Fireside Fables: Feel It, Then Fix It

Stoicism has a reputation for being cold and rigid - but this story might change that. A farmer loses everything overnight to a storm, and a travelling philosopher gets the lesson of his life. This is a fireside conversation about the difference between the event and your response to it, and what real resilience actually looks like. No performance required.

Transcript

Thank you for joining me around this fire where we can talk and share ideas. This is a safe space for you to relax, Get comfortable and listen to a short story. The Stoics get a bit of a bad reputation sometimes. People hear Stoic and they think cold, Rigid, Emotionless. But that's not really what Stoicism is. At its heart, It's a philosophy about freedom, Specifically freedom from being endlessly pushed around by things you can't control. And there's a simple story I want to tell you that I think shows what that actually looks like in a life. So if you're comfy and ready for a story, Let's begin. A philosopher was travelling through the countryside and came across a farmer surveying the ruins of what had been his field. A fierce storm had come through the night before. The crops were gone. The fence was broken. Months of work lost overnight. The philosopher, Expecting grief or anger, Approached carefully. I'm sorry, He said. This must be devastating. The farmer looked at him, Then looked back at the field. It is what it is, He said. I'll start again tomorrow. The philosopher, Somewhat taken aback, Asked, But don't you feel the loss? Doesn't it hurt? The farmer turned to him. Of course it does. But the field needs fixing regardless, So I'll feel what I feel and I'll fix the field. He turned back to his work. The philosopher stood there for a long time, Thinking that in all his years of study he had never heard Stoicism explained so well. Now what the farmer understood, And what takes most of us years to get anywhere near, Is that there are two separate things happening when life goes wrong. There is the event itself, And then there is our response to the event. He didn't pretend the storm didn't matter. He didn't numb himself or perform toughness. He felt it, And then he got on with it. Marcus Aurelius, The Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher, Wrote something that I think about often. That you have power over your mind, Not outside events, And that realising this is where freedom begins. That freedom doesn't look like not caring. It looks like the farmer, Present with the loss, Not paralysed by it, Already facing forward. There's something almost radical about that in the world we live in now, Where every setback invites a kind of performance of suffering, And resilience is talked about like it's an extreme sport. The farmer just got up. What would it look like for you to just get up? If you want to go deeper with Stoic philosophy, And how to actually live it, Not just study it, My course, Four Pillars, A Stoic Journey, Is waiting for you on Insight Timer. Four core Stoic ideas explored in a way that I hope feels as grounded and human as that farmer in his field. I'd love to see you there. But, In any case, I'll just keep this fire burning until next time. So take care of yourself, And I'll see you soon.