Stoic Role Ethics: Stop Trying To Be Everything

Trying to play every role at once is exhausting. This short talk explains Stoic role ethics: the idea that being a parent, sibling, friend or citizen brings different duties. You will use the four Stoic virtues and the dichotomy of control to name three important roles, notice where each one ends and ask how you can play the role in front of you well. The aim is not to control the whole story. It is to take responsibility for the part that is yours.

Transcript

How familiar are you with the concept of Stoic Role Ethics? Role Ethics is a branch of ethics within Stoicism that focuses on understanding the various roles that we play in society and how we should act according to those roles in order to flourish and achieve well-being. The idea here is that every person has a number of interconnected roles in their lives. So one role might be a parent, A sibling, Another one might be a friend, Another might be a citizen, A teacher or a student. And these roles come with particular kinds of duties and expectations which can guide an individual's behavior in different contexts. So for example, What does it mean to be a good son? What does it mean to be a good mother? What does it mean to be a good teacher or a good student? It's the question of looking at ethics character within a specific role. According to Stoic Role Ethics, Individuals should strive to fulfill their roles to the best of their abilities while maintaining a focus on the four cardinal virtues, Wisdom, Courage, Justice and temperance. Building on the idea of Stoic Role Ethics, Another useful idea that the Stoics came up with is just this idea of focusing on playing our role well. In other words, Not trying to do everything at once but becoming an essentialist and only looking at the role that we have to play immediately and striving to do nothing other than playing that role to the best of our abilities. Why? Because that is within our control. So what is not within our control? Well, We don't decide our own genetics, A body, A brain, Appearance. We don't decide the values that we get given as a child, The location that we're born into. We don't decide whether we grow up into this class or that class, Wealthy or poor. We don't decide whether we are extremely attractive or unattractive. And we don't decide on what constitutes attractiveness or unattractiveness. We don't decide whether we are susceptible to diseases. We don't choose to be in freak accidents or not. So much of what we consider to be us, What we consider to be successes or failures are actually just the expressions of fortune, Luck, One way or the other. So the Stoics would say, Well, Imagine that life is a movie. When you watch a movie, You'll see that there are lots of different people playing different roles. Not everyone is the main star. There are supporting roles and villains, Protagonists, Extras, Whatever. There's lots of different roles when you watch a movie. And what if life itself is a sort of stage, Is a movie? As much as you want to believe that you are the author of your own destiny, That you are the creator of yourself, You just aren't. You don't control your own kidneys or heartbeat. You didn't choose your own IQ or personality. You can definitely do work to improve these things. That's very empowering. You know, We can become better people. We can learn new skills. And that's amazing. But a large portion of our experience was not up to us. So who was it up to? Well, You could say that it was up to the writer and the director to use the movie analogy. And it's also not up to us where we were cast and how long we're in the movie for and what we're doing in the movie necessarily. Maybe our lives will be long. Maybe they will be short. Ultimately, The purpose of our role is to serve the movie, The story. So we may be playing the role of a cripple, A poor person, A president, Anyone. It doesn't really matter. They're all interesting in their own way. And as a great actor, As a practicing stoic, What if you just decided to play your role as skillfully as you possibly could, Keeping in mind stoic role ethics, Courage, Kindness, Fairness, Practical wisdom, Discipline? What a relief it would be to just accept that we can't take ownership over all parts of our lives, But we can choose to play our role, Whatever it is. Well, Today, Tomorrow, Next week. What is within your control? What is not within your control? The part that you were given, How long it lasts, The story that has been and the story that will come. But what is within your control? Playing the role with impartial skill. Let's end with a question. What are your roles in life? Think of three key roles that you have. How can you play these roles well? Think about the other aspects of your life later.

Reviews

Good advice. It really gave my husband and I to think about. We are still discussing various roles we play. Thank you!

Practical advice for cultivating strong relationships! Thank you, Jon!
Donna

Spouse, mother, grandmother are the main roles I star in. Thank you for this relevant, relatable talk.