotic Love

“Love” is one of those words that in English covers a vast range of meanings. It has become a commonplace — spurred not least by C.S. Lewis’ book The Four Loves, but also by entire bookshelves of other popular literature pushing that point — to claim that the ancient Greeks rigorously distinguished between different sorts of love, denoting them by different names, and conceiving of them as having different bases. There is some truth to that — friendship (philia) is something distinguishable from erotic desire (eros) — but anyone who reads around in the many discussions of love in Ancient Greek literature quickly realizes that matters are much more muddled than that, conceptually and linguistically speaking. Those supposedly entirely different types of love blur and bleed into each other, and even the same term may be used in multiple ways by the same author.

One interesting example, particularly germane to Stoicism, comes from Arius Didymus’ Epitome of Stoic Ethics, where he tells us that the wise person — because that person lacks none of the virtues — not only behaves “sensibly” (nounekhtikos) and “dialectically” (dialectikos), but also “convivially” (sumpotikos) and . . . “erotically” (erotikos, 5b9).

He explains:

For the erotic person is also spoken of in two senses. In one sense [the person is called “erotic”] with regard to virtue as being a type of worthwhile person, in the other with regard to vice as a reproach, as in the case of the person mad from erotic love. [Worthwhile] erotic love is [for friendship].

[T]hey also say that the person who has good sense will fall in love. To love by itself is merely indifferent, since it sometimes occurs in the case of the bad person as well. But erotic love is not [simply] appetite, nor is it directed at some bad or base thing; rather, it is an inclination to forming an attachment arising from the impression or appearance of beauty. (5b9, 10c, 11s)

This likely sounds odd to modern ears in some respects, but familiar in others. According to Arius, the Stoics distinguished between good and bad forms of love, setting them within an already long tradition (you will find, for example, discussing of this distinction from several different perspectives in Plato’s Symposium). We too often distinguish between different modes of this affect, that we may call by all sorts of names — love, attraction, desire, lust, passion, just to name a few — and many do make that distinction along moral lines of good and bad.

Notice another similarity — the good type of erotic love leads toward another closely related type of affection, i.e. friendship. The Stoic wise person — at least according to Arius — does not need to like or desire a person solely for his or her personality. Physical attractiveness can provide a starting point, a spark that ignites the flame of love. But the character, the personality, the moral condition of the one loved or desired — that provides the fuel to sustain a both rational and affective relationship.

Erotic love as an “inclination to forming an attachment arising from the impression of beauty” — that’s not a definition many of us would naturally come up with. It does appear to be one that Stoics consistently used. You will find a very similar formula in Diogenes’ Laertes summary of Stoic doctrine (7.13), varying just a little in the wording (though English translations diverge from each other considerably). Cicero also confirms this formula in the Tusculan Disputations — in fact, the Latin translation makes any ambiguity of meaning in the Greek perfectly clear. It is an endeavor to form a friendship (conatum amicitiae faciendae), and it arises from the appearance of beauty (ex pulchritudinis specie, 4.34)

When we compare them, an interesting tension arises from these three discussions, which may reflect disagreements or at least worries in the Stoic school about this emotion or affect of erotic love.

Diogenes Laertes sets out what we might call a pessimistic position. He tells us that the Stoics thought that erotic love was just one of the modes of desire (epithumia) — Stoic classifications of affect make desire, fear, pleasure, and pain the four main passions or emotions — and that good people will not feel this emotion. It is only the rest of us who are affected by it. Given this, the Stoic prokopton then will simply have as little to do with erotic love as feasible.

Cicero expresses a more nuanced position. He affirms that the Stoics do think the wise person will be lovers (and presumably feel erotic love), and suggests that this love will be “free from disquietude, from longing, from anxiety, from sighing” — disentangled from all sorts of negative emotions and their characteristic signs — and thereby entirely distinct from the affect of lustfulness (libido).

He considers this type of pure love rare, and says that most examples of “love” are really simply the passion of lust.)Even many instances of “love of friendship” (amor amicitiae) are really infused with lust (33). He cautions against the “madness” (furor) of love, and says that there is no disturbance of the mind so violent (45). Erotic love might remain within limits, but those are limits that it gives to itself. (33)

As we have seen, Arius expresses a much more positive evaluation of eros. He distinguishes between two distinct senses of erotic love. The problematic one that is among the desires, he qualifies as “violent cases of erotic love” (erotes sphodroi, 10b). When it comes to the better type of erotic love, it is not merely something a good person or wise person can feel and be motivated by. Love is not simply an understandable or even “normal” feeling, but ultimately merely an indifferent for the Stoic. As Arius represents the Stoics, they teach that the wise person ought to have “erotic virtue”. In fact, he says:

The wise person is erotically inclined [erotikon einai] and will fall in love with those who are worthy of erotic love [axieraston]. (11s)

Which of these three perspectives on the place erotic love might have in Stoic philosophy and practice should we adopt?

Stoic Views on Love and Relationships

How the Stoic should conduct him or herself within the context of romantic or erotic relationships, once they are established, is another area that is rather underdeveloped in the classic Stoic literature we do possess. We can’t be sure what teachings or discussions might be found within lost texts like Zeno’s Of Life According to Nature or Chrysippus’ Of the Good, and it’s not entirely clear what we ought to make of claims that Zeno advocated a community of wives and children in his Republic.

We do know (from Diogenes Laertes) that Zeno’s students did thematically study the matter. Ariston authored a Dissertations on Love, and Cleanthes works Of Marriage, Of Love, and Of Friendship. The latter’s own student, Sphaerus, reportedly wrote Dialogues on Love. If we possessed these writings, no doubt, we would have a much more complete picture of Stoic teachings about erotic love and relationships.

Still, we do possess some useful discussions. For instance, in lecture 13, Musonius Rufus focuses on the “chief end” (or you might say, “main point”) of marriage. A hasty read of this lecture might construe Rufus as subordinating sexual desire and intercourse entirely to the purposes of procreation. But let’s look closely at what he does say:

[T]he primary end of marriage is community of life with a view to the procreation of children. The husband and wife, he used to say, should come together for the purpose of making a life in common and of procreating children, and furthermore of regarding all things in common between them, and nothing peculiar or private to one or the other, not even their own bodies.

What a committed relationship ought to involve — a relationship that really is “in accordance with nature” — is a developed and ongoing intimacy, a common life lived and experienced together. In fact, as he points out, you don’t even need a marriage to make babies. Just having heterosexual sex will do that

The birth of a human being which results from such a union is to be sure something marvelous, but it is not yet enough for the relation of husband and wife, inasmuch as quite apart from marriage it could result from any other sexual union, just as in the case of animals.

What else is needed? He tells us a good marriage involves companionship, mutual love, and a constancy of action and affection

Where, then, this love for each other is perfect and the two share it completely, each striving to outdo the other in devotion, the marriage is ideal and worthy of envy, for such a union is beautiful.

By contrast:

But where each looks only to his own interests and neglects the other, or, what is worse, when one is so minded and lives in the same house but fixes his attention elsewhere and is not willing to pull together with his yoke-mate nor to agree, then the union is doomed to disaster and though they live together, yet their common interests fare badly; eventually they separate entirely or they remain together and suffer what is worse than loneliness.

In Rufus’ view — and I think this can be regarded as a more general Stoic view — this requires character and commitment on the part of both members of the relationship. One’s family or birth, one’s wealth or possessions, even whether one is physically attractive or not — these do not matter so much. In fact, just being healthy or being of “normal appearance” is good enough. What then is important?

With respect to character or soul one should expect that it be habituated to self-control and justice, and in a word, naturally disposed to virtue. These qualities should be present in both man and wife. For without sympathy of mind and character between husband and wife, what marriage can be good, what partnership advantageous? How could two human beings who are base have sympathy of spirit one with the other? Or how could one that is good be in harmony with one that is bad?

When it comes to love, erotic relationships, and friendship, there is considerably more that could be drawn out and discussed in a systematic way from other Stoic thinkers and texts. Cicero, Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus each have some points to contribute. Even Persius the poet — among other sources — might have something interesting to incorporate. For the sake of brevity, I’m going to leave that project for another time. What is most relevant here is that Stoics maintain scope for erotic desire and enjoyment within relationships.

A relationship will not be durable, deep, or even (in other respects) enjoyable, if all one or both of the partners have to contribute lies entirely on the level of sexuality desire, attraction, activity, or pleasure. But within the framework of an erotic or romantic relationship, it is possible — or better put, desirable — to integrate the sexual side of the relationship with companionship, moral character, and friendship. This is where the good kind of erotic love — and perhaps even “erotic virtue” — would have its opportunity to develop most fully.

What does all of this have to say to us in the present? Some of us might take this Stoic ideal of an excellent marriage between a woman and a man and extend it in two directions. On the one hand, it might be extended beyond the limits of heteronormativity to encompass a range of other coupling relationships in which sexual attraction and activity are carried out within a context of intimacy. On the other hand, perhaps it does not require being a legally married couple but just long-term committed partners, to live that sort of common life.

Stoicism For The Single Person

What about those who have not found a suitable person with whom to build and enjoy that sort of relationship? What would the Stoics have to say to the single person? This is an important question, and it raises many others.

For example: Is feeling and acting on erotic love something good or bad for the single person? Is sexual desire something to be indulged? Or is it a distraction? What about being the object of someone else’s desire? Is that something one ought to desire, view as indifferent, or even be averse to? Are we better off being in a relationship that includes or might involve sexual desire and activity? Is it problematic from a Stoic perspective to simply “hook up” or to have “friends with benefits”. Should a Stoic put him or herself “out there,” in the proverbial pool, going on dates?

You’ll notice that in classic Stoic literature, there does tend to be a wariness about sexual desire and pleasure. The body, after all, is supposed to be an indifferent. And pleasure — although it does accompany the proper activities of our nature, both body and mind — is not the good. We can easily be led astray, into vice, unfreedom, being disturbed, finding ourselves “hindered”, when we allow our minds and bodies to be drawn along by natural sexual desire. Add in the effects of human culture, which interfuse sexual desire and pleasure with all sorts of other matters presented as goods or evils to us, and things get even messier.

Several passages in Epictetus’ Enchiridion that bear directly on sexuality. He tells us, for instance:

In the case of everything that happens to you, remember to turn to yourself and see what faculty you have to deal with it. If you see some attractive man or woman, you will find self-control as the faculty to employ. (10)

And he counsels:

When it comes to matters of sexuality [aphrodisia], keep yourself pure as much as you can before marriage. If you do indulge, then do so only in those pleasures that are lawful. But don’t be offensive or critical with those who do use [those sexual pleasures]. Nor make frequent mention of the fact that you yourself don’t use them. (33)

The governing idea is that sexuality is something to be properly managed by the Stoic. It is not something necessarily to entirely dissociate oneself from, but one ought to maintain it within a rational perspective in relation to more important priorities. There are many other passages just from that short work that can be readily applied to contemporary dating, desires, relationships, and to the emotions and thoughts that frequently arise from erotic love (and again, a fuller treatment would similarly incorporate and interpret passages from Epictetus’ longer Discourses, as well as works of Seneca, Musonius, Marcus Aurelius, Cicero, and others).

Consider for example how easily some people get hurt feelings when matters don’t go the way they would like, or expect, or hope. A common example of this is when one person is attracted to another, and proposes a relationship, or perhaps just a date, or (setting the bar lower) “hanging out” — and the other person is just not interested. Another common example happens with “nice guys” (or girls) who invest a lot of time and effort into what they hope will become eventually a romantic relationship, but end up getting “friend-zoned”. What advice might Epictetus give?

Remember that you ought to behave in life as you would at a banquet. As something is being passed around it comes to you; stretch out your hand and take a portion of it politely. . . Or it has not come to you yet; do not project your desire to meet it, but wait until it comes in front of you. (15)

Relationships are similarly offered to us, and although our own choices and efforts can play a catalyzing role, they occur with the rhythm and on the timetable of their own development. Patience coupled with receptive readiness — rather than actively trying to take or push for the desires one allows to run far out ahead of one — may be precisely what one needs.

Has someone been honored above you? . . . Now if these matters are good, you ought to be happy that the person got them; but if bad, be not distressed because you did not get them; and bear in mind that, if you do not act the same way as others do, with a view to getting things which are not under our control, you cannot be considered worthy to receive an equal share with others. (25)

Imagine you are attracted to someone, but they prefer another person, to whom they are attracted. Does it make sense to view the other person as a rival, to think they have in some way harmed you, or to look at the object of your erotic love as depriving you of affection? From a Stoic standpoint, the answer will inevitably be No — though it certainly might require a good bit of work and time to arrive at that point for some people.

This is also a good passage to reflect upon when one feels or exhibits a sense of entitlement to the affection or desire of other people. Has one earned it? Keeping in mind, of course, that human beings are not actually automatons whose buttons we can just push, activating their programming — if it really is the case that this or that person feels erotic desire towards those who have assets, talents, or capacities to offer that one doesn’t, then isn’t it irrational to expect that person to feel and exhibit the same sort of affection towards us? As he says a bit later in that same chapter:

You will be unjust, therefore, and insatiable if, while refusing to pay the price for which such things are bought, you want to obtain them for nothing.

As a last example, let us come back to a common concern that becomes intensified for some on Valentine’s Day but which can plague a person throughout the year — the feeling that not being in a romantic relationship reflects that there is something wrong with oneself. Of course, some people do possess traits or make assumptions that do tend to push away potential romantic partners — for example, heading into dates complaining about how “all men” or “all women are . . . ” — but people do have the potential to change those sorts of “deal-breakers”.

What I’m referring to is the person who feels bad about him or herself because they are not (as far as he or she knows) the object of anyone else’s erotic desire. They may feel unattractive, unloved, isolated and lonely. This can be particularly difficult when one is single after a relationship ends, with a breakup or a divorce. There are two passages that might be particularly helpful to bring up here.

It is not the things themselves that disturb people, but their judgements about these things. . . When, therefore, we are hindered or disturbed , or grieved, let us never blame anyone but our ourselves, that means, our own judgements (5)

Notice that Epictetus is not suggesting that a person simply get down on him or herself, but that instead he or she examines their own judgements, which include and result from lines of reasoning. The second passage is about examples of mistaken lines of reasoning.

These statements represent bad reasoning: “I am richer than you are, therefore I am superior to you”, or “I am more eloquent than you, therefore I am superior to you”. But the following conclusions are better: “I am richer than you are, therefore my property is superior to yours; or “I am more eloquent than you, therefore my elocution is superior to yours”. But you are neither property not elocution. (44)

A person might reason badly along similar lines with him or herself. “I don’t have a romantic partner, so I’m inferior to others who do.” Or for those who are in a relationship, “my partner is not as attractive, or as witty, or as (substitute whatever you like here) as someone else’s partner, so I’m inferior to that person.”. Or, “my life is not as good as that person’s,” or “I’m missing out”.

One might come up with all sorts of similar lines of reasoning, all of them equally flawed from the Stoic perspective. Liberating oneself from those erroneous assumptions, inferences, and conclusions doesn’t just make one feel better — or at least less bad. It also gets the person a bit closer to developing the virtue of prudence, a genuine good for one’s life.

To bring this already long post to a close — admittedly, just scratching the surface of a complex and rich topic about which Stoic philosophers have much to contribute — what can we say by way of conclusion?

Classical Stoics did view romantic or erotic love — at least in some cases, and as felt by some people — as something good and worthwhile. One can, however, live a good life by Stoic standards whether one does find an attractive partner and form a lasting relationship, or not. What really is key is the cultivation and living out the virtues, the development of one’s moral character and capacities, and that — in the Stoic view — is what renders a person truly desirable.

The Stoic Heart® helps individuals and couples navigate the complexities of modern relationships using the timeless principles of Stoic philosophy. We provide the tools for disciplined communication, emotional self-mastery, and deeper, more intentional connections in a variety of settings from home to work to the wider community. We apply Stoic practice to help others live more in harmony with nature.

This is the second post in our Question and Answer weekly series. Once we have a few paid subscribers, one of the perks for them will be getting the opportunity to ask new questions that we’ll be tackling together and writing out well-considered (and hopefully helpful!) answers to in subsequent posts. Until then, we’re publishing some of the questions we’ve answered at length elsewhere.

This one is from our recent appearance on Conversations With Modern Stoicism for a special Valentine’s Day session (which you can watch here).

Question: I didn’t have Stoicism when I was married. I had a long, long marriage that ended in a separation and divorce. I could have used some Stoicism back in the day, and then having young children, marriage with young children that’s like the crucible, and like the good fight. That’s when you really need the tools. It would have gone better, I’m assuming, if my husband and I had had some of those tools. I did discover them on the way out of the marriage, during the process of separation and divorce, and I feel like I used them well then. I’ve divorced almost 5 years now, and I dated one person. It didn’t end well either.

Right now, I’ve just kind of given up on romantic love. I feel like I’ve got enough. I’ve got I’ve got a daughter who lives with me who has health troubles, and I’m kind of taking care of her, and my parents are toward the end of their life and I support them. I have friends. I’ve got community. I go to my church. I sing in the choir. I feel like I have a very full life and I feel like I’ve essentially given up on on romantic love. Although I do have a best friend that I apparently flirt with.

I don’t know, like change my mind. I’m still pretty young. Complicate my life please.

Greg: That’s great! I think the index is: if you can describe your life as full, then you don’t need a romantic relationship. It it’s not like everybody has to have one. It’s something that if it if it’s feasible, you want it to be a good one.

Andi: Great point, Greg. You’re someone who has focused more on romantic relationships, at least by comparison to me, right? Like you have been in serious relationships. You had a marriage. You had children with that person. You have had more relationships in the sort of sense of long-sustained or short-sustained couplings than I did. I was more closed off for a lot of different reasons and had a couple of relationships that were significant. But before Greg and I reconnected, I was by myself for five years. I had two dogs, two cats, a big farmhouse I was renovating. I had a great job. I was on my own. It was something I had to unlearn when we did get together, some of the compromising, because I was used to doing whatever I wanted to do whenever I wanted to do it. And that suited me just fine. It still would suit me fine, but Greg is worth it.

I mean quite honestly, this is it for me. I’m not looking. If anything were to happen to him, I wouldn’t be looking, because I feel, one, completely fulfilled as a person in my own life. And two, this is the greatest love story that I would ever choose to write. I don’t need to write another one. I can write about other things if I have time to do so. I’m hoping that his pen lasts longer than mine and I go first because I don’t want to try to manage life without him.

Greg: I’m hoping the opposite.

Andi: We both are, which I think is funny. But to your point, like why would anyone want to change your mind? If you’re looking for connection with people, you have that. You have a rich relationship with family. You say you have work that rewards you. You obviously are in this space.

I think that love enhances those things. Romantic love enhances those things. But by nature I am not a romantic. I think that’s part of it too, that I have been consistently surprised by and shocked by some of the things that came up for me. And I was just tooling through life. Five years went by like that because I was just doing my life. I didn’t I look for it. I didn’t need it.

I think, Greg, that for you, when a relationship would end, it wouldn’t be that long before you were in another one. You had time that you were on your own, for sure. But you were much more about connecting with another person and developing that part of your life than I was.

Now, we could say then when we first connected, did Greg have tools that I did not possess because of his ability to become a partner in more relationships? Yes, for sure.

But it’s good to remember every single one of those relationships failed. And so that was the other part of it. You had different tools than I did, but you also had different experiences, suffered different losses, had different disappointments. And so it was very important for us not to bring past Greg and past Andi into the present. And that was some unlearning, right? I had different things where I was like: “What are you talking about? Why are you reacting that way?” And maybe it was because of something that happened in a previous relationship. And I was very much about doing what I wanted to do.

When we first connected, it was long distance for a year. I mean, we were in different states. There was a lot of writing, there was a lot of communication, there were marathon phone calls, there were the long weekend trips. But then moving in and cohabitating, romantic relationship or not, I was like: “You put your stuff here?” And he’s like, “Well, that’s my stuff, and this is where I live now, you know.”

So I will say this, it’s very, very hard work.

Greg: And we should we should mention “moving in” is kind of a euphemism, because we were living in what was called a “carriage house apartment”, which is an apartment above a garage. And the walls sloped in. You couldn’t even stand up all the way in parts of the apartment.

Andi: Yeah. It was under 400 square ft. It was all one room, and we had two 125 lb dogs, two cats, both of us – neither of us small people to begin with – but then you add our voices, and our personalities, and 10,000 books. I feel like we were thrown into the fire, and it was like, “Okay, if this is what you want, you’re going to have to figure this out.” It’s been that over and over again.

But yes, I’m not going to try to change your mind. Life is beautiful however you choose to live it. So who knows, maybe that person that you choose to meet someday has the same opinions that you do. And then you kind of just sort it out, and maybe it’s this forever.

But you seem happy. You seem seem good. Otherwise I don’t think you would have asked the question. I think it’s awesome.

Greg: Yeah, it is fantastic.

The Stoic Heart® helps individuals and couples navigate the complexities of modern relationships using the timeless principles of Stoic philosophy. We provide the tools for disciplined communication, emotional self-mastery, and deeper, more intentional connections in a variety of settings from home to work to the wider community. We apply Stoic practice to help others live more in harmony with nature.

Greg: Welcome to our second dialogue in the series that, right now, we’re calling Dialogues between Andi and Greg, where we’re going to talk about various situations where Andi and I found Stoic philosophy useful either as individuals or as a couple together, sometimes in our interactions between us.

We’re going to talk about a particular class this time, and we’re going to zero in on a few experiences we had, which may seem a bit comical to some. We’re going to call this dodging a bullet, although really it’s more like a shotgun blast because we dodged a bunch of different similar bullets. It has to do with when we were out, I guess you would call it “house hunting”, right?

Andi: Yes. I think, just to be clear, the reason it feels like a shotgun blast is because so many things were out of our control, and at that time we really were still very early (or at least I was) in practicing what is now the Stoic part, in terms of using practical lessons from Stoicism to help us get through situations. And finding a place to live is stressful under the best of circumstances. But these were certainly not the best of circumstances.

Greg: So we were living in what gets called “upstate New York”, meaning that it’s north of the city of New York and, not quite “upstate upstate”, in the Hudson Valley.

Andi: Yes. Anyone who actually lived in upstate New York would correct you. We lived in the Hudson Valley, which is its own region. I mean, painting schools were formed because of the geography. So it’s definitely its own region. It was the Hudson Valley, but for anyone who came from the city, it was definitely just upstate.

Greg: We’d been living in a carriage house apartment, which is a euphemism for living above a garage. And we definitely wanted more space and a place of our own. So we started looking at real estate in the area. We also had the idea that I think a lot of couples do, that we’re throwing money away essentially by paying somebody else to rent their space, and we could build some equity. I think these are pretty familiar themes to a lot of people out there.

Andi: Absolutely. And the carriage house itself, the apartment was less than ideal for a whole host of reasons, including the fact that it was the two of us, two very large dogs, two cats, thousands and thousands of books. We really did outgrow it very quickly, and we were hoping to find something that we could continue to sort of grow in and live in.

At that time, I had a very comfortable position with the Culinary Institute of America, and we were building out a variety of businesses working together. It was something that seemed like we were at that stage where we really ought to think about it. Not just that we wanted to, but that this was a point in our relationship where it would make sense to take that leap.

Greg: Yes, and I think that might be something, before we go into the specifics about it, that we could focus on a bit. There’s a big difference between it being useful or advantageous to consider a certain course of action, and feeling like it is the right thing to do or the necessary thing to do. I think in, not so much our decision making, because that came a bit later, but in our exploration, we were, and correct me if I’m wrong about this, sliding from “this would be something useful or advantageous” into the “we’re leaving money on the table, we’d be stupid not to do this” sort of mentality. And that was putting pressure on us to start considering all sorts of possibilities that turned out not to be very good fits.

Andi: That’s very true. I think the other thing worth mentioning is that sometimes other people’s decisions impact your decisions. And so at that time, the carriage house that we were renting belonged to a family that was looking at being part of a co-housing opportunity and they were talking about selling their property. And that is definitely a “bullet-dodge” for another episode.

But we were not really guaranteed that we’d be able to stay where we were anyway. So all of these combining factors, like you ought to be doing this, leaving money on the table, it’s wise, it’s prudent, it may even be a more urgent necessity than we originally thought. You know, we had overgrown our space. In the column for reasons to pursue a new place to live, it was heavily stacked.

And any reason of comfort, or not having to move, or not having to do the search, some of those things were actually kind of sliding over into the column of things we didn’t control because of what was happening with the folks who owned the land on which we lived at the time.

Greg: Yes, it’s interesting that you brought up prudence, because in retrospect we thought we were being prudent, but I think we really weren’t.

Andi: I would agree. We were letting our emotions or preconceived ideas about things dominate our thought processes.

Greg: That’s right.

Andi: And I think too, amongst the people that we knew through my work or your work, and living where we lived, getting property, or getting land, or getting even some little cottage that you would fix up and then you would grow your own garden, it was very much part of the philosophy of the environment and the people that we spent time with. So not having that room to sprawl, or plant, or do some of the other things that brought us joy, was making it more attractive probably than it actually was, or should have been.

Greg: Yes, that’s a good way to put it. There’s what we might call the objective attractiveness of it, and then there was the appearance or allure of it, which quickly unraveled as we started to follow through on these things. So that’s a good segue into talking about what we did, which was in part go around and look at places that we could buy, because we weren’t very interested in just renting another place. In some cases we had realtors helping us out. In other cases, we just went out there and checked out the place.

Andi: That’s right. Walking around the property or talking to someone who was for sale by owner was a big thing in the Hudson Valley.

Greg: We definitely did not want to find another place to rent. I mean, that was part of the conversation, right?

Andi: That goes back to the leaving money on the table thing. But when we looked at what our budget was and we looked at what was available, the Hudson Valley being directly north and a little bit west of the city, it warranted really high housing prices, even in a really buyer favorable market. And so what someone might advertise for housing $600,000 or a million dollars by comparison to other places within the country was really not that much space.

So that kind of put us in a position of needing to look at places where it was kind of a fixer upper, or in the case of one place literally two completely different designs of houses that were smashed together.

Greg: I’m not even sure that both of those were in fact houses.

Andi: One was definitely a house and I’m not sure what the other building was supposed to be. I think it started as an outbuilding, maybe as a garage for an RV, and then they kind of fitted it into a living room / game room, plopped a kitchen in there. It could have been like the biggest man cave ever. And then they cut a hole in the side of this like 1700-something farmhouse. The funniest thing was that the realtor really had a great spin on it. She called it, I think, a “Costco grocery grabber”. There was a pulley system, and a door that opened up from this garage space, and then you were only a few steps away from the antiquated kitchen, and like an eight bedroom, one bathroom kind of space.

We saw a lot of those, but this was I think the point, when we saw that place, I think what we were doing really truly became visibly absurd to us. That was the last place that we saw, but we had a lot of places that we saw before that one. Once we saw that and realized: this is not the right decision for us at this time. And we’re not seeing anything that’s actually going to work. We’re just going to kind of ride this out and see what we can do. I know I at least had a sense of relief.

I feel like we were putting so much pressure on ourselves to try and find something that would work within our budget, that wasn’t going to require years of construction or you at 6’3 having to duck your head in a portion of the house. Like in that space, I think they had like a tiny little living room area that was sort of halfway underground. It really was misfits paradise out there.

Greg: I think, when we were searching for houses, and we were going through this prospect of trying to fit it to our budget and what we could imagine actually bringing in, we were looking at becoming what they call “house poor”, where all of what you’ve got is essentially tied up in housing and you’re essentially living on beans and rice and cutting costs everywhere else you possibly can because you’re just paying on the mortgage

Andi: I think the expression is “house rich, cash poor”. But in this case, we would have been house poor, cash poor, because none of these were really great investments, either. The idea of trying to resell some of these properties, had we decided to purchase them and then move on, I think we would have been saddled with them and definitely lost money.

Greg: None of them were good investments, actually, which is why we passed on them in part. Fortunately we did because we weren’t there that long. I moved up in 2011 and then we moved out back here to Milwaukee in 2015.

Andi: I think if we had bought any of those places, we would have been stuck. We’d probably still be living there today and maybe trying to sell them. But like you said, probably having lost some money in the process. So it wouldn’t have been a prudent thing to do.

Greg: I don’t know. Did we have a sense of that then? Or was it more just: listen, this is not going to work. We can’t adjust what we’d be getting and the possible troubles that we would be getting ourselves into with the money that we’re actually making in the area?

Andi: I don’t think we had a sense that we were going to go back to Wisconsin in just a few years. If anything at that time, they were talking about potentially relocating my position to California. There was an opportunity to be positioned in Texas. Some of what we were talking about, too, was kind of contingent upon ease of access to where your kids were living at the time. We were trying to do something that wasn’t really a great fit for a whole lot of reasons.

But we thought, well, maybe this will be an improvement on circumstances that really aren’t great for us to begin with. And I think that once we took that step back and then, things kind of unfolded the way that they did, we both realized pretty readily that our number one priority was finding a solution that would bring us back to Wisconsin, back to our original home state. And then, you know, it seemed like everything was quite a bit easier.

I think sometimes when we try to force something, out of a desire to kind of control an outcome that we definitely did not have any kind of say in the variables, that that led into the decision. It’s part of why it was so tough for us. Our time there had kind of come to a close before it officially came to a close. And so we had to ride that uncomfortable, kind of middle ground until we were able to make the move that actually was right for us.

Greg: So we’ve got some important themes there about matters that are in our control and matters that aren’t in our control. And notice that we’re talking about it, not just as individuals, but as a couple. So there’s the Stoic notion of what’s up to us and what’s not up to us, that can be something that’s broader than just an individual.

And in the case of a couple, it better be broader than just an individual, because if one person is doing all the decision making, about pretty important matters, finances, where you’re living, jobs, matters that concern the relationship. Unless somebody else is just very, very complacent or easygoing.

Andi: Yeah, you’re going to have some problems. I think that part of it too is in our case, we both are used to being the one to make the decision. And so we’ve had to learn — we learned it very early on, or I don’t think we have been able to stay together — how to balance our desires for an acceptable decision that we could live with in ways that took into account one another’s feelings about it. But we invited that conversation and asked the other person. There was no sort of like imposing of will on a decision for the most part.

I think that I’ve spoken with folks that really prefer to not be involved. They don’t want to go car shopping with their partner. They just want to know what’s coming home and when it’s coming home and that kind of thing. Some folks don’t want to know anything about what goes into maintaining the household, whether that’s grocery bills, or utilities, or even just simple scheduling.

I know with people with young children, we know friends who have raised young children or are raising them. Maybe one person takes that role on, and the other person is more sort of the informed person, almost like a RASIC chart, who’s responsible, who’s giving approval, who’s consenting, who’s informed.

You and I have always done things, I think pretty much, side by side on almost everything. In fact, I couldn’t really think of anything where one of us is just taking on all of the decision making. But when you’re talking about where you’re going to live, or you’re talking about something like a move, or a job change, obviously that’s a little bit different than some of the day to day things. And it can test a couple or a person in ways that some of these other smaller decisions don’t

Greg: I think that was something that we were fortunate in that we approached everything a little bit more equally from the start. Part of that is that, if you screw up the grocery order, you’ll get more groceries next week or the week after that. Maybe you missed an important deal at Costco or something like along those lines, but it’s possible to remedy.

Whereas if you, especially in a place like we were looking at, if you make the wrong decision about where you’re going to live and the financial aspects of that, are you going to get a mortgage? What are the rates going to be? You’re really locked into something. Even buying a car, you can take the car back to the lot and say, I want to turn this back in or resell the car. It’s not as if you can’t sell a house, but as you mentioned before, these houses were not envisioned as immediately resaleable.

These weren’t the sort where you see on all the shows that used to be so prevalent where it needs some work, we’ll buy it, we’ll put some work into it, we’ll flip it and get out in two years. Every one of the places that we got to look at would have taken an awful lot of TLC, I think.

Andi: Oh, yes. And in some cases, would have far exceeded any value or joy that we could have taken from living there. But we really wanted to try to explore all of our options and see if we could make it work. because we felt motivated by a desire to improve our circumstances. And when we realized that none of these things and choices before us would actually be improvements, like I said earlier, it was a sense of relief, even if it wasn’t the outcome that we hoped for going into it.

Greg: That’s actually a good point to sort of broaden this out. Some people might say, well, if you’re not seriously willing to make a decision about this then you’re really wasting your time both as an individual and in the relationship considering these things,. It could be thinking about changing housing. It could be thinking about buying a new car. It could be thinking about one of you enrolling in some sort of academic or certification program. There could be all sorts of things. It might even be things like should you get a gym membership at a new place that offers all these things so that you can get yourself back to being in shape and healthy and all of that.

All of these would be possible improvements, but maybe some of them are more pipe-dreams than anything else. Or thinking about starting your own business, what would it take to get, your new pastry shop going in the heart of the downtown in an old storefront. So that might be something that we could think about at one extreme. You would have the “don’t bring it up unless there’s a real action plan here”, a real live possibility that this could work. And then at another extreme would be the “well, we entertain any sort of ideas whatsoever. There are no bad ideas.”

I don’t think we want to be at either extreme. I don’t mean just “we” as in you or I, because neither of us would be particularly happy about those extremes, but I don’t think it’s good for people in general to be at those extremes.

Andi: I agree. And I think, you know, going back to sort of like the theme of this, the bullet dodged. It is indeed bullets, plural. Part of that is because at each step moving from that extreme or either extreme that you present, or somewhere in the middle at each step, there’s multiple dependent factors, and there’s lots of things that can go wrong, and do go wrong. And without a solid foundation, you’re ill-equipped to address those when they occur.

Let’s say we did find the perfect property and we had financing, and it was something where, maybe a little bit of TLC, but nothing too serious. And all the factors that we were looking for. And then there was a horrible storm or something occurred. We’ve learned to not put all of our (I hate to use the cliche) all of our eggs in any one basket. And I don’t think we’ve even put all of our eggs in multiple baskets. I think we’ve always been the type of people who reserve some eggs, hold them back.

I think that that’s an important thing is that recognizing that there are plenty of things that can occur that you cannot anticipate, let alone control. And so you just have to be able to accept what’s happening in ways that don’t drag down or damage the trust that you have with your partner, or the reliance that you have on your ability to effectively respond to things.

It wasn’t as if you and I went from place to place and thought, “Oh, we’re doomed. We’ll never find a place. There’s no place for us. We’re not meant to own a home.” It was just like, this is crazy. Like what we’re seeing is crazy, right? This is not for us. It may be for somebody, but we’re not those people. Who would ever live in this place? We maintained a sense of humor about it. It didn’t reflect on us as human beings.

Greg: I think some people get caught in that trap too. They’re either on one extreme or the other. When they encounter difficulty it becomes: “Oh I’ll never get this”. Or sort of making a judgment about themselves based on the externals that they don’t control. And forgetting about what is actually an indifferent.

Some of this is very much a factor of time and place. I think if you and I had been together in the 1990s when we would have been in our 20s. Working at the jobs that we had, and you had your own business as well. Housing was much cheaper back then in relation to other things. And even in the Hudson Valley, you and I might have been able to look at a whole panoply of places that, just were not in our possible range at the time if we were out here even greater variety of places.

Andi: Yeah so those sorts of decisions could have been much easier.

Greg: I remember back when I was in my mid-20s, if I didn’t like a job that I had, I knew I could easily quit it and find all sorts of other jobs just looking through the want ads within a week. Even if I had a kind of low-paying job it would cover a studio apartment, insurance for my car, gas. So that’s stuff that we don’t have any control over. It’s not like we control the national economy, or savings rates, or how far our money goes, or anything like that. We’re just kind of forced to make decisions within those those parameters that that come from the outside.

I think when you’re in your 20s, it’s not the same as when you’ve gone through graduate school, you’ve gotten a degree, you have an investment in a specific kind of career and as you get older, you realize that time is more finite. When you’re in your 20s, no big deal, you will just find another job. But as you are remembering that you will die, it’s easy to place more importance than is actually required, or healthy on things that still are indifference and do not matter. Because they tend to symbolize some sort of concreteness or an achievement or that you’ve passed the mark or you’ve proven yourself to be responsible.And the truth is that’s not anything that truly matters. It’s are you in harmony with your life, with nature, with others? Are you doing the kinds of things that show virtue? We would not have been happy in any of those places.

Andi: No, we would have been miserable. We would have been miserable, which would have made the kinds of things that were important to us that much more difficult to achieve. And it would have been more difficult to, make the right choices in other areas of our lives, had we put ourselves in that position for the sake of just saying that we bought a house. But I know a lot of people do those kinds of things. You know, they take a job they hate, they buy a home they can’t afford. They make a decision that is outside of the scope of what’s good or healthy or joyful for them. And then everything else suffers as a result.

So even when we were still kind of learning our way through and navigating our way through that phase of our relationship, I think both of us had the good common sense to know that it was not good for us to make that choice.

Greg: I think in this particular case, one of the things that we did, and so maybe this is sort of a general lesson for situations where one needs to dodge a bullet and maybe doesn’t even realize that it is a bullet until you think about it a bit, is we tried it out. We went around. We looked at different places. We realized that they weren’t good fits for us. And that’s where I think a lot of people would get to. And we did feel a bit frustrated or disappointed, and then we talked about it, and we figured out that what we were looking for, what it is that we wanted as a couple, just wasn’t going to be realizable in this situation.

And we thought about, well, why? Why do we want this? What is so important about having our own place, being able to think I’m not dumping money on rent, I’m building equity, all these sorts of concerns. We talked those through. And then, like you said, we came to realize these weren’t just matters that were typically external and out of our control. They weren’t really the most important things.

We realized that it’s not to say everything is completely equal, but so long as we can be together in a place that we’re comfortable in and can have a decent life together and can do some of the things that we definitely want to do cook, be able to, to look out on a view that isn’t just a garbage cans, or something like that. To walk outside to, to have, you know, neighbors who are respectful people. (I mean, we’ve lived together in some places where that’s not been the case).

And it wasn’t what we walked into knowingly. Things happen when you live in large apartment complexes in cities, for example, you’re not really sure. It’s kind of the shuffle of the deck or the luck of the draw who ends up living next to you. But there’s so many factors.

Andi: You’re absolutely right. So many factors that you have, you know, kind of no control over whatsoever. And so to really focus on the things that matter. And to do it in a way that is following what’s right and not necessarily what other folks or social pressures might tell you is supposed to be right. And that might vary from person to person. For some people, it might be the right choice at the time for them to buy a place and do all those sorts of things that come with home ownership. And for other people that might be a completely imprudent choice.

We learned a lot from the experiences, and I think we can look back on it now and laugh. And at the time, I think we still maintained a fairly decent sense of humor about it all. Because some of the things that we were being shown were really just so outlandish.

I think it can be a very painful process for any couple like we’ve been, to go through and be able to work through it with someone who is willing to hear your concerns, and be caring, and also keep things in perspective is probably the best thing you can ask for.

Greg: I was trying to think, and I didn’t come up with any cases, if there were some houses that we looked at where I thought it was a good idea and you didn’t or vice versa.

Andi: No, I don’t think so. I think that we were pretty much aligned on everything. The only place that we were considering where we maybe had differing opinions at different times was the sort of trailer on the co-housing property. But that again, is a story for another time, in part because I think that you and I initially had different experiences in terms of whether or not we felt that we could trust the people that were bringing us this “opportunity” or not. Very quickly we were aligned on that, but that’s the only thing I can think of where one of us maybe saw possibility where the other didn’t, or one of us saw caution where the other didn’t.

We were always really very much on the same page when it comes to big things like that. We often are. I know a lot of couples where that’s not the case and the kind of friction that that causes is just painful to observe, you know?

Greg: Yeah, it’s probably important, and maybe this is where we want to wrap up, that if you’re in that sort of situation, communication is going to be absolutely important. And being honest about the values that you’re assigning to things and where those ideas came from. If you have a couple where one person is being driven by what their idiot friends or coworkers are telling them about what’s really important in life, and the other person is a bit better grounded, there’s going to be some significant problems.

If they’re following the one person, they’ll probably make some imprudent decisions which might not turn out to be devastating. Things could always work out. That’s the nice thing about what the Stoics call matters of fortune. Not only can they go bad. They can also go surprisingly well. But you can never really count on them to continue to go well

Andi: That’s 100 percent true. I think that’s a great place to wrap it up indeed, because that is really the foundation for so many other stories or circumstances that any relationship is bound to encounter. Communication is truly key. And I think that at the root of that has to be a sense of respect, trust, and understanding as well.

The Stoic Heart® helps individuals and couples navigate the complexities of modern relationships using the timeless principles of Stoic philosophy. We provide the tools for disciplined communication, emotional self-mastery, and deeper, more intentional connections in a variety of settings from home to work to the wider community. We apply Stoic practice to help others live more in harmony with nature.

Last week, we focused on one particular passage from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations that, when properly understood, applies to relationships. It’s in book 10, chapter 8, and starts with:

Words you apply to yourself: good, modest, truthful, sane, cooperative, high-minded. Take care that you don’t switch other terms in their place. And if you do lose these words, that you quickly return to them.

What last week’s post focused upon was the meanings of these terms, and why they name qualities that we want (or at least should want) to genuinely describe both our partners in relationships and ourselves. Without honoring, cultivating, and maintaining them, your relationship is going to be on pretty shaky ground.

There are several other interesting and important aspects of that chapter that stick out as well, and we can benefit from examining more thoroughly. One of these is that Marcus provides brief explanations of what three of these terms mean. A second is that he talks at several points about what we can do when we find ourselves drawn away from embodying and living in accordance with these qualities. A third comes up where he tells us:

If you make it your occupation to remain in these terms, not striving to be called by those words by other people, you will be different and you will enter into a new life. For to keep on being the person that you’ve been up to now, to be torn apart and degraded by the life you’re living, is to be imperceptive and overly fond of life.

That’s the portion of the chapter we’re going to focus upon today, not least because it almost immediately raises a problem when we suggest the entire chapter has something important to say to us about relationships.

If those terms Marcus mentions do indeed name good qualities a person should strive to develop and possess in order to be a good partner in a relationship, then shouldn’t they want and strive to be “called by those words” by at least one other person?

Sure, you can definitely get bad takes on these qualities and whether you have them from a variety of people, ranging from complete strangers to poorly informed or misguided acquaintances, co-workers, neighbors, or even friends. It might be prudent to set aside what they think, and to focus on being accountable to yourself about modesty, truthfulness, and the other qualities.

But shouldn’t what your partner thinks (and wants) factor into that “occupation to remain in these terms”? After all, to bring in a different Stoic thinker for a moment, doesn’t Seneca tell us in Letter 109 that even the legendary sage (if the exist), will need the friendship of someone else to help remedy their inevitable blind spots? We’re not remotely sages (at least speaking for ourselves - maybe you feel you’re getting close!), so we would definitely do better to judiciously consult our partner about whether our choices, actions, motivations, attitudes, and habits are really living up to those qualities, or whether we’ve given into the common temptation of fooling ourselves about that.

Notice a second key aspect about this passage. The contrast drawn is between being different (heteros) and entering into a new (or different) life (eis bion . . . heteron), or continuing to be the sort of person you’ve been up to now, to this point in your life.

If you’re entirely happy, or even genuinely content with who you are, then of course, there’s no need to change anything. If you can truly say of yourself, without needing to hedge or pretend, that you are really good, modest, truthful, sane, cooperative, high-minded (and why stop there with enumerating your virtues?), then you could just “keep on keeping on” as the saying goes. But if that isn’t the case, wouldn’t it be better for both you and for your partner, for you to change for the better?

What’s wrong with remaining “true to yourself”, to invoke another proverbial phrase? Well, if the “you” you’d be remaining true to is a hot mess of contradictions, of unruly desires and aversions, readily assenting to all sorts of wrong opinions and judgements, dealing with the effects of vicious habits of heart and mind, and you were to honestly look at that person you are from outside, you’d likely have to trouble saying it would be a mistake to remain in that condition.

In Marcus’ own case, writing to himself, he notes four characteristics of his present self. In that life he’s living, he’s torn apart (sparassethai). He’s degraded, or if you like stained (molunesthai). He is imperceptive (anaisthetou), a term that doesn’t just pertain to the senses but also to rightly grasping moral qualities. And he’s also overly fond of life (philopsukhou), bearing the the implication of cowardice. He uses the analogy of gladiators who are torn up and in bad shape, pleading to be kept for another day, when precisely the same things will happen to them.

We could consider own own present circumstances, character, and challenges. If we’re not happy about our current situation, whether as individuals or as people in a relationship, does it really make sense to continue on the same way? Again, there’s more yet to be unpacked from Meditations 10.8 in future posts, but to close for now, here are some additional questions worth reflecting upon:

• Whose views about your character and condition do you take into account? Are they the right or the wrong people?

• Do you think a better life for you and your partner, where those positive qualities can truly apply to you, is a real possibility for you?

• What’s wrong with your current situation? Are you all right on some level with remaining in it? If not, what’s holding you back?

The Stoic Heart® helps individuals and couples navigate the complexities of modern relationships using the timeless principles of Stoic philosophy. We provide the tools for disciplined communication, emotional self-mastery, and deeper, more intentional connections in a variety of settings from home to work to the wider community. We apply Stoic practice to help others live more in harmony with nature.

This is the first post in our Question and Answer weekly series. Once we have a few paid subscribers, one of the perks for them will be getting the opportunity to ask new questions that we’ll be tackling together and writing out well-considered (and hopefully helpful!) answers to in subsequent posts. Until then, we’re publishing some of the questions we’ve answered at length elsewhere.

This one is from our recent appearance on Conversations With Modern Stoicism for a special Valentine’s Day session (which you can watch here).

Question: My situation is like this. I am now a Stoic, or have tried to be on, for half a year. I start to take off my expectations of others in order to have fine or better relationships. I find that some people around me noticing that I change, start to attack me. Not because they know I’m a Stoic or something. I don’t tell anyone about that. But they realize I change and they try to enforce their expectations on me saying if I keep evolving like this or behaving like this, I become an outsider inside of our relationship. I should become like I was before or in that way.

So the question I have is: I have tried to stop having expectations of others. But how do I handle this feeling that I became lonely because everyone around me went distant? Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to stop being a Stoic or devolve in that way. But sometimes it costs energy feeling lonely. Some people might say I don’t want to be a Stoic anymore, because I want to have that feeling back of having someone around me. What can I do to help others understand and stay in the way, giving them power to go that way, if they decide to become more Stoic?

Greg: There’s two questions that you’re asking. And the first is sort of how to deal with what’s happening in your circles and to yourself. And change will drive that kind of response regardless of whether it’s becoming more Stoic, or not spending money in a way you did previously. Anytime we’re changing something fundamental about the way that we interact with the people that are used to interacting with us, that can be very uncomfortable for them.

They want you to go back to the way you were because it’s what they know. That’s something that they know how to react to. They don’t have to learn new habits around you if that person that’s saying, like folks are saying, go back to to how you were.

Andi: I also think that it’s very powerful to remember that Stoicism itself is not something that you would want to convert people to. I think people need to find it and I think if you share what you’re doing and why, and the folks around you are not open to that, you will certainly find other people who are, as this community is evidence of. And that’s a painful part of any sort of transformational process. I know that Greg will give you good ideas on how to frame that.

But you know, just from a a place of compassion, that’s difficult. I can tell that it’s a painful circumstance, right? I think it’s just really good that you continue to seek out folks that will support that for you, and continue to find other communities. But if it’s inside of your intimate personal relationships, your good friendships, romantic relationships, familial relationships, it’s not that easy, right? Because you want to keep those with you and you want to be respected for the person that you are becoming.

Learning how to process that is in some ways part of what’s outside of your control. Their reaction to you is not something you can control. How you respond to it is within your control. And by articulating it the way that you did, and expressing that loneliness and pain, and then seeking help to understand it, or to find people who will support you in your in your process is so important.

But Greg please, I know you’ll have more to say about it in terms of how we could orient that. But just as someone who is hearing you speak, and has gone through that themselves, especially in some relationships that I did not want to sacrifice, when I started behaving differently, like they wanted me to get all riled up with them about something, and I said: “Well you know, I understand, but . . .” and I would say the things that I was learning

And because I didn’t meet their anger or their outrage with my anger and outrage, they felt I wasn’t supporting them. They felt I didn’t care. When the truth is that I was trying to say, “Have you considered this?” And that’s not helpful either, right? Like Greg said, we don’t throw Stoicism at one another. But also, some people just are not at that place.

Greg: The feeling of loneliness is real, right? And it’s not something that you should try to get over or push aside. And it may be unavoidable for a while, in part because like you said, you’ve got this dynamic in place where people have expectations of being the the old you. Almost like as a cost for being in the kind of relationship that you want.

And you think about like: well what were you getting out of the relationship before. when everything was great and going along just fine? It probably wasn’t, right? That’s that’s part of why you were wanting to try to learn about and practice Stoicism.

And maybe over time, not only will you find other people who you can connect to who will be more sympathetic to it, but you also say: What I thought was there wasn’t really there. The closeness, the affection, it was based on something more transactional. Or they they had these expectations of me not being the kind of person I’d like to be.

Now this is not going to be much of a consolation. But I think it’s good to be realistic about this. You will probably have to grieve the relationships that you had, that now are not. You can make a choice. You can go back to doing things the way you were, which probably wasn’t making you that happy. Or you can keep on moving on, and then you’re you’re not going to be able to have what you used to have in those relationships. That’ll hurt.

The Stoics do have advice about how to understand grief. I think Seneca is the best person on this. He he even says: I won’t even tell you not to cry. It would be ridiculous when somebody close to you — he’s talking about somebody dying. But we can talk about relationships passing away as well. He says: I won’t tell you not to cry because that would be inhuman. Just don’t like lose yourself in that.

This probably also won’t be that much of a consolation at this time. But if you do stick with what you’re doing, you will find other people, and have other relationships who will be much more supportive of the person that that you are deliberately becoming.

So it is very tough, and I’ll reinforce this point with Andi: I feel for you.

The Stoic Heart® helps individuals and couples navigate the complexities of modern relationships using the timeless principles of Stoic philosophy. We provide the tools for disciplined communication, emotional self-mastery, and deeper, more intentional connections in a variety of settings, from home to work to the wider community. We apply Stoic practice to help others live more in harmony with nature.

Greg: Welcome to our first dialogue! This is a series that we’re going to call, for the moment, “Dialogues between Andi and Greg”, where we’re going to talk about situations where we actually found Stoic philosophy useful either as individuals or as a couple together, or sometimes back and forth between the two.

We’ve got lots of experiences to draw on. We might also take on some other things that we want to have a dialogue about as well, where we can dig into Stoic philosophy and practice.

So we talked about one particular story that might be really interesting useful for this. Why don’t you tell us about it, Andi?

Andi: Sure thing. So obviously Dialogues with Andi and Greg includes Greg and me. I’m Andi. We are going to look at an event that happened last October, October of 2025, that really tested us as individuals and as a couple.

It was a series of what you might call unfortunate events that connected to health and some setbacks, but we were able to find a way to support one another through it. And now we can even kind of look back at some of the elements of what occurred, almost comedically, well maybe not quite yet. It was quite an event. So do you want to set the scene and I can fill in the details for what you might not remember?

Greg: Sure! So I slipped and fell. That’s the easiest way to put it. And it was no ordinary slip and fall. We have hardwood floors and we were having dinner. I got up,I was wearing thick socks, and my leg went out from under me, and I landed just right on my hip. I fell hard enough to actually shatter the head of my femur a good ways down, they say the “head” and the “neck”. And the femur actually pushed up inside of the hip joint.

For me, I remember suddenly feeling a good bit of pain and hearing something like a crunch when it happened. Then Andi asking if I was all right, and I was far from all right.

Andi: That’s right. I think part of the reason I asked if you were all right is because it didn’t seem like a normal fall. It was clear that you were trying to kind of right yourself. You weren’t able to do that. You were obviously in much more pain than I would expect for landing just sort of from walking on the ground.

But part of it too, is I had my leg elevated in a boot because I was not supposed to put any weight on my foot. I had had an MRI on my own ankle and had been put in this big boot. And so the doctor said, stay off your foot as much as possible. So I didn’t immediately jump up to see where you were and check on you. But right away, I knew there was something wrong. And it became clearly evident that, you know, your body was responding to that something wrong in very dramatic and extreme ways. Not a typical falling to the ground by any means.

Greg: Yeah, I went into shock. I remember being very cold suddenly, and my teeth actually chattering, shivering, trying to get up and finding that I couldn’t at all, and then trying to see if I could move on to my side. I know I was able to move around somewhat, but it was as if everything was just messed up, and we didn’t have any idea what was going on at the time.

Andi: That’s right. I think initially we thought it could have been your ankle or maybe your knee, but it was clear because you had to sort of slide yourself. with your hands, you know, just to an upright position as much as you could. And even that was pretty, pretty tough. So we had tried a few different things, tried to get you up on one of our chairs, like our, you know, our sort of reading chairs in our main room. And that was not possible.

So you were teeth chattering, shaking, shivering, very cold. It was hard for you to talk. When you did talk, it was a little bit hard to understand you from time to time. So I knew we were in it and I didn’t know what yet, but I kept thinking about, the fact that I’m not really supposed to be walking around and you clearly can’t, but we have to do something.

Greg: Yeah. And I should add to something that you’d brought up at different points before that I was effectively doing the walking around for you. I think you put it, I was your being your legs.

Andi: Yes. I said, Greg was my legs and now, this is what happened. And it was a huge adjustment for us right from that moment though. I think that it was very clear that there was something serious happening and we were going to have to mobilize, and figure things out.

Greg: So jumping ahead a little bit, we knew that it was going to involve a trip to the emergency room, right?

Andi: That’s right. It was clear after about 15 minutes. We got ice. We hoped maybe, it was just something had kind of bruised really badly ,or there was a jar to your nerves, or something that was preventing you from being able to sustain any kind of weight, or touch, or pressure on your leg. But we figured out pretty quickly that this was an emergency issue and that we needed to get you to urgent care right away.

Greg: So that presented a big problem right off the bat, which was how to get me out of our living space.

Andi: That’s right. Down the hall, and into an elevator, and downstairs to our car then to drive to the emergency room.

Greg: So, you know, do you want to tell the story about, uh, your trips back and forth to, was it CVS?

Andi: No, it was, it was Walgreens. Actually, no, I think it was, I think it was CVS, right? It was a little bit late. I think this was after dinner, but it was about 9:45, let’s say. And I knew that we needed to try and get something that you could use. So I decided first, for both of us, that we would get you crutches and see if we couldn’t get you up on crutches, down to the car and out to urgent care. So I drove to the CVS, which is, I don’t know, what would you say, about three miles away?

Greg: Three miles, but about 15 minutes drive.

Andi: Yeah. Not a straight drive by any means. And this was the evening that the Milwaukee Brewers had like kind of closed out and clinched the big game that was going to take them to the next part of the series. People were out and festivities were occurring, lots of people in the streets. The place I was going, the CVS pharmacy, was in an area with a lot of bars and a lot of college kids and, just a lot of people celebrating.

So I’m not supposed to be on my feet. I’m in my big boot. I’m navigating for the first time, trying to figure out how to drive with this thing on. I have a cane. I get myself to the CVS. I hobble in and find the crutches section, and get the crutches, bring them home, assemble them. Because of course they come in a box, like the size of a pack of cards, and you have to slide them open and twist them all together and put them into place and figure out the height.

I was not necessarily in the clearest state of mind, and you certainly weren’t, but we got the crutches put together. And as soon as we tried to get you up and have you move at all, even putting no weight on that leg, it was clear that it was just simply too painful for you to make any progress, in our space at all. So we abandoned that idea pretty quickly.

Greg: Looking at the damage that had actually occurred, it makes sense why it would have been that way. But this is actually a good place to talk about how we dealt with it, because this was a setback. We had a problem, we had a solution, and then the solution didn’t work at all as we’d expected.

I was totally surprised that, as you mentioned, not only it made sense that I couldn’t put weight on the foot, but even just trying to be upright, and then having my leg hanging down was incredibly painful. So maybe this is a good place to talk about at least a preliminary thing about how we used Stoic approaches to deal with that. Is there anything you want to say about that?

Andi: I’ll follow your lead on this part.

Greg: I didn’t know what was going on. All I knew is what was actually in front of me, what Stoics would call the appearances or the impressions, the phantasiai. Sometimes we think of that term, and we consider it in terms of our read on the situation, or things that are impinging on us. Pain is a phantasia. We try to interpret it to try to make sense of what’s happened to our bodies, or it could be psychological pain as well.

In this case I found it both frustrating that we had something that seemed like it would work, and it didn’t work at all, and then realizing that was going to entail putting a burden on on you. Having to go out and get something else

Andi: Yeah, I think we did a pretty good job, all things considered, given your heightened pain state, and my having to kick into not just high gear for what might be a normal person’s activities, but the fact that I had been pretty much a disabled person for several weeks and had just gotten this new information.

So me having to step into that space without, thinking about what might happen next, certainly a sort of a suspension. But I don’t think I would have been able to push things forward if I didn’t already feel that we were connected and trying to work through this together. There wasn’t sort of like any, my situation is more important than yours. It was that we were facing this together and it was very, unexpected and certainly not good, but we were going to figure out a way to make it work.

Greg: Yes. And I think that there were two virtues you could say that come into play without sitting down, and saying now is the time for me to push this button for this virtue. One of them is prudence, trying to figure out: okay, we’ve got a situation. What has to happen next? And then realizing that the solution doesn’t work and then having to figure out yet another solution to achieving the plan we could say of getting me to the to the hospital

I think it also takes courage. We often think of courage in terms primarily of fear, and I can say I didn’t really feel a lot of fear. I’m not sure if you did at the time, but it was more that there’s other things involved in the Stoic conception of courage for example being willing to take on the work that’s necessary and see it through. We could call it perseverance or industriousness. There’s also endurance itself of pain. You on your part, had to deal with the pain that you were feeling and soldier through it, in order to get whatever was going to be needed next, in order to get me to the hospital where they could figure out what was going on with the pain that I was feeling.

Andi: That’s right. And I think that, because we’re both the kinds of people who look for solutions to problems rather than become disabled by problems, we tried some things that, in retrospect,were not the wisest. There’s a flatbed cart that’s downstairs in our parking garage that’s used to carry up large packages or groceries. After we realized the crutches weren’t going to work, I went down and brought one up, and we tried to see if we couldn’t get you to sit back and recline on one. I was going to push you down to the garage on this cart.

That didn’t work. I think that we knew then at that point that we needed some sort of more serious intervention. But at the same time, we didn’t have access to that. And so we had to sort of work through yet another problem. It was the fact that we knew what we needed, but it wasn’t readily available to us. And so that meant another trip, to the CVS again, at this point moments before they’re going to close, getting a med transport, which of course is sort of like a DIY quasi-wheelchair.

But were it not for the really great character of the person who was working there, who stayed open late as I called her and had it boxed and ready and met me at the door and helped me get this monstrous box into the back of our car, we probably would have had even more difficulties to face. So sometimes it’s encountering a virtuous person that you need in your struggle that you didn’t know was going to appear.And I’m very grateful to her for that help.

But that was the kind of thing where, like you said, there’s sort of a sense of prudence, there’s courage. And then there’s also just being willing to, I always go back to this, the same quote, but kind of play the hand you’re dealt or play the part that you’re assigned.

And in that particular moment, while 15 minutes before you fell, maybe I was the patient and you were the provider. We were both patients, but yours was certainly more critical. And so that was a shift that we both had to make.

Greg: Yeah, and that was something I was thinking about. It is hard, especially if you’re used to being more of an agent than a patient, to be okay with just letting somebody else run things and decide how things are going to work. Neither of us are particularly used to doing that.

Andi: That’s true. What could we say? Not necessarily willing to do it because obviously we are willing to do it at times but we don’t let someone else take the lead and help when it’s hard for us. I think there’s a little bit of struggle there sometimes, kind of doing that surrender to another person or another purpose. And that’s where this type of work that we’ve done together and we’re doing together is so helpful, because you’re reminded that this is an issue of a human condition. So you just need to, you know, find a way to sort things through.

But I think also there’s a piece of it that, once we finally got the medi-transport thing here and put it together and got you downstairs and got you into the car. And I’m not even really sure how. I mean, I can’t even imagine the level of pain that you were in, because like you said, it wasn’t just in the ball joint, it was the femur head, but also the femur itself was shattered in parts where bone was in the muscle and the hip socket was cracked.

So thinking of taking a drive then of 3-some minutes with construction and Brewers traffic and everything, getting to the hospital, getting an attendant to come out with a proper wheelchair, getting you into it and getting you into the hospital bed. I think in some cases you might hope, well at least now we’re in good hands. We’re going to like hand this over to somebody else who’s an expert.

But our first experience with the emergency doctor, while he turned out to be great was frustrating too, because I think because of your age, and your fitness, and your lucidity, he really questioned whether or not this was a serious injury. I mean, he said: What? Do you think you broke your hip?” and kind of shook your leg a little? And it was clearly very painful. Not 15 minutes later after you had been set off for scans, he came in a little ashen and said: “Boy did you ever break your hip!

Greg: You know, if I remember correctly, when he asked, “did you break your hip?”, I said: “I don’t know. You’re the doctor.” I mean, presumably he should be the guy to figure that out, not me.

Andi I think the thing is, this is just part of what you come to expect. As well as that, late at night, a youngish man, I mean, there are people who come in and they’re, medication seeking with pain and things like that. I understand emergency rooms being what they are. But it was at that point, too, where it was navigating then a series of if-thens, right?

So the morphine wasn’t working. They gave you Dilaudid, which worked great, right to the point that you were asking for cats. Like the nurse came in and said, do you need anything? And you asked if you could have a cat. Now, if anyone knows you, they know why that might be something you’d ask for. But it was very clear, very early on, that this was going to be an hours-long, days-long ordeal.

And when they did determine that you had this very serious injury and you needed surgery to repair this, I think that’s too where the next phase of our, I guess you could say adventure. But that was the next phase of where our adventure began, because this really was a prolonged situation, to the point that we had different stages of navigating together using the skills that we’ve developed in terms of relating to one another, but also being able to take good care of one another, and really kind of understand ourselves and what we were going through.

As you well know, I’m a person who really has a very long time struggled with kind of controlling situations. And I have done incredible work on that, made really good progress thanks to Stoic practice, but in a crisis, it kicks in. That’s when it gets tested. And so it was very difficult for me, to not, respond to the questions that were being asked, or to explain to this doctor that this was not just sort of a run of the mill fall, and that there was clearly something serious, and all of these various things that we had tried.

It felt different this time, though. It felt more like I was trying to be an agent of support and not take over. And I think earlier in our relationship, that could have had a very different outcome where I was still struggling a lot more with that. I wanted to be frustrated with this doctor, for example, for discounting the level of pain you were in. But I didn’t allow myself to do that. I suspended that sort of judgment of him and didn’t assume that he was coming from a place of disregard, or a place of dismissal, and instead had reasons to think what he might. And then just tried to kind of figure out each step as we moved through the very long evening into the wee hours of the morning and then the next four days of you being hospitalized with surgery. And then the six weeks following after you came home,

It really was sort of like a step-by-step process. And we really had to navigate those things together in different ways than in different ways than we had been tested previously, I would say.

Greg: Yeah, I think that’s correct. Going back to the emergency room, I remember when he came in after he’d had the x-rays and interpreted them, and him saying to me: “Well this is definitely going to require surgery, probably either pins in in your hip, or they’ll have to replace your hip” And I thought: Well, okay” He seemed as if he thought I might argue with him, which perhaps patients. They’re like: “No I want to keep my original damaged hip!”

And I thought, well if that’s what it takes to be able to walk and not be in pain, I guess if I have to replace the hip, then I have to replace the hip. I think that’s something where I might have argued in the past.

Andi: Oh, definitely!

Greg: And so that’s a bit of advance right there.

Andi: That’s true. Being able to be more reasonable about the conditions that we find ourselves in. I think the other thing, too, is that he was more unsure. It was one of the one of the trauma docs that we saw at the main emergency room. So they sent us by ambulance from this sort of urgent care emergency room to the larger hospital because they recognized that the surgery would be required. And so he said, you know, you’re going to have to have surgery.

But when the other doctor came in at the main hospital, her take was, even though you’re young, based on the complete shatter, it’s going to be a replacement. We’re not going to go in there and just try to fix your leg, and kind of patch up your hip. We’re going to do the full total replacement and everything. And even at that point, you were exhausted and granted they had, kept the pain medication pretty consistent, but it was going to be hours we knew before they would get you up into a bed. And we didn’t know if surgery was happening in three hours, or 13 hours, or perhaps the following day. There were so many unknowns. And that’s not something that historically you or I have dealt with very well.

And I think that the thing that I was very grateful for in the midst of all of this is that there’s a photo of us and it’s time and date stamped 5:58 AM. We’re in the main emergency room, you again had a dilaudid drip, but we’re smiling. And I think we took a sort of an “ussy”, a little selfie to send to family later, just to let them know that all was well when we gave them the news about kind of what had happened.

But perhaps the earlier version of the Andi and Greg marriage would not have fared so well and certainly not so joyfully. I think we found a way to just sort of connect with one another in the face of uncertainty. And that was something that really reminded me of what kind of progress you can make for two very, kind of opinionated, sometimes difficult people, working through something that is indeed difficult together.

Greg: That’s right. And I remember finding out about the surgery, and I did go through a bit of disappointment because originally it was supposed to be on one day and then they didn’t do it, and it was for next morning. As it turns out ,everything worked out great because the person who was going to work on me, while being very competent, was not the person who specializes in emergency hip trauma replacement surgery. So we wound up with the right guy.

But in the hospital, it’s often frustrating to try to get information from the various people. They’re all busy with their own tasks. They’re not always on the same page exactly. Nurses may interpret the orders a bit differently from situation to situation. And I know that, having been studying Stoic philosophy and applying it, that’s the sort of thing where I would have literally have lost it in the past. And I was able to deal with it, not without any annoyance whatsoever, but with some equanimity I would say.

Andi: Definitely. I think back to 2012 where, and this is maybe for you the closest that we had to a similar situation, where we were at the beach and your kids were with us, and you turned just right. Your ligaments in your, in your leg just snapped.

Greg: The ACL, the MCL, getting tumbled by a wave, by a wave right at the right height.

Andi: That was a very different situation, of course, because we were not at home. We were at the beach. I had to move us from our upstairs hotel that we had for that long weekend over Father’s Day to a different hotel. And, they were putting you through a lot of different sort of steps at this sort of small village hospital that we were in. So there were all of these additional reasons to be frustrated. But I think when I consider 2012 Greg and Andi with 2025, Greg and Andi, there’s a night and day difference, in part because we’ve continued to treat all of the different, sort of adventures and things that have happened to us as opportunities to do something different.

Granted when it’s just the two of us, and it’s not other people that you also have to manage, and especially no little persons, it’s a very different situation. We were able to rely on one another more, I would say, reliably. But even in 2016, when I had to have emergency surgery myself, and your kids were also with us for that summer, and everything that we had to go through. We had aging dogs, I was laid up. We did our best in those different situations each time. But our best is certainly very different now than it used to be.

Greg: Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. Our best has improved. It’s at a different level than it was before. And that’s largely because of change on both of our parts and as, as a couple.

Andi: Yeah. And, I feel like this could be a six part series actually, because then there is of course the surgery and then the PT and the home, the convalescing, the getting better, all of the administrivia that we had to deal with. All of that stuff. And so, maybe we do want to sort of consider other aspects of what this experience taught us in future dialogues.

But I do want to say that getting through that is not something where I felt or you felt alone. I felt that the folks that were coming in to care for you and talk to us acknowledged something about our teamwork, and our relationship, that was very positive. Iit’s not that external validation is a requirement, but when you receive it and you have someone saying: “Wow, you guys are funny!” or “You guys are great together” or “How are you doing? How are things today?”

And they see that we’re approaching it as a team, especially in a trauma wing, right? Where everybody’s undergoing some sort of surgery and there’s, people who are trying to learn to walk again or recovering from something pretty dramatic. And you and I tend toward good, logical decisions, when we have the clear presence of mind, and a lot of different resources and support.

But even, I’m thinking of the occupational therapist and me saying: “I’ll measure the height of our bed and our chairs” and her saying: “Well, that’s incredibly helpful”. And I thought, well, why isn’t everybody doing that? Aren’t you bringing your person home? Doesn’t the professional need to know?

So I think we had a little bit of reputation as kind of a joyfully nerdy couple. But I think because we didn’t have all of the emotional angst, we were able to think through those things logically together. We were able to better prepare for you coming home, because we were emotionally well grounded in what was happening almost from the moment that we finally got you in the car, and on your way to the hospital that very first night. We were talking through things as best we could, thinking it through, preparing, doing that sort of praemeditatio malorum, where you prepare for a bad outcome, you go through the negative visioning. And we’ve done that in other situations as well. I think that that’s something that really helped us as we were preparing as best we could, given the circumstances, for what lay ahead.

Greg: Yeah. So there’s two things as we bring this to a close, because we probably will talk about this in in more detail with all the other parts, because there’s a lot to unpack here and we don’t want to go on forever.

I think that’s actually a really important point that people often miss out on when it comes to Stoic practices like premeditatio malorum, that is thinking about the bad things that could happen, and whether you have resources to deal with them, and kind of inoculating yourself against the emotional response that you would normally have. We often think of those as something that we go off on our own and do by ourselves, but it is quite possible to do that with somebody else and to make that a practice that you engage in.

Now, Andi and I don’t say: “Okay at five o’clock each day, we’re going to do our little anticipating difficulties” or anything like that. As a matter of fact, we get enough difficulties in our life that we don’t have to just simply go and manufacture any. But I think maybe a lot of people don’t realize that there’s something that comes to these practices when you do them together. So that’s the first point.

And then the second thing is, as you were talking about how other people were perceiving us, I think the norm quite often is, and certainly I’ve seen it when I’ve been in hospitals or I’ve seen other people, is you go there to support the person who is sick, or injured, or whatever it’s going to be, just had a surgery. But maybe in the back of your mind, they’re kind of an inconvenience or a burden.

And there wasn’t anything like that for us in, in this case, where I felt like I was getting in your way or taking up your time. And I was taking up your time, and it required you to hobble around on this boot. It did take time from the very busy schedule that you have, but you were there in the room, and you were there for these appointments with the PT people, with the kind of kooky bone density person who was a lot.

And so I think that, you know, where does that come from? How does Stoic philosophy help you with that? Well, if you think of yourself as losing something by giving something to somebody else your time, your attention, your energy, then not just caring, but even being with another person in the hospital can seem like a chore. It can seem as if you’re losing something in the process, and you’re not getting anything back from them, because obviously they’re not ready to give you anything back other than maybe say thanks.

But if you look at it in terms of, well we are a team, we are a couple, and the other person matters to me just as much as I do to myself. Actually, there’s a name for this. That’s oikeiosis, the way it’s supposed to work, however you want to translate it, you know, “appropriation”, “affiliation”. That’s what should be happening, if you really are in a relationship, and you’re developing as individuals, and in the relationship in a Stoic way.

Andi: I think that’s a great point. I think that’s the root of what we’ve come to, and why it’s very enjoyable to talk about these things. I feel that in addition to just sharing our story, and being able to spend this time together, and looking at our life in this way as a couple, as a person who’s still very much attempting to learn and be better, I can reflect on ways where it was something that helped and then call upon that, when the next sort of difficult thing might occur. Because it’s sort of like developing a muscle in some ways. And that’s very helpful, too.

The Stoic Heart® helps individuals and couples navigate the complexities of modern relationships using the timeless principles of Stoic philosophy. We provide the tools for disciplined communication, emotional self-mastery, and deeper, more intentional connections in a variety of settings, from home to work to the wider community. We apply Stoic practice to help others live more in harmony with nature.

Here’s a passage from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations that might not strike you immediately as applying to relationships, but actually does in several ways, when you consider it:

Words you apply to yourself: good, modest, truthful, sane, cooperative, high-minded. Take care that you don’t switch other terms in their place. And if you do lose these words, that you quickly return to them. . . . If you make it your occupation to remain in these terms, not striving to be called by those words by other people, you will be different and you will enter into a new life. . . . Embark then with these few words, and stick with them as far as you are capable. (10.8)

The translation provided here is quite literal and deliberately so. Marcus uses the Greek term onomata at many points in this chapter, and that can mean “word”, “term”, even noun”. Applied to ourselves as persons, these are ways we describe ourselves, or how others describe us. The chapter itself really is about our understanding of ourselves in relation to good qualities that perhaps we have and live up to, or perhaps we recognize as lacking (either partly or entirely) within ourselves at present.

A few of the terms he mention can be a bit tricky to render in English. “Good” definitely isn’t one of them, and denotes a category that includes all of the others. “Modest” is actually names one of the subordinate virtues, aidēmon, that the Stoics regarded as an integral part of the cardinal virtue of temperance. “Truthful”, alēthēs, could also be rendered as “honest” or “true”. “Sane” is emphrōn, a positive term that can also mean “sensible” or “reasonable”. “Cooperative” renders sumphrōn, which more literally could mean something like having minds together, or being of the same mind. “High-minded” is one way to translate huperphrōn, which seems like a synonym Marcus uses for another virtue the Stoics recognized, megalopsukhia, which we often translate as “magnanimity” or “greatness of soul”

Now, why labor over these lexical points here? What do they have to do with understanding and improving our relationships? Think about each of them. If we’re considering close personal relationships that we might have with other people, for example a relationship with a spouse, a companion, a significant other, aren’t these qualities we would desire the other person to have? (If not, then there’s a whole different, preliminary conversation needed!)

Don’t you desire a partner who has some reasonable limits for themselves and others and would feel bad about doing something wrong (aspects of Stoic modesty)? Don’t you want someone who isn’t going to lie to or deceive you, and who will be honest with you about things that matter? Don’t you value being in a relationship with someone who keeps things in proper perspective and proportion? Don’t you need someone who will share values, priorities, mindset, and even perhaps dreams with you? Don’t you admire someone who can rise above (and deal with as needed), rather than irrationally respond to seeming setbacks, irritants, and disappointments?

Those are precisely that small set of “names” or “terms” Marcus lists here, advising himself to stick with them. If we want to be good partners in relationships, we actually have to strive to be, and (if we manage to become them) remain, good people. While these qualities Marcus identifies don’t comprise the totality of what being a good person involves, it’s safe to say that they certainly are parts of it that we cannot do without.

If you think that you deserve, or even just desire, a partner who exhibits these qualities both on their own and towards you, then you probably should recognize that you need those qualities just as much as any other person does. If you want to move towards being, or remain, a good partner, those are “names” that you need to make truthfully apply to yourself.

Notice that Marcus is well aware of the possibility of veering away from these qualities. We might be tempted to describe ourselves in all sorts of other ways that can temporarily make us feel good about ourselves, powerful, attractive, in control. If we can’t say truthfully that we’re really honest, we have all sorts of other terms we can try to use as substitutes. We can focus on all sort of things Stoics called “indifferents”, for example stressing that we bring money or assets to the table, or that people in some portion of society think we’re a big deal, or that we’re (for the moment) physically attractive.

We can even lie to ourselves about whether these terms really do apply to us. We can conceal prudishness or conformism under the name of “modesty”, or justify tactlessness and even sadism by mislabeling it “honesty”. Couples can often get themselves into serious trouble when one of them asserts that they’re both on the same page in their views and values important things, without actually consulting the other person.

There’s a lot more to be said that’s directly relevant to relationships in this rich passage from the Meditations, and we’ll follow up with additional posts drawing upon it. But this is enough to think about for the moment. Consider three points for the moment:

• Do these “words” name qualities that you think you ought to have?

• Which of these can you honestly say about yourself, at least to some extent?

• Do you see how the strength and quality of your relationship(s) will depend on these qualities?

The Stoic Heart® helps individuals and couples navigate the complexities of modern relationships using the timeless principles of Stoic philosophy. We provide the tools for disciplined communication, emotional self-mastery, and deeper, more intentional connections in a variety of settings, from home to work to the wider community. We apply Stoic practice to help others live more in harmony with nature.