Stoicism, Difficult Environments, and the Quiet Training of Character
What Different Situations and Struggles Teach Us About Stoic Practice
While Greg and I always read, discuss, and collaborate on all of our posts, sometimes we write a piece that is more uniquely in our own voice. This is one such post for me—and it’s written from the perspective of someone who finds herself learning, each day, what it means to practice Stoicism in a meaningful way and to try to build the strength in my own Stoic Heart®.
When I first engaged in a Stoic practice, I wrongly assumed that if I just worked at becoming wiser, calmer, kinder, more patient, or more disciplined, difficult environments would eventually stop being difficult.
I think I also assumed that when other people encountered this improved version of myself, they would be moved to respond in kind. I imagined the path ahead being one of relative ease and harmony, just because I was able to practice virtue and work toward harmony.
It should come as no surprise when I say that I was wrong.
Stoicism has indeed made many things easier for me. I have less stress and more patience; I like to think that I am indeed kinder; and I genuinely enjoy my life more. However, Stoic practice has not made human beings any less human—myself included.
Like many people who are drawn to Stoicism, I suspect I began with the quiet hope that enough practice would eventually make me immune to the frustrations of everyday life. If I could learn to think more clearly, regulate my emotions more skillfully, and focus my attention on what is mine to govern, perhaps I would finally arrive at some place of serene indifference to difficult circumstances.
What I failed to appreciate was that Stoicism was never a promise of my own comfort. It was always an invitation to live rightly—and to consistently practice. And it could be said that practice, by its very nature, assumes resistance.
As I’ve encountered that friction, I’ve also discovered that difficult environments don’t always announce themselves dramatically. Sometimes they simply ask very small things of us, over and over (and over) again. They demand things of us that tempt us to become a little less patient or understanding than we’d like to be. They invite us to be more cynical and quicker to judge. They even suggest that we might be a bit more willing to trade our values and our virtue for expediency.
Sometimes they reward those very qualities we’re trying to avoid in ourselves.
On occasion, the situations in our lives might reward certainty when we’re attempting to practice humility. A circumstance might reward speed when we’re attempting to practice patience–or reward competition when we’re attempting to practice collaboration and generosity.
There are environments that make it easier to become who we hope to be and environments that quietly train us into becoming someone else entirely. I’ve come to believe that every environment trains us. The only real question is whether we’re participating consciously in that training.
Looking again at my own experiences, when I was taking stock of my life, I used to ask whether an environment was good for me, or healthy, or productive. My focus would be the answer to a very self-focused question: Was it aligned with my values?
Over time, I’ve become increasingly interested in a different question:
Who am I becoming here?
Am I becoming more thoughtful or more reactive? Am I being more generous or more resentful? Do my actions prove me to be more courageous or more fearful? Would others think that I am more willing to listen or more eager to win?
Naturally, these aren’t questions reserved for difficult workplaces or strained relationships. They’re questions for our friendships, our communities, our social media feeds, our dinner tables, and even our own internal dialogue. Every day, in ways both large and small, we are practicing becoming someone.
The Stoics understood this well. Character isn’t something we discover so much as something we build. We become what we repeatedly practice.
Which means that difficult environments present us with an interesting opportunity. They reveal things about us that easier circumstances often conceal.
I don’t particularly enjoy discovering that I’m less patient than I imagined myself to be or more attached to the approval of others than I’d like to consider myself. It’s not something I like to admit. But difficult circumstances have a way of illuminating the places where our practice remains incomplete.
On some level, as I first began my own Stoic practice, I believed that becoming a better Stoic meant becoming the sort of person who could flourish anywhere. As I’ve gone further in the work, I confess that I really don’t believe that anymore. At least not in those simplistic terms.
As I’ve grown older and focused more on this work, I’ve become less interested in becoming the sort of person who can flourish everywhere and more interested in becoming the sort of person I hope to be wherever I happen to find myself.
Those are not quite the same thing.
Sometimes the Stoic choice will be to remain. Sometimes it will be to leave. Sometimes it will be to speak. Sometimes it will be to remain silent. Wisdom is discerning which response is called for in a particular moment.
But beneath all of those choices lies the same, fundamental question, asked again:
Who am I becoming here?
Difficult people will continue to exist and unpleasant circumstances will continue to arise. The tough decisions will continue to present themselves. Stoic practice was never going to spare me from any of that. Its promise has always been much more modest—and much more demanding.
As I think about it now, the best thing I can do is to pay attention.
My responsibility is to take stock of my habits and to thoughtfully identify the judgments I’m rehearsing—and to think about the character I’m forming. That I always remember I am training myself, whether I remember to notice it or not.
And perhaps that is enough.
At the end of the day, we have far less control over our circumstances than we would prefer and far more responsibility for our character than we sometimes remember. Wherever we find ourselves, the work remains the same.
We are always becoming someone.
And I think that it’s worth asking, from time to time, whether that someone is the person we intended to become.
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.
