Stoicism for Everyday Life: Focus on What You Can Control

You leave home on time, and then the traffic stops. Ten minutes. Twenty. You check the clock, honk once, check the clock again. By the time you reach work you’re tense, late and in a bad mood, and the traffic didn’t move a metre faster because you were angry at it.

Almost everyone has had a morning like that. A group of philosophers in ancient Greece and Rome had a simple, powerful answer to it, and their idea still works remarkably well today.

Who the Stoics were

Stoicism began in Athens around 300 BCE, when a merchant named Zeno started teaching at a painted porch, the “Stoa Poikile”, which gave the school its name. It later became hugely popular in Rome.

Its best-known voices came from very different lives. Epictetus was born into slavery and later became a respected teacher. Seneca was a writer and adviser to an emperor. Marcus Aurelius was himself an emperor; his private notes to himself survive as the book we now call Meditations.

For all three, philosophy wasn’t abstract theory. It was practical training for living well: staying steady under pressure, treating people fairly, and acting with good character whatever life threw at them.

The dichotomy of control

Epictetus opens his short handbook, the Enchiridion, with a famous line, often translated as: “Some things are within our power, while others are not.”

In our power, he says, are our own judgements, intentions, choices and actions. Not fully in our power are our bodies, our reputation, our possessions, other people’s behaviour and, in the end, the outcome of most events.

His point is that a lot of unhappiness comes from mixing these two up. We pour our energy and emotion into things we can’t control (the traffic, a colleague’s mood, what people think of us) while neglecting the things we can (how we prepare, how we respond, how we treat ourselves).

A modern example

Imagine you’re waiting to hear back after a job interview.

Not up to you: the interviewers’ decision, how many other people applied, the company’s budget, whether the role gets put on hold.

Up to you: how well you prepared, sending a short thank-you note, applying for other roles, practising for the next interview, and how kindly you speak to yourself while you wait.

A Stoic approach is to put your full effort into the second list, then hold the outcome lightly. Not because the result doesn’t matter (of course it does) but because worrying about it changes nothing, and it steals energy from the things that might.

Try the two-column exercise

The next time you feel anxious or frustrated, take a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle.

• Left column, “Not up to me”: write down everything about the situation you can’t directly control.
• Right column, “Up to me”: write down your choices, actions and attitude.
• Pick one small action from the right column and do it today.
• For the left column, practise acceptance. You might say: “This isn’t in my hands. I’ll respond as well as I can to whatever happens.”

Many people find the act of writing it down calms them by itself. The worry stops being one big cloud and becomes two clear lists.

Stoicism and modern psychology

The Stoics have a surprising number of modern fans among therapists. Albert Ellis, who developed Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy, often credited Epictetus, especially the idea that we are disturbed less by events themselves than by the views we take of them. Cognitive behavioural therapy, one of the most widely used talking therapies today, is built on a similar insight: changing how we interpret a situation can change how we feel about it.

You may also recognise the idea from the well-known Serenity Prayer, which asks for the serenity to accept what we cannot change, the courage to change what we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

What Stoicism is not

In everyday English, being “stoic” means hiding your feelings and gritting your teeth. That isn’t what the philosophy teaches.

The Stoics accepted that emotions arise. Their aim was to look at the judgements behind those emotions, so that we respond with reason instead of being swept away. Grief, love and care were not the enemy; panic and blind anger were.

Nor is Stoicism about giving up. Marcus Aurelius ran an empire, and Seneca was busy with public life. The dichotomy of control is about directing your effort wisely, not reducing it.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Putting too much in “not up to me”. Sometimes we say “I can’t do anything” when we can do something small. Be honest about your options.
• Treating acceptance as approval. Accepting that something has happened doesn’t mean you think it’s fair. It just means you stop fighting reality so you can act.
• Using it to shut people out. Stoicism is about calm, not coldness. The Stoics saw caring for others as part of a good life.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to read ancient books to practise Stoicism?

Not at all. The two-column exercise is a complete practice on its own. If you’d like to read more, Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations and Epictetus’s Enchiridion are short and widely available in modern translations.

Is Stoicism religious?

The ancient Stoics had their own ideas about nature and the divine, but most people today use Stoic practices in a practical, non-religious way. They sit comfortably alongside many faiths.

What if I can’t stop worrying even after making the lists?

That’s normal at first. Worry is a habit, and habits take time to change. If worry is constant and affecting your sleep or daily life, consider speaking to a doctor or counsellor.

A small step for today

Think of one thing that’s bothering you right now. Give it two minutes and two columns. Then do one thing, however small, from the “up to me” side. That’s Stoicism in practice, and it’s been helping people find their footing for nearly two thousand years.

Sources and further reading

• Epictetus, Enchiridion (The Handbook), chapters 1 and 5.
• Marcus Aurelius, Meditations.
• Robertson, D. (2019). How to Think Like a Roman Emperor. St. Martin’s Press.