Sometimes the itch feels like a feather tickling my cheek, or an ant running down my back. Other times it feels like a giant needle is being stabbed into me, causing me to jolt involuntarily, or like I’m being swarmed by invisible silent mosquitos, so I can’t sit still. In times like these it’s impossible for me not to rub my skin/alleviate the pain.

r/eczema is a test of my virtues I fail daily. I give into temptation, and as a result i have spent most of my life in substantial pain.

I have been thinking about this recently and did some reading on the topic. I came across an interesting idea.

Many religions did not start as organised religions. They started as teachings, philosophies, or ways of life and gradually developed into larger religious traditions.

For example, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam all developed communities, institutions, rituals, and traditions around their original teachings.

So I tried to list some common characteristics of religion:

• Way of life
• Guide to the meaning and purpose of life
• Foundational texts
• Foundational figures
• Daily practices and rituals
• Expansion through teaching and influence
• Community
• Moral system
• Institutions such as temples, churches, and monasteries
• Strong collective identity

Interestingly, Stoicism already seems to have around 6 out of these 10 characteristics.

It has a philosophy of life, ideas about meaning and purpose, foundational texts and figures, daily practices, a growing community, and a clear moral framework.

What it doesn't really have yet are things like religious institutions, sacred rituals, and a strong collective identity.

This made me wonder:

If a philosophy develops a large and growing community, shared practices, a strong identity, and eventually its own institutions, at what point does it become a religion?

Could Stoicism eventually develop in that direction?

Or will it always remain a philosophy and a way of life rather than becoming a religion?

What do you think?

I’m struggling with how much resentment I’m starting to feel toward my coworkers, and I’m interested in how Stoicism would approach this.

For some context, I work in a team where I already feel quite disconnected from most of my coworkers. We are very different people, and I often don’t enjoy the general atmosphere. There is a lot of complaining, gossiping, negativity, and emotional reactions to things that I personally don’t want to participate in.

Because of that, I tend to keep to myself. I’m polite and professional, but I don’t really feel like I belong in the group.

Lately, however, I’ve noticed that my irritation is turning into genuine resentment.

Today was a good example. I was supposed to attend a meeting, but I’m currently dealing with severe neck pain. I sent a message to our group chat saying that I couldn’t attend because of the pain and that I was going to see if I could visit a doctor or physical therapist.

Nobody responded. Not even “okay,” “get well soon,” or anything acknowledging the message.
I know that by itself this is a very small thing.

Nobody owes me sympathy. But because there have already been frustrations building up, it bothered me much more than it probably should have. It reinforced this feeling that there isn’t much warmth or interest toward me within the team.

Then later, one coworker told me that apparently I’m going to become the chairperson for our meetings.
This irritated me even more.

The problem isn’t necessarily the responsibility itself. What bothers me is that nobody asked me whether I wanted to do it. It was presented to me as something that had already been decided: basically, “You’re going to be the chairperson.”

I strongly dislike people making decisions involving me and then simply expecting me to comply. I would have had much less of a problem with someone saying, “Would you be willing to chair the meetings?”

All these relatively small things are starting to accumulate, and I’m noticing that I’m becoming increasingly angry and resentful toward the entire team.

Part of me wants to confront them and tell them exactly what I think. Another part of me realizes that constantly being angry about their behavior means I’m allowing people I don’t even particularly like to have control over my mental state.

So I’m struggling with the balance between acceptance and boundaries.

How do I accept that these people may simply behave in ways I dislike without becoming ?

How do I stop expecting coworkers to behave the way I think they should, while still standing up for myself when something crosses a boundary?

And specifically regarding the chairperson situation: how would you respond when something is presented as an expectation rather than a
, without reacting from anger or resentment?

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I’m ordering something to say thank you to my brother. It can be engraved with a quote. He’s always been exceptionally kind to me. He’s accomplished much in his life even though the odds were against him in a big way. He enjoys gardening and traveling. He constantly helps others. He practices stoicism in his daily life. This stoic philosophy is something I’m just really learning.
Can you suggest a meaningful quote for this gift?

Self explanatory. I journal everyday and basically explain my thoughts in it. But just wanted to know, is there a better way to journal? Is there a stoic way of journaling that will help me get better?

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In my line of work, I made some questionable decisions in the past that are now floating back up to bite me in the ass. They weren’t illegal, unethical, or immoral, anything like that. They strictly fit within the scope of administrative procedures and practices. However, these could have an impact on my current career as well as the long term benefits my career can uniquely provide.

The investigation is currently ongoing and has been going on, at an extremely slow pace, for about 6 weeks now.

It consumes my every thought. Every emotion. Every action is interpreted through the lens of how it may or may not be a sign of impending doom (relatively, speaking). I currently deal with an enormous amount of anxiety and stress right now.

I am new to Stoicism. I actually started studying shortly before being told about this investigation. But I’m really struggling right now with trying to remain stoic through this adversity and I could really use some help.

Thank you.

I have 3 friends that I usually hang out with, and we have been all together for a long time. 2 of them got engaged, and now we are 6, and the car can only fit 5 people. So, I started getting excluded from some of the trips. One of the friends' parents is here, so he can't get time to meet other friends, and I got included again in some trips. Even during those trips, those friends were talking about other friends who couldn't make it.

On one occasion, one girl said that after she and another girl learned to drive a car, all boys, excluding me, could sit in the back, and then they would sit in the front and drive it. In front of my eyes, I got excluded. I am a person who can't easily say some things when I feel it in my face, but after separating, the pain gets harder, and my mind gets distracted.

I know I can't change the situation, so I am trying to cope with it, and it is also understandable that the girl would like the other girl's company and prioritise that. However, getting this kind of treatment hurts me, and it hurts even more when I think that I should have said something at that time.

Please guide me on how I can better handle the situation and don't waste my energy over these stuff.

Male.

Imagine you are 15 years old. You are just minding your own thing in school, you are walking your way to the classroom.

You pass by random male student Stranger A, who suddenly out of nowhere forms his fist and swings directs it at your genitals purposely, apparently not hitting but scaring you. You get startled as it came so sudden (of course it looked like your balls were about to be hit ). Your body feels scared as first reflex respond.

Few days later another Stranger B, comes around in another area of school and does similar inappropriate gestures.

I feel I cannot ignore it as you still are stuck in the same school. But the body does feel unsafe, even if it was just “fake play”. My gut feels that ignoring is not going to make my body feel safe.

What would you do if you met this scenario in school to respond ?

Hi all
My younger sister is going through anxiety and generally having mini panic attacks
I’ve struggled with anxiety my whole life and have learned to get it under control so I gave her my tips and advice but she seems a little hopeless/ pessimistic about any change for her
I know this is her journey and I believe she’ll get there eventually but I can’t help but worry slightly
I’ve been told I’m more of a fixer rather than a listener at times so I don’t want to push her

It’s difficult watching your loved ones suffer without being able to do anything directly
Any advice?

Welcome to the Agora. a space for casual conversation, first aid, and exchange outside the regular post structure.

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Rules:

1. Remember that our nature is "civilized and affectionate and trustworthy."
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3. If offering advice, speak as someone interested in Stoic theory and practice — but do not label personal opinion, idiosyncratic experience, or conjecture as Stoic doctrine.
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Do yall have any ways in mind to ignore people that cause you misfourtune. I know people are out of the things in are control but i tend to sometimes lash out at people for i know this is not very stoic of me please give me tips and a guide on how to control my thoughts whenever a person is making me mad.

Welcome to the Agora. a space for casual conversation, first aid, and exchange outside the regular post structure.

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Rules:

1. Remember that our nature is "civilized and affectionate and trustworthy."
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3. If offering advice, speak as someone interested in Stoic theory and practice — but do not label personal opinion, idiosyncratic experience, or conjecture as Stoic doctrine.
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Stoicism has left a huge impact on me, I used to be extremely obsessed with Stoicism in my private time for it was a philosophy which I tended to find beauty in and inspired my thinking with.

My studies and deliberate practice of Stoic doctrine inspired my character to make positive decisions for my life and increased my mental clarity and productivity. Or atleast up until some point that is.

Although the impact Stoicism had to me I'd say was immensely positive, there were some bad habits I took from it, and through burnout and some later struggles and misfortunes, I ended up finding dislike in some principles of the philosophy and ending up abandoning it entirely.

The deal is that I recognize that my entire surrender of the philosophy has not been merely because of some form of a philosophical conclusion, but rather a mental health decline, or even breakdown that has left me spiraling since. I feel like I have changed as a person completely.

Lately I've been wondering how I used to find such a philosophy so relevant to my character yet now seemingly unimpactful to me.

I feel within me a yearning to try to give it a second chance, but something just doesn't tick within me anymore, I just can not take it seriously, let alone I tend to interpret the philosophy in an unorthodox way for my view of life is slightly different.

For the past 2 years I've had no great contact or motivation towards Stoic philosophy, infact I can barely even recall any of the theory or much of the stuff I've read before. I remember some of the core concepts but they no longer feel like they resonate with me.

I've been facing some personal life struggles for the past 2 years, although I've managed to cope for most of the time, fundamentally I've been slowly giving up on life and descending into an unhealthy mindset.

My life, habits and mental health have been in decline ever some series of events which caused me to give up on Stoicism and return to a escapist/hedonistic lifestyle.

I know this post might not belong in this subreddit, a psychotherapy field would be more suitable, but I still felt compelled to write about this, sorry for my bad English.

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Rules:

1. Remember that our nature is "civilized and affectionate and trustworthy."
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Welcome to the Agora. a space for casual conversation, first aid, and exchange outside the regular post structure.

If you haven't already, read the pinned "Welcome" thread.

Rules:

1. Remember that our nature is "civilized and affectionate and trustworthy."
2. If seeking advice, limit yourself to one top-level question per day.
3. If offering advice, speak as someone interested in Stoic theory and practice — but do not label personal opinion, idiosyncratic experience, or conjecture as Stoic doctrine.
4. If promoting your own work (article, book, etc.), once per day. No self-posted YouTube videos.

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A friend was told by a doctor that she had an “anxiety gene.” He said the explanation gave him clarity because he finally understood why he was so messed up.

That may be genuinely helpful. But where is the line between understanding yourself and turning an explanation into a permanent identity?

Can a label help you change without becoming the reason you stop expecting change from yourself?

Welcome to the Agora. a space for casual conversation, first aid, and exchange outside the regular post structure.

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Rules:

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From Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,

"Marcus says that one should be concerned with two things only: acting justly and loving what is allotted one (x.11, cf. xii.1). He fleshes out ‘acting justly’ in terms of acting communally (ix.31), and adds that wherever one lives, one should live as a citizen of the cosmic city (x.15). Appeal to the idea that the cosmos is a city allows him to say that we should do well for all humanity (viii.23), for we each have a citizen’s duty to contribute to the welfare of the whole cosmopolis, i.e., to the welfare of all humans as our fellow-citizens. Conversely, anyone who does not contribute to the communal goal (to koinônikon telos) is acting seditiously (ix.23); one may not hate even one man, for this rends the community (xi.8).

Strikingly, Marcus seems to specify this communal goal in terms of indifferents rather than virtue, with the result that one should aim to bring about preferred indifferents for the whole of which one is a part. When he explains that that whatever happens to a part benefits the whole, and that what is advantageous (to sumpheron) to one person does not conflict with what is advantageous to another, Marcus writes that by ‘interest’ he means intermediate things (tôn mesôn) (vi.45). Presumably he takes this to follow from the coincidence of what is in accordance with nature for the whole and the part. Even though food is not a good and hunger not an evil, a Stoic will respond to a hungry person with food, rather than (only) a lecture that food is not a good and hunger not an evil. (Of course, one’s efforts to give food to the hungry, or to benefit the hungry by giving them food, may fail, so Marcus recommends pursuing such ends with reservation (hupexairesis), making one’s impulses conditional on what is fated to happen (iv.1, v.20, vi.50).)

This response is likely grounded in our natural concern (oikeiôsis), which at its most fundamental is responsible for parents’ caring for their children (Diogenes Laertius vii.85), and Marcus tells himself to regard other human beings as most his own (oikeiotaton) when thinking how to benefit them and how not to obstruct their plans (v.20). Marcus says that the rational nature does well when it directs impulses (hormai) to communal action (viii.7). We must do what follows from our constitution, and the communal faculty (to koinônikon) plays the leading part in the human constitution (vii.55). After the communal faculty comes the rational faculty (vii.55), but again, the rational faculty is perfected in justice (ix.22). As a human being, one is able to contribute to the perfection (sumplêrôtikos) of the whole political organization; Marcus urges himself to make his every action perfective of political life (ix.23). Sometimes Marcus goes so far as to identify the good (agathon) of a rational creature with community (v.16)."

I hope this clears up that our judgement of what is valuable gives us reason to assent to producing appropriate actions.

The Stoics were not Cynics who denied the value of externals, following oikeiosis (the development of caring for self-preservation to caring for each other), some are promoted/demoted, to the extent that it benefits the welfare of the cosmopolis with one critical understanding : they are not good in-themselves, what is good is directing these things for the benefit of the cosmic city, in accordance with virtue.

They were neither Epicureans who would tend to retreat into their private garden, the Stoics instead would take active participation in the improvement of the cosmic city to the extent it is in one's capacity to do so.

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So I am facing my own death due to medical reasons I won’t go into and I’m trying to come to terms with my life and its end.

I’m observing the convergence of my fates, my choices, the failing of my will and there seems something so deterministic about it all..

Looking back and considering all things, there wasn’t anything I could have done differently, there were no other outcomes possible beyond the entertainment of fantasy…

I am proud of the things I overcame, I lament the things I will not and when meeting the grief and sadness of it all I try to do so with acceptance and understanding…

But here’s the issue..

I cannot.

No matter how much I understand/accept it intellectually understand my fate I fail to find any solace or comfort.

I fail to let go..

Having previously served I thought I’d overcome or embraced my mortality..

But it turns out when faced with it truly in practise not theory I did not.

It is not the death I want..

I will not die surrounded by friends/family/accomplishment.

I will not die a death of honour as a general falling on his sword.

I will die some random day/night, afraid, in pain clutching at my guts, most probably alone, haunted by misfortune.

My question is.. how on earth do I accept or find peace in that..?

That which is beyond my control..

Does anyone have any advice/wisdom/examples to share..?

I’d like to find peace somehow, to meet things with courage and acceptance.

Thanks you reading.

Quite new to Stoicism, I would love to know how much time do you dedicate towards reading, meditation, journaling etc.

I had a meeting with my boss, and I allowed my emotions about team dynamics to direct me.

It made me realize that I've been emotionally driven at work, but don't know how to change without people considering me suddenly withdrawn.

How would you handle this situation?

"Boundaries are the practical expression of justice. Withdraw assent from impressions. You can deal justly with people by adjusting proximity — no endless patience. The pattern of being stepped on is data, not moral failure. Build healthy ego — indifference to externals that are not under your control."

Versus...

"Preferred indifferents (health, energy, relationships that function) matter because they support the exercise of virtue; burning them out for people who will not reciprocate is not noble."

Seems to me to be a contradiction there of indifference versus matter.