Lessons from Stoic Philosophy for Everyday Resilience

Picture this: It's 2015, and I'm struggling to make sense of my PTSD diagnosis. I'd just finished listening to "The Courage to be Disliked" on Audible (thank you, algorithm!), and something about that book's philosophy resonated so deeply that I started following the "you might also like" suggestions. That's how I stumbled upon Ryan Holiday's "The Obstacle Is the Way." I remember thinking - great, another self-help book? Yet there was this quote from Epictetus that stopped me in my tracks:

"Some things are up to us, and some things are not."

Here's something I never expected: losing my job at the college turned out to be one of the most transformative experiences of my life. Not because it was easy - it wasn't. I remember sitting in my car after clearing out my desk, having what felt like the mother of all panic attacks. But through the fog of anxiety, I remembered something Marcus Aurelius wrote:

"The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way."

You know what's funny about anxiety? It's like having a time machine that only goes to the worst possible futures or most painful parts of your past. That's where Seneca's wisdom hit me hard:

"We suffer more in imagination than in reality."

Let me tell you about my first session with my exercise physiologist. I walked in thinking, "How hard can this be?" after years of military PT. Then he had me do what seemed like a simple exercise, and suddenly I was face-to-face with how much strength I'd lost. My arthritis was screaming, my body felt like it was betraying me, and my ego was taking a serious beating.

But here's where Seneca's wisdom about voluntary hardship hit home. He believed that deliberately facing discomfort could strengthen us against life's bigger challenges. It sounds masochistic, but stay with me here.

Every Wednesday and Friday, I show up at the gym knowing it's going to be uncomfortable. Not just physically - though trust me, those sessions are no joke - but mentally too. Each rep is a small battle against the voice in my head saying "this is too hard" or "you can't do this." My EP keeps telling me to focus on form over weight, to build slowly, to trust the process. It's frustrating when you're used to pushing through pain the military way.

But here's the thing - this controlled discomfort is teaching me something valuable. When I'm struggling with a particularly challenging piece of code, or facing a difficult writing deadline, or dealing with a PTSD trigger, I can draw on this same mindset. The discomfort isn't my enemy; it's my teacher. Each time I push through a challenging gym session, I'm not just building physical strength - I'm building mental resilience.

Here's a hard truth I've learned: acceptance isn't the same as giving up. For the longest time, I thought accepting my PTSD meant admitting defeat. I kept fighting against it, pushing myself to "get over it" or "be normal." Then I came across this quote from Marcus Aurelius:

"You have power over your mind—not outside events. Realise this, and you will find strength."